HIL with the power converter,
DC motor and mechanical load
Real-time simulation the power thyristor B6 converter with DC motor and mechanical load in the loop with control board hardware
Various characteristics of the mechanical load of the electric drive require the refinement of the control structure with subsequent verification of the control quality. As one example that has been researched, a mine hoist is a complex multi-mass system with elastic connections. Verification of algorithms can only be carried out directly at the facility, but it takes a lot of time, costs for the work of qualified specialists in bussines trips, leads to delays in the production cycle, and under-production.
The digital twin of the electric drive with the mechanical part of a mine hoist machine was created in the Simulink-Simscape environment.
On the control board under test, which is used to control the DC electric drive of the mine hoist, a control structure - speed regulator, current regulator - was programmed. The control board is based on ARM Cortex-M3.
To use the Hardware-in-the-Loop concept, a PCI-1711 board was used to connect the model to the control board. The Simscape model was run in Real Time Mode (using the Simulink Desktop Real Time Blockset).
Highlights
The Simscape model takes into account the dynamics of the electric power converter, electric DC drive and mechanical part of the mine hoist machine.
Scope of Simscape model:
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equivalent of the electrical network,
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4Q electric power converter,
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6-pulse firing generator for thyristors,
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DC current and DC voltage sensors (instant values),
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DC motor with independent excitation,
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the mechanical part of the mine hoist machine.
The mechanical part of the mine hoist machine took into account:
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moments of inertia of the gearbox, drum, head pulleys,
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elasticity and damping of ropes,
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change in the weight of the rope, by reducing / increasing its length in the mine shaft,
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different weights of the two cages,
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drum structure - one rope is wound, the other is unwound.
The sample time of the calculation of the electrical part was 50 µs, and the mechanical one - 10 ms.
Achievements
The developed digital twin and the Hardware-in-the-Loop concept allowed:
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reduce the time of launching a new product on the market,
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debug and get a high-quality control algorithm for the electric drive of the mine hoist machine, as a multi-mass complex system with elastic connections,
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check the operation of the algorithm in boundary conditions (which is dangerous to carry out on a physical object)
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achieve financial savings, because there is no need to spend funds on a business trip of qualified specialists, reduce the setup time at the facility, no additional delays in the production cycle of the facility
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achieve significant savings in development time due to the ability to quickly configure the model for different modes.
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