1Real-Time Digital Simulator Enabled Hardware-in-the-Loop Electric Machine Drive Lab

Abstract—This paper presents real-time digital simulator en-abled hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) electrical machine drive lab setup for educational purposes. The objective of this work is to create a platform for laboratory experiments to enhance drive control design and testing. In the proposed setup, an OPAL-RT real-time digital simulator (RT-LAB) is used to implement the desired control schemes for AC and DC electric machine drives. Control blocks are created in Matlab/Simulink while measure-ment signals from the motors are taken into Matlab/Smimulink through RT-LAB I/O interface. RT-LAB software compiles the MATLAB code to C code and downloads it to OP-4500 OPAL-RT simulator through network connections. PWM signals are then generated by OP-4500 I/O board and sent to an power electronic board to drive a DC or AC machine. I