D.C. Motor-Based Wind Turbine Emulator Using LabVIEW for Wind Energy Conversion System Laboratory Setup

This paper describes the development and implementation of a wind turbine emulator (WTE), based on a d.c. motor, using LabVIEW. The emulator imitates both static and dynamic characteristics of a typical wind turbine (WT) of a wind energy conversion system (WECS). The setup can be used for development and testing of real-time control algorithms. The laboratory setup consists of a d.c. motor coupled to a three-phase self-excited induction generator (SEIG). The mathematical model of WT, designed in LabVIEW, is interfaced with the d.c. motor control circuit by the compact real-time I/O module (cRIO). The armature current is regulated by armature voltage control with appropriate switching signals for a power MOSFET-based control circuit. The simulation and experimental results under different scenarios prove the effectiveness of this LabVIEW-based WTE. This WTE can be effectively used as a laboratory-based teaching tool for electrical engineering students. The learning objective of this simple yet efficient la...