Design and implementation of an induction motor drive test bench

Fast development of power electronics components in recent decades has enabled improvements also in electric drives technology. Present inverter technology has made it possible to accurately control an induction motor, which has previously been complicated. Therefore, inexpensive, robust and low-maintenance induction motors supplied with inverters have replaced more expensive and complicated motors in many industrial applications. Thus, it is important for power electronics engineers to be familiar with the control and phenomena of induction motor drives. Currently, the Department of Electrical Engineering at TUT has a range of courses regarding electric motor drives. However, there was a demand for equipment, which would enable students to verify their model and control of an induction motor drive in practice. This thesis introduces the design and construction of an induction motor test bench for these purposes. The test bench is based on a dSPACE rapid control prototyping system. This enables the use of Matlab Simulink in model building, which makes it especially bene cial for teaching purposes. Since, modelling and simulation in the courses are conducted in that environment. Two 2.2 kW induction motors were selected as the base of this test bench. Furthermore, commercial converters were purchased to ensure safe operation. In addition to the main hardware, multiple other components had to be purchased or designed and manufactured. These included components such as current measurement circuits, voltage measurement circuits, incremental encoder for speed measurement, torque measurement component and an external power supply for these circuits. Open-loop control was used to verify the operation of the measurement circuitry after construction of the test bench. Then required modi cations were made to improve the measurements. After this, a vector control system was implemented in Simulink, which was then used to verify the closed-loop operation possibilities of the test bench