Modeling and Simulation of Electrical Drives

using MATLAB/Simulink and Power System Blockset

Hoang Le-Huy
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Laval University
Ste-Foy, Quebec, CANADA
lehuy@gel.ulaval.ca

Power electronic systems such as variable-speed electrical
drives are complex systems having components of different
nature: power converters built from linear and nonlinear elec-
tric elements and power semiconductors switches, electrical
machines, and control systems containing linear and nonlinear
elements. Effective modeling and simulation of such systems
require a software tool that can handle all these functions in an
integrated environment.
Available simulation software for electronic circuits or
dynamic systems can be classified into two main categories:
circuit simulation programs (such as EMTP, SPICE-based sim-
ulation programs,...) and equation solver programs (such as
SIMNON, MATLAB/Simulink,...). These programs are not
designed specifically for power electronic systems so that the
users have to develop their own models to fulfill their needs.
For example, SPICE users have to develop models for electri-
cal machines and control components because SPICE is an
electronic circuit simulation program. On the other hand,
MATLAB/Simulink users have to develop models for power
electronics and electrical machines. This approach can give
good results but requires considerable effort.
In this tutorial, a unified method for modeling and simula-
tion of electrical drives using state-space formulation in MAT-
LAB/Simulink is presented.
State-space representation is a convenient and effective
method to modeling linear circuits in time domain. However, it
is not directly applicable to circuits containing nonlinear ele-
ments such as power electronic circuits because these elements
cannot be described by differential equations. It is possible to
use the state-space approach to model power electronic circuits
by separating the nonlinear elements and power switches from
the system to form two distinct parts: linear and nonlinear
parts. The linear part is represented by its state-space model
characterized by its ABCD matrices. The nonlinear part
(including nonlinear components, electrical machines, and
power switches) is represented by nonlinear models which are
transfer characteristics relating their output currents to the
input voltages. The system is thus modeled as a feedback sys-
tem with the linear part in the direct path and the nonlinear part
in the feedback path.
The proposed method has been successfully implemented in
a simulation package called Power System Blockset (PSB)
for use in MATLAB/Simulink environment. The PSB uses the
Simulink graphical interface to represent common electric
components and electric machines found in power electronic
systems. The PSB consists of libraries of electric blocks and
analysis tools which are used to convert electric diagrams into
Simulink state-space diagrams. The simulation of complete
electrical drives can be done with sufficient details in both
power electronic circuits and control systems. This is useful for
waveforms analysis and also for control parameters tuning.
The application of the Power System Blockset to the model-
ing of two variable-speed drives is considered in details: a
brushless dc motor drive and a Direct Torque Control (DTC)
induction motor drive. Simulation results obtained with the
PSB are presented to illustrate its capabilities in drive studies.

+ v Scope

Threephase 150 kVA 50HP/460V Vab
source Transformer Rectifier LC_Filter Induction Motor
IGBT_Inverter V_sensor
A A a A A1 A Demux
+ X X1 + A A
I_abc
N B B b B B1 B is_abc
B B
Y Y1 C1 C m wm
C C c C m_SI
pulses C C vs Tm Te_Te*
Load Te
Torque
Tm
w_w*
Discrete system DTC_Controller
Ts=1e006 is_abc
P
wm

wref wref
Te*
Speed_Reference
vs_abc
Simulink diagram representing
a DTC induction motor drive