Modeling and simulation of electric machinery for a senior design project in electrical engineering program

Abstract

As modern technology advances rapidly, it becomes crucial to train and educate our young engineering students. From pedagogical point of view, computer simulation provides a hands-on tool for students to gain deep insights on the dynamic performance and interactions of electric machinery, which often are not easily mastered through studying theory. In order to well prepare engineering students for the challenges presented by advanced technologies in the 21st century, the author developed a series of Matlab/Simulink programs for modeling and simulation of electric machinery, which is used by the following project. In this paper, an intelligent control of induction motor simulation program is presented, which was used in a senior design project (Independent Study) in the electrical engineering program. This project includes the following modules: motor module, PWM module, abc-to-dq module, dq-to-abc module, three phase current generator module, intelligent velocity controller module, and current controller module. Among the above modules, there are several novel ones created by the author, which replaced those existing ones in Matlab/Simulink. For an instance, to clearly visualize the relationship between internal parameters and system performances, all of the referential differential equations were embedded into the models of electrical machines. The theoretical derivation, modeling work, and simulation results in the aforementioned project are provided in the paper. © 2011 American Society for Engineering Education.