FPGA-Based Real-Time EMTP

Abstract

Real-time transient simulation of large transmission networks requires significant computational power. This paper proposes a field-programmable gate array (FPGA)-based real-time electromagnetic transient simulator. Taking advantage of the inherent parallel architecture, high density, and high clock speed, the real-time Electromagnetic Transients Program (EMTP) is implemented on a single FPGA chip. It is based on a paralleled algorithm that is deeply pipelined, and uses a floating-point arithmetic calculation to achieve high accuracy for simulating fast electromagnetic transients. To validate the new simulator, a sample system with 15 transmission lines using full frequency-dependent modeling is simulated in real time. A timestep of 12 mus has been achieved based on a 12.5-ns clock period with high data throughput. The captured real-time oscilloscope results demonstrate excellent accuracy of the simulator in comparison to the offline simulation of the original system in the Alternative Transients Program version of EMTP.