Dry emulation test-setup at Ghent University

In WP3, the Power Take-Off and Machine-Side Control (MSC) are studied and designed. An important asset to validate the Machine-Side Control is the dry emulation test-setup, developed at Ghent University. This update includes pictures of the virtual design, as well as a first look at the setup in action. 

To validate the Machine-Side Control (MSC) architectures, a dry test-setup is developed at Ghent University. Here, two 37 kW induction machines of 37 kW emulate the small-scale RPT behaviour, including its rotational inertia. Next, the Axial-Flux PMSMs are controlled by the MSC.  Each of the four machines is driven by a separate fully regenerative ABB ACS880-11 drive, to allow to validate of both pump and turbine cases. The drives receive the torque setpoints for each machine from the central dSpace MicroLabBox controller. In this controller, both the RPT and hydraulics emulation and the MSC architecture are simulated simultaneously. Furthermore, it serves as a data-acquisition device. For torque sensors, highly accurate and responsive HBK T40B flange-type sensors are used. This will allow us to accurately validate both the PID-based control architecture as well as the Model Predictive Control (MPC) architecture.

The design of the Axial Flux-PMSMs is discussed in a previous post.