Design and set-up of the HIL testing environment for an innovative Axial Flux Motor and its experimental characterization

In this work I described a particular kind of electric motor, a prototype motor with Axial Flux Field, called AF Demo, and I tested its functionalities and performances using an inverter fit to another kind of electric motor, already in production, called Production Motor. The testing process can be summarized in the concept of hardware in the loop (HIL) and software in the loop (SIL) techniques: HIL method consists of a series of techniques for testing electronic control units by attaching them to special test benches that comprehensively reproduce the electronic, electrical and mechanical system for which they are intended; at the same time, under the SIL methodology, the control software to be verified is made to interact directly with the test bench system for which it is intended in order to stress it as if it were in operating condition. The control that governs this motor is called Field Oriented Control, consisting of the Space Vector Pulse Width Modulation and a proportional and integral control. (SVPWM) method defines the variable frequency drive by switching transistor according to the stator voltage references that are two output of the PI current controllers. The PI control is used to keep the measured current components at their reference values. This control methods is very powerful in terms of simplicity of implementation, and it’s becoming more attractive for lower performance applications, thanks to the motor size, cost and power consumption reduction