Title: Realisation and HIL testing of wind turbine emulator based on DTC squirrel cage induction motor drive

Authors: Osama M. Arafa; Mohamed E. Abdallah; Ghada A. Abdel Aziz

Addresses: Power Electronics and Energy Conversion Department, Electronics Research Institute, Cairo, Egypt ' Power Electronics and Energy Conversion Department, Electronics Research Institute, Cairo, Egypt ' Power Electronics and Energy Conversion Department, Electronics Research Institute, Cairo, Egypt

Abstract: Direct torque control (DTC) is known to produce the fastest torque response in AC drives. In this paper, a wind turbine emulation (WTE) system using a squirrel cage induction motor (SCIM) working in a DTC mode is designed, implemented, and tested experimentally using Hardware-in-loop (HIL). The flux estimation is based on the current model where two stator currents and the rotor speed are measured. The DTC is realised using a space vector modulator to avoid variable switching frequency associated with the DTC switching tables. dSPACE MicroLabBox is used to handle the real-time control programmed in SIMULINK. Typhoon HIL402 is used to emulate the inverter, the machine, the connected mechanical load, and the feedback sensors of the current dc link voltage and speed. Thanks to the great flexibility offered by the HIL technique, a variety of tests has been conducted to validate the overall system performance. The tests include step change of load, step change of wind speed, operation under stochastic wind speed variation and torque-speed characteristics' of the emulated wind turbine at different feeds of wind speeds and coupled mechanical loads. Testing results verified the perfect fit of DTC in WTE application and the effectiveness of the HIL testing technique.

Keywords: direct torque control; DTC; squirrel cage induction motor; SCIM; wind energy conversion systems; WECS; wind turbine emulator; WTE; current-model based flux estimator; hardware-in-loop; HIL.

DOI: 10.1504/IJIED.2018.093681

International Journal of Industrial Electronics and Drives, 2018 Vol.4 No.3, pp.155 - 168

Received: 05 Apr 2018
Accepted: 01 May 2018
Published online: 31 Jul 2018 *

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