Test Bed for Studying Real-Time Simulation and Control for Shipboard Power Systems

This paper discusses a real-time test bed which has been developed to study real-time issues during the design of new control and stability methodologies for stand alone power systems, such as naval shipboard power systems. The test bed uses the National Instrument embedded tool suite (ETS) and the compact reconfigurable I/O (cRIO) powered by field programmable gate array (FPGA) technology and a real-time controller. Further the test bed uses Mathworks SimPowerSystem Toolbox and LabView to model the power systems under study. The implementation of the components in the test bed is discussed. Test cases are presented to illustrate the operation of the test setup.