A Controller HIL Testing Approach of High Switching Frequency Power Converter via Slower-Than-Real-Time Simulation

The controller hardware-in-the-loop (CHIL) simulation is a vital tool to test power electronics controllers in the early development stages to reduce cost and risk and save time. However, the CHIL cannot handle the high-switching-frequency power converters due to the strict computing time constraint imposed on the real-time simulation and the limitation of the digital-analog conversion rate of the I/O interface. To deal with this challenge, in this article, a CHIL testing approach based on the slower-than-real-time simulation (STRTS) is proposed for the power electronics converter with high switching frequency. The operating principles and implementation procedure of the STRTS-based CHIL are presented in detail. By comparing with the real-time simulation-based hardware-in-the-loop (HIL), STRTS-based CHIL is proved to have equivalent controller testing performances. Moreover, a 200 kHz buck converter prototype is developed and the closed-loop experimental results validate the feasibility and application values of the STRTS-based CHIL in testing the high-frequency converters.