Full-Scale Physical Control System Real-Time Digital Simulator Design for MMC-HVDC Simulation and Testing

Real-time simulation of modular multilevel converter (MMC)-based HVDC is one of the most important and difficult technologies in the area of power electronics research. This paper presents a methodology for the hardware in loop (HIL) CPU/FPGA-based real-time simulation of a one-terminal MMC HVDC of up to 468 levels using a detailed equivalent model, and the simulation system is based on full-scale physical control system, including actual sub module control boards. The testing subject control system and the accompanying one are based on same hardware and symmetric structure, without expensive third part HIL simulation system, such as RT-lab or RTDS. Small time-step sub module transient simulation in device level with FPGA based parallel computing is discussed in this paper.