Page 10 - PEN eBook March 2022

TEST & MEASUREMENT

Test Solutions for EV

Inverters

By Giovanni Di Maria, technical writer for EEWeb

Tests on power-electronic systems are indispensable, but they can’t all happen in hardware.
Engineers can obtain exact operating models of inverters using virtual simulations of circuit
operation and, above all, simulations of defects, problems, and accidental events. To help them

on this, NI has announced new solutions and collaborations that improve test environments and
workflows for the development of electric-vehicle drive inverters.

The power circuits of EVs are extremely sophisticated due to their complex hardware and software,
and minor, unforeseen events can result in abnormal — often dangerous — operation. To ensure
safety and performance, designers carry out many types of tests under each profile of operation,
with simulations covering a wide range of scenarios, including the most remote and unexpected.

While this approach helps accelerate EV innovation by integrating testing early in the product
development life cycle, constantly changing models in simulation can be cumbersome and
time-consuming because engineers must recreate both the most realistic scenarios and those that
are difficult to replicate on the road using EV thruster simulations and hardware-in-the-loop tests.

26 MARCH 2022 | www.powerelectronicsnews.com