Comparative analysis of the DAQ cards-based and the IEC 61850-based real time simulations in the matlab/simulink environment for power system protections

• Published in: Electric power systems research 2021-03, Vol.192, p.107000, Article 107000
• Main Authors: Krakowski, M., Kurek, K., Nogal, Ł.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Algorithms; Availability; Comparative analysis; DAQ Cards; Hardware-in-the-loop; Hardware-in-the-loop simulation; IEC 61850; Matlab; Power supply; Real time; Real time Linux; Real time simulations; Simulation; Simulators
• ISSN: 0378-7796; 1873-2046
• DOI: 10.1016/j.epsr.2020.107000

•Two different real time simulators designs were presented and compared in the paper.•Both designs are based on the Simulink and on the real time Linux.•First design is using DAQ cards as the I/O interface.•Second design is using IEC61850-based Ethernet communication as the I/O interface.•Both designs provide cheaper alternative for the commercial solutions. Hardware-in-the-loop simulations might be considered as the most advanced method of power system protection testing. However, availability of these devices remains significantly low due to the cost barrier and sizes of the simulator. A rapid growth of the Matlab/Simulink tools and IEC61850 open source libraries in recent years has opened the possibilities of designing proprietary real time simulators that are comparable with commercial solutions. This paper presents two simulator designs - one based on DAQ cards and the second one based on IEC61850 services. The performance limits of the simulators in the real time were compared in this paper. Furthermore, it was proven that the performance of these simulators is sufficient to conduct successful tests of protection relays. Consequently, the examples of protection relays testing results were discussed. Finally, it was explained why the presented designs might substantially support new protection algorithms verification. It is due to the high availability and the reduced device size.