New Power Interface Based on Multi-Dimensional Golden Section Search Algorithm for Power-Hardware-in-the-Loop Applications

Abstract

Power-Hardware-in-the-Loop (PHIL) is a kind of real-time simulation, capable of exchanging not just low-voltage, low current signals, but the power required by the power device under test (PDuT). PHIL requires a PDuT to be connected to a real-time digital power network simulator via a power interface (PI). There have been quite a few PIs proposed in the past. Among them, the ideal transformer model (ITM) is the most commonly used due to its ease of implementation. Other PIs such as partial circuit duplication and damping impedance can be considered as an extended version of the ITM. These PIs need to follow a strict impedance ratio between PDuT and the rest of the system prior to the PHIL implementation, which could be a tedious and difficult task. This paper proposed a new PI for PHIL based on multi-dimensional golden section search algorithm, which can eliminate such a constraint. The proposed method has been shown to have wider stability regions when PDuT is a passive device or active one such as an inverter based resource. Moreover, dynamic responses of the proposed method are similar to those of the ITM under stable conditions. The validity of the proposed method has been justified with offline simulation and experimental PHIL setups.

Keywords

• Real-time simulation
• power hardware-in-the-loop (PHIL)
• golden section search (GSS)
• Gauss-Seidel
• power amplifier