Real-time simulator for medium voltage drives fed by current source inverter

A real-time simulator is developed for high power medium-voltage (2.3-13.8kV) current source inverter fed drive system. A novel dynamic model of a CSI drive system is presented. This model is simple, accurate and reliable, specifically developed for real-time simulation. A simplified trapezoidal integration algorithm is proposed as a state-space equation solver to reduce the computational time. An interpolation method is introduced to correct errors caused by the lack of synchronization between the real-time simulator and the digital controller. The dSPACE rapid prototyping system is employed as a real-time simulator where the simulation algorithm is implemented in real time. It is demonstrated by the simulation and experiment that the real-time simulator proposed in this paper can replace the physical drive system for digital controller testing.