Exceeding the Physical Limits of Power Electronics by Inverter Cumulation

• Applicant: Professor Dr.-Ing. Ralph Kennel
• Subject Area: Electrical Energy Systems, Power Management, Power Electronics, Electrical Machines and Drives
• Term: from 2013 to 2016
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 229044796

Hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) emulation provides an effective means of accessing the natural behavior as well as the physical features of technical systems by including real hardware in the testing process. As a result, the realism of the emulation is significantly increased. Owing to this advantage compared to conventional simulation approaches, HIL emulation has also become a highlight in the field of power electronics for several years.However, in certain emulation environments like power grid emulators, the power levels involved and the dynamics needed result in excessive requirements for real-time hardware emulation systems based on power semiconductors. Unfortunately, in power electronics, power and dynamics tend to be mutually exclusive physical properties from a manufacturing point of view. For this reason, realizing a hardware emulation system with a single type of standard power electronic devices is particularly challenging.The intended project aims at investigating a novel inverter topology based on the cumulation of inverters with different electrical characteristics (switching frequency, DC link). Furthermore, the realization of a hardware-in-the-loop emulation system based on this topology and exhibiting high power and high dynamics simultaneously will be examined. As most components are standard market-available devices in this case, the proposed system is also expected to allow the realization of a cost-effective power grid emulator.Therefore, besides offering a promising research topic on HIL emulation from a scientific point of view, the project is likely to have a notable outcome for the industry.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants