Matlab/Simulink Modeling and Simulation of Electric Appliances Based on their Actual Current Waveforms

This paper presents a novel modeling technique of electric appliances using Matlab/Simulink based on their actual measured current waveforms. Home appliances were used as the study case, but the proposed approach can be applied to any electric appliance as long as the supply voltage is maintained constant. In the proposed method, the measured current waveform is split into two parts: transient and steady state. Each part is stored in one data vector. The transient is stored in a long vector while the steady state is represented by one cycle only (e.g. 20 ms for 50 Hz). When the appliance is switched on, the transient data vector is used during the transient period only and then the steady-state data vector is repeated every supply cycle indefinitely until the appliance is switched off or the simulation is terminated. Compared to previously published methods, the proposed method is much more simple and accurate since it is based on the actual current waveform and not on any mathematical approximation or curve fitting. Finally, the created library of models in this study will be very useful for researchers when designing energy management.