Power-hardware-in-the-loop (PHIL) simulations are used to test a power-hardware with the help of computer based real-time simulations. Generally, buck-based power amplifiers having good dynamic performance are used to construct a PHIL simulator because of their linear large signal control-to-output characteristics. However, their output voltage peak is limited to the applied dc-input in linear region of modulation. In this paper, a differential-boost converter-based power amplifier is proposed for PHIL simulations, which does not suffer from the aforementioned limitations of a buck-based amplifier. A conventional differential-boost converter exhibits highly non-linear control-to-output behavior. A feedback linearization technique is used to linearize the differential-boost converter in large signal and dynamic sense, which makes it suitable for PHIL applications. Using this power amplifier and MATLAB/Simulink toolbox for real-time simulations, the PHIL simulator is constructed. Experimental results under various operating conditions of source voltages, such as, uni-polar, bipolar, transients in frequency, dc-step, and various load conditions, such as, reactive, non-linear, transient fault, are provided to confirm the efficacy of the proposed PHIL simulator.
Index Terms-Power-Hardware-In-the-Loop (PHIL) simulator, Differential-Boost Converter (DBC), Linearizing Modulator (DLM).