Grant: Collaborative Research and Development Grants

The development of complex systems with electric machines and power electronic converters, such as those found in electric vehicles, usually require long lead times and rely on costly analog benches. This is a major issue faced by small but innovative companies to provide highly specialized subsystems to major car manufacturers such as Toyota, General Motors and Nissan. This project focuses on the development of real-time emulators with the suitable models for machines and power converters that can be obtained from design and simulation software and used in the power-hardware-in-the-loop (PHIL) stage of product development. These models will be verified on real motors and converters designed and built in the Concordia laboratory. In this scenario, it is essential to develop machine and converter models of sufficient accuracy and fast execution time to be used in the emulators. A new hardware emulator will be developed suitable to emulate the performance of an electric machine without the real machine being built by using power electronics and linear amplifiers. It provides the means for testing real inverters and other converters used in electric and hybrid electric vehicles as well as the associated controllers and protection systems. The industrial partners in this project are three leading Canadian companies: Infolytica Corporation, OPAL-RT Technologies and Institut de recherche d'Hydro-Québec (IREQ). OPAL-RT is already a strategic partner with IREQ and have collaborations with Infolytica. The Power Electronic and Energy Research (PEER) group at Concordia University is heavily engaged in industrial R & D projects. In particular, the Industrial Research Chair occupied by Professor Pillay is supported at a level of $400k/year between Hydro-Québec and NSERC. This project fits directly into the vision of Concordia University in working on industrially and socially relevant projects, which also allow training of HQP in a high profile industry.