Applying a Real-time Mixed-signal Solver to the Design of Digital Control Systems

Designing and testing of digital control systems on power electronics applications is an intricate procedure. In this paper, Virtual Test Bed (VTB) and its real-time extension (RTVTB) are adopted to establish a desirable simulation environment to implement a real-time testing platform for power electronics systems. The mixed-signal solver used in VTB allows the designers to combine the controller with the plant in the same simulation environment, and later on to split them into separate subsystems for real-time distributed simulation. Using VTB and RTVTB, an innovative and complete process for rapid design, prototyping, and testing of digital controllers is proposed. As an illustration, a digital controller for an H-bridge inverter is designed. The simulation results will be analyzed and the influence of the simulation time step and elaboration delay on these results is discussed.