Laboratory set-up for real-time study of electric drives with integrated interfaces for test and measurement

This paper presents a real-time instrumentation setup for laboratory experiments in the course on electric drives that is adapted to incorporate the integrated response and analysis interfaces developed in the course on test and measurement. The experimental setup is modeled after the one proposed by the University of Minnesota. However, the setup along with the modification to the model with the electric drives assembly as hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) is first correctly executed under the RT-LAB real-time system solution. The paper focuses on the design and validation of the electric drives experiments with RT-LAB solution and the LabVIEW API capability provided by RT-LAB that allows user-designed virtual instrumentation-based human-machine interfaces. With this setup, students are not only able to use the same laboratory platform for electric drives studies in the electric drives class, but are also able to study LabVIEW design as part of the Test and Measurement class. The intention is to further develop this setup as a central laboratory platform for use in other courses such as electronics system design, and control. However, for this paper, the focus is on the illustration of how this setup can benefit the subject matter in two courses: electric drives and test and measurement.