A Power Hardware-In-The-Loop Emulation of a Faulted Inverter

A power hardware-in-the-loop emulation of an induction machine with emphasis on operation during drive inverter faults is presented in this paper. A power electronic converter is used to emulate an induction machine and the mechanical load, which is fed from a faulty drive inverter. The absence of moving parts in the experimental setup of an emulated machine provides a safe platform to analyze the torque pulsation and speed ripple during faults. In this work, an emulator setup is built and validated for normal operation using a V/f drive. Then a drive inverter fault is introduced by disabling the gate-drive to one switch in one leg of the drive inverter. The results obtained are validated using a physical machine, verifying the operation of the emulator.