Inductance Sizing Of Electric Motor Emulator Using Particle Swarm Optimization For Drive Train Applications

Testing and validation of traction inverters are crucial for battery electric vehicles and hybrid electric vehicles. Motor emulators are used to replace the complexity of having moving elements and to provide flexible system to test different inverter ratings and different motor types. The emulator system comprises of an inverter coupled with an inductor. The accurate selection of the inductance and resistance of the coupling inductors as well as the tuning of the PI controllers for the direct and quadrature components of the emulator inverter provides a sinusoidal current with very low ripples that can be very similar to the current provided by the equivalent electrical motor. In this work a particle swarm (PSO) optimization technique is retained to tune the PI parameters for the direct and quadrature currents controllers, as well as optimizing the resistance and inductance of the coupling inductor. The optimization is targeting the measured emulator current to coincide with the current of the simulated machine model. The presented methodology is validated using MATLAB Simulink simulation and the results shows a matching current value at different operating points and proven the fidelity of the proposed approach.