Modern electrified vehicles, aircraft, and any other moving machinery rely on highly efficient and robust electric motors. As motor topologies, drives, and connected components such as batteries, fuel-cells, and powertrains are constantly evolving, R&D teams strongly benefit from real-time testing systems to perform continuous control design prototyping and automated requirements-based testing of both embedded controllers and electrical equipment. Leverage a model-based design workflow with MATLAB® & Simulink® by combining high-processing capacity, Simulink-programmable FPGAs, low-latency I/O connectivity, communication protocols, and power amplifiers.
Leverage Speedgoat test systems to prototype motor drive control designs and test motor drive controllers and drives in real-time, all with the same seamlessly integrated model-based testing workflow from Simulink:
The models used for desktop simulation can be reused during all testing phases thanks to the seamless MATLAB & Simulink workflow integration:
Use model-based design with Simulink and Speedgoat test systems to:
Speedgoat test systems offer a seamless integration with Simulink together with:
Rapidly prototype your control design on a Speedgoat test system and test it by controlling the real motor drive and electric motor:
Deploy your Simulink-based control designs or state estimators to a Speedgoat test system connected to a real motor drive and electric motor. Deploy system-level controllers on performant multi-core CPUs or power electronics controllers on low-latency FPGAs. Speedgoat test systems can execute your control designs together with low-latency I/O connectivity and communication protocols that enable you to test your motor drive, tune control parameters, and log data before deploying your algorithms to the final embedded controller. Use Simulink Test to automate testing and validate your controllers based on previously defined requirements.
Deploy a HIL simulation of the motor and drive on a Speedgoat test system connected to the embedded controller for verification of its functions:
Deploy your motor drive and system-level plant models to a Speedgoat test system connected to your embedded controllers. HIL testing lets you validate embedded controllers for motor drives, powertrains, propulsion systems, or even vehicle dynamics by using real-time digital twins. Test the controller deterministically against a virtual plant including motor drives or other systems, while logging data or changing plant parameters on-the-fly. Speedgoat test systems provide turnkey I/O connectivity, communication protocol support and sensor emulation. Automate testing even with very high-frequency switching effects leading to full test coverage of firmware and interfaces.
Emulate electric motors and batteries with Speedgoat test systems including power amplifiers to test your motor drive at full power:
Deploy the real-time digital twin of your electric plant to a Speedgoat test system including power amplifiers to test your electrical equipment at full power using emulators for electric motors, batteries, or DC grids. Emulate electric systems by swiftly matching the power of your digital twin with the electric power of your electrical equipment using real-time systems driving high-bandwidth power amplifiers with power levels ranging from a few hundred watts to megawatts. Speedgoat test systems can also emulate a wide range of sensors and include I/O connectivity or communication protocols to interface equipment controllers. Automate testing of motor drives at all operating conditions, including faults and edge cases even prior to the electric motor or battery pack being available. Log data, adjust plant parameters or even modify the electric motor or battery models on-the-fly.
System-Level Controls
Calibrate, tune, and gradually test parts of a controller using protocol bypassing
Prototype control designs and state estimators for various electric motors
Integrate black box models
Test embedded controllers with low-latency and high-bandwidth fiber optic interfaces
Turnkey communication protocol support like CAN FD, EtherCAT, and ARINC, as well as Restbus simulation
Typical I/O Interfaces, such as sensor measurement/emulation and power amplifiers
Power Electronics Controls
Rapidly prototype controllers with MHz-level bandwidth and switching frequency with Simulink-programmable FPGAs
Validate power electronics control units using FPGA-based HIL simulation at high-frequency switching
Include nonlinear effects in control prototyping and HIL testing, such as saturation and space-harmonics
Include off-the-shelf SPI, SSI, I2C, EnDat, Aurora protocols, and others
Emulate and measure sensors like encoders, resolvers, RTDs, and others
Prototype control designs for permanent magnet synchronous machines (PMSM), brushless DC motors or synchronous motors without having to worry about coding details, sensor interfaces, protocols, nor PWM techniques. Use PID autotuning, reinforcement learning, or machine learning techniques to tune, calibrate, and test controls with motor drives and all associated sensors. Once you deploy your final control designs, test your embedded controller against a virtual motor drive and electric motor including saturation, spatial harmonics, and other nonlinear effects. When developing and testing controllers such as field-oriented control (FOC), direct torque control, vector control, or sensorless controls, you will require some of the following tasks:
Control Design Prototyping
HIL Testing
Power Hardware-in-the-Loop
Prototype control designs, test embedded controllers, and validate motor drives at full power for different asynchronous electrical machines or induction motors. With automatic code generation from Simulink, you can easily deploy your models to Speedgoat test systems and use sensor interfaces, protocols, and different PWM techniques. Use PID autotuning, model predictive control or machine learning techniques to tune, calibrate, and test controls. Test embedded controllers to validate operation for typical and fault conditions. When developing and testing controllers such as field-oriented control (FOC), vector control, or sensorless controls, you will require some of the following tasks:
Prototype control designs for synchronous reluctance motors and switched reluctance motors without having to worry about coding details, sensor interfaces, protocols, nor PWM techniques. Use PID autotuning and include 3D look-up table information to tune, calibrate, and test controls with motor drives and all associated sensors. Once you deploy your final control designs, test your embedded controller against a virtual motor drive and an electric motor including nonlinear effects. Verify motor inverters at full power using emulators for batteries and reluctance machines. When developing and testing controllers such as current control, torque control, or voltage impulse control, you will require some of the following tasks:
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The development of motor drives starts with a desktop simulation including controllers, motor drives, and electric motors. Once electric motors and drives are available, use a Speedgoat test system as a controller to perform control design prototyping for requirements-based validation without worrying about processing capacity or I/O connectivity. Perform thorough embedded controller testing by connecting it to a virtual motor drive including high-fidelity power electronics. Finally, carry out motor drive testing at realistic operating conditions using electric power emulation of electric motors and batteries.