Lab setup for group delay measurement and phase accuracy calibration

Do I really need that much equipment? obviously yes.

lab setup for phase accuracy measurement
lab setup for phase accuracy measurement

With this setup, I can measure the group delay of the analog inputs for the voltage and current measurement of the rotabench 6P inverter.

The calibration process has two steps: in the first step, the outputs of a simulated PMSM are fed into the inverter. The device “thinks” it is driving a motor. The signals are generated by two Siglent Arbitrary Waveform generators, which are fed into a signal conditioning and amplifier PCB. The amplifier simulates the current output of the current sensors. A FPGA is used to simulate the encoder signals. With the known outputs of the signal generator the phase delay of the inverter measurement can be determined and compensated.

In the second step, I use a big choke to generate some currents around 100 A RMS. These currents are measured with a cRIO, a signal conditioning and amplifier device and Signaltec CT200 current sensors. With these data the D- and Q- currents are calculated, which can be compared with the inverter setpoint. As the first step does not use real currents and the current sensors of the inverter, some adjustmens for the group delay of the current sensors is necessary.

When anything is running smoothly, I can achieve a phase accuracy < 1° (electric) on a (simulated) PMSM with 4 pole pairs, running at 1000 Hz (electrical) frequency.

Signal Conditioning PCB for LEM CT-200 Current Transducers

Hot on the bench: Signal Conditioning PCB for LEM CT-200 current sensors.

LEM CT-200 Signal Conditioning PCB
LEM CT-200 Signal Conditioning PCB

I just finished soldering the first samples of my signal conditioning PCB for LEM CT-200 current transducers. These devices converts the current output of up to 4 current CT-200 transducers into a voltage. For high precision I use Vishay Z-Foil burden resistors with an accuracy of 0.02% and a very low temperature coefficient. With some reduction in accuracy also CT-100 or CT-60 sensors could be used.

Format: 160 x 100 mm, 4 channels with Vishay Z-Foil 5 Ohm 0,02% burden resistors. Passive cooling. Power Supply: 2 x 18 Volt DC. The 5 Volt Rail for the Sensor Status output is generated by a DC-DC converter on the PCB.

Each Channel has a +-10 Volt (DC) Output and a 1 Volt RMS output on SMA connectors. The 1 Volt RMS outputs are intended to be used with my new-old Norma D6100, the 10 Volt Outputs go to a compact RIO.