PLECS

The Simulation Platform for Power Electronic Systems

PLECS Logo

PLECS® tools can be applied to many disciplines of power electronics engineering. Conceived with a top-down approach in mind, PLECS facilitates the modeling and simulation of complete systems, including power sources, power converters, and loads.

Included with PLECS is a comprehensive component library, which covers the electrical, as well as the magnetic, thermal, and mechanical aspects of power conversion systems and their controls. Power electronics circuits are captured with a schematic editor in a way that is familiar and intuitive for electrical engineers. Typical power electronics components such as semiconductors, inductors and capacitors are placed on the circuit diagram and simply connected by drawing wires.

Powerful Functional Design Tools

In addition to the modeling interface and component library, PLECS provides several tools to aid in the design and analysis of power electronic systems.

  • During or after simulation, data is visualized in the PLECS Scope. Inspired by a real power electronics measurement and instrumentation system, the scope allows a user to extract the exact waveforms of interest as well as examine the data for post-processing and reporting.
  • The built-in Analysis Tools are easily set up to provide steady-state operating points or open-loop and closed-loop transfer functions. Additionally, state space matrices of a system can be extracted for advanced analyses.
  • Using Simulation Scripts the user can change parameters and invoke simulations or post-process output data and evaluate results.
  • The separately available PLECS Coder can generate real-time C code from a circuit or block diagram created with PLECS Blockset.

Circuit using Electrical, Magnetic and Thermal Domains

The above PLECS circuit models a flyback converter with two secondary outputs. The losses of the main switch and the transformer are captured by a virtual heat sink and coupled into the thermal domain for temperature estimation. The transformer is represented by a magnetic equivalent circuit which models the B-H saturation curve of the core material.