Rapid Prototyping Training System for Electrical Drives

The training system on electrical drives makes learning and experimenting simple, efficient, and safe. With this system, a wide range of drives can be built, programmed, and tested. It consists of the following main components:

• Inherently safe control unit with 6-Pack IGBT
• LN Toolbox – a dedicated Simulink blockset
• Graphical interface for data acquisition and visualization

A commercial DSP is provided as part of the safe hardware control unit. Besides the power electronics components, the control unit also contains all the necessary signal conditioning. Protection circuits make the hardware safe against overcurrents and they allow the hazard-free operation of machines up to 1kW and 560V dc link voltage. The control unit can be programmed through an electrically isolated USB programming interface.

With the help of the LN Toolbox, usually complex controlled drives can be simulated and afterwards programmed into the control unit with code that was automatically generated from the Simulink model. With different loads at the drive, a complete analysis of the system can be performed.

A graphical oscilloscope-like tool, connected via a second USB interface, allows users to visualize software variables in MATLAB at run time. Different parameters, such as control parameters, can also be comfortably changed during run time.

A Simulink blockset allows users to simulate and program their own applications for the self-commutated power converter hardware. With Simulink Coder™, Embedded Coder^®, and TI Code Composer Studio™, C Code is generated out of the Simulink model and the applications can be downloaded and tested in the real hardware. Data visualization of real currents, voltages, and speed is made possible with a MATLAB interface that exchanges data with the hardware via USB using custom libraries.