Case study "Development of systems for technical training in the fields of electricity and energy" published in National Instruments webpage

Development of systems for technical training in the fields of electricity and energy:

Due to the rapid evolution of technologies, an adapted parallel technical training is required to obtain a good quality, complete and updated education for current and future technicians.

Within the Power Systems and Smart Grid Technology some applications have been designed for the training on power generation systems, power distrubution and transmission systems, loads management systems with reactive power automatic compensation and applications for the study of protection systems in high voltage electrical substations and grids. Challenges as the study of blackouts influence on power systems and how the electricity supply is replaced are addressed in this area. To this effect, the PXI Real-Time architecture and a high efficiency acquisition module, PXIe-6341, are recommended in the design of a deterministic control system through LabVIEW, which demonstrates the procedure to replace the electricity supply without zero crossing. The device PXIe-6341 is also used to develop control loops in real time, applicable to diesel generators (Picture 3), to obtain a stable behavior of the engine speed and the voltage of the synchronous generator, and to carry out synchronization operations with the grid..

In the Electrical Machines and Electromechanical Systems there are applications focused on the construction aspects and the study of the static and dynamic behavior of AC and DC motors as well as single-phase and three-phase transformers. This is done thanks to the SCADA Data Acquisition and Control software developed with LabVIEW combined with high speed multi-function data acquisition devices, such as the PCIe 6251, which enables to obtain the characteristic speed-torque curves, efficiency curve of the machine and tests with and without load. Besides, reports with the electrical parameters of the electrical machines are provided through the same procedures carried out in real industrial test benches.

This software is supplied as OSS under ELK that includes a LabVIEW license so that users can learn that language, create their own applications and go deeply into the fields of study (Picture 4).

As for the Electrical Systems and Home Automation Systems, modular units have been designed for technical training in Industrial and Home Electrical Systems, automation technologies using wired and wireless systems, KNX/EIB systems and Zigbee communication. These developments come with the Interactive Computer Aided Instruction Software System, ICAI, coded with LabVIEW, to carry out practical exercises and tests with the units, assess and supervise users and, even, to obtain statistical results of the evolution or reports of the results (Picture 5).

Results:

LabVIEW scalability allows to reuse 80% of the original code to tackle new applications, shortening testing and approval times to two weeks. Regarding the PXI platform and multi-function devices, a 40% is saved in development and integration times.