Lab in electrical energy systems

Topics covered in the lab are related to various concepts in power electronics:

• Semiconductor devices and losses in operation
• Pulse Width Modulation methods
• Converter operating principles, e.g. DC-DC, DC-AC,...
• Current control using different regulators (e.g. PID, PR)
• Voltage control
• Control system development
• Power Quality
• Grid monitoring and synchronization
• Photovoltaic energy generation
• Control of various electrical machines (e.g. DC machines, Induction machine)

The work will typically have three parts:

Following mini project assignement and understanding of theoretical foundation and concepts, modelling and offline simulations using PLECS software will be carried out. In the next step, control concepts will be deployed on the Texas Instruments Digital Signal Processor (DSP) and verified in the Real-Time Hardware-in-the-Loop (RT_HIL) environment, with relevent power hardware part being modeled on the RT-HIL platform. This part of the work is direct preparation for the experimental verification that will follow.

2. Experimental investigations

All the experimental works will be carried out on the Power Electronic Teaching Setups. These are composed from industrial converters with modified control boards that are based on Texas Instruments Digital Signal Processor (DSP). For that reason, this part of the lab will involves software deployment of the concepts developed in the part 1 and systematic testing and commisioning on the real hardware. Experimental results will be collected and compared against offline and real-time simulations.

3. Transversal skill

The student will learn how to plan a mini project, collect and analyse results, write technical report and present results.