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

A real-time simulator is developed for high power medium-voltage (2.3-13.8 kV) 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 realtime simulator proposed in this paper can replace the physical drive system for digital controller testing.