Exceeding the Physical Limits of Power Electronics by Inverter Cumulation

硬件在环仿真（HIL）通过在测试过程中包含真实的硬件，提供了一种访问技术系统的自然行为和物理特性的有效方法。因此，仿真的真实感大大提高。由于这种与传统仿真方法相比的优势，HIL仿真近年来也成为电力电子领域的一个热点。然而，在某些仿真环境（如电网仿真器）中，所涉及的功率水平和所需的动力学导致对基于功率半导体的实时硬件仿真系统的要求过高。不幸的是，在电力电子学中，从制造的角度来看，功率和动力学往往是相互排斥的物理特性。因此，用单一类型的标准电力电子器件实现硬件仿真系统特别具有挑战性。该计划旨在研究一种基于不同电气特性（开关频率，直流链路）的逆变器累积的新型逆变器拓扑。在此基础上，研究如何实现高功率、高动态的半实物仿真系统。由于在这种情况下，大多数组件都是标准的市场可用设备，因此所提出的系统也有望实现具有成本效益的电网模拟器。因此，该项目除了从科学的角度提供了一个有前途的HIL仿真研究课题外，还可能对行业产生显著的影响。

Hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) emulation provides an effective means of accessing the natural behavior as well as the physical features of technical systems by including real hardware in the testing process. As a result, the realism of the emulation is significantly increased. Owing to this advantage compared to conventional simulation approaches, HIL emulation has also become a highlight in the field of power electronics for several years.However, in certain emulation environments like power grid emulators, the power levels involved and the dynamics needed result in excessive requirements for real-time hardware emulation systems based on power semiconductors. Unfortunately, in power electronics, power and dynamics tend to be mutually exclusive physical properties from a manufacturing point of view. For this reason, realizing a hardware emulation system with a single type of standard power electronic devices is particularly challenging.The intended project aims at investigating a novel inverter topology based on the cumulation of inverters with different electrical characteristics (switching frequency, DC link). Furthermore, the realization of a hardware-in-the-loop emulation system based on this topology and exhibiting high power and high dynamics simultaneously will be examined. As most components are standard market-available devices in this case, the proposed system is also expected to allow the realization of a cost-effective power grid emulator.Therefore, besides offering a promising research topic on HIL emulation from a scientific point of view, the project is likely to have a notable outcome for the industry.