Urban light electric vehicle real-time model architecture using VeriStand Software

Abstract

The approach of the paper regards analysis of a light electric vehicle used for urban mobility via real-time simulation with experimental validation. Using a dedicated software, National Instruments VeriStand, the authors prove the possibility of performing vehicle testing for a period of actual mobility time recorded inside the urban scenario. Such long-time simulations are extremely time consuming or impossible to perform using computer-based simulators. One solution is to decrease the model complexity in order to perform these simulations, however the computation time still reaches periods beyond the actual analyzed one. Using VeriStand, the model complexity is kept at its maximum, hence the accuracy and the performances are not diminished. The required computation time is the actual mobility time. Hence, the same time can be applied for an actual test-bench, proving via comparative analysis the quality of the results and the accuracy of the model under test. The considered application is an electric scooter, equipped with a 300W permanent magnet synchronous machine (PMSM), supplied via an inverter from a source of 36 VDC. The model of the PMSM is a flux-linkage one designed in Matlab Simulink and exported into VeriStand running on a NI-PXIe 8135 Embedded Controller. The entire study is validated with experimental measurements performed with the actual machine under study.