Software-in-the-loop simulation of a test system for automotive electric drives

The Automotive market is rapidly changing, as the increasing attention to the engine emissions pushes car makers to use vehicles less dependent on gasoline and diesel fuel, resulting in lower operating costs and emissions. Today, electric vehicles seem to be the best answer to the market demand. In this scenario, electric drives for traction play a key role, thus the necessity to develop effective and flexible test systems, able to ensure performance, quality and safety. In this paper a new automotive electric drives test system is proposed. The test system for electric drives is based on an inverter controlled through a real-time platform in which the Electric Vehicle model is implemented. The inverter emulates the behaviour of the motor and load at the load drive terminals. This paper describes the architecture of the system and shows the real-time simulation results. Three control methods are used for the load drive and compared in the paper.