RT Box 1

A HIL Simulator on Every Engineer's Desk

The RT Box 1 is ideally suited for HIL simulations of power electronic circuits of moderate complexity and for single-tasking control prototyping.

Processor

Inside the RT Box 1 operates a Xilinx Zynq Z-7030 system-on-chip that embeds two CPU cores on an FPGA. The real-time simulation is performed on one of the cores while the other runs an embedded Linux for communication and ancillary services. The FPGA fabric is used to control the ADCs and DACs of the analog channels and to perform PWM generation and capture on the digital channels.

For small power electronic circuits such as DC/DC converters, simulation time steps of down to 1 µs can be achieved. Typical 3-phase inverter applications require time steps between 2 and 10 µs. If you are looking for a more powerful simulator supporting multi-core processing, you might want to consider the RT Box 2.

Scalability

For larger systems such as multi-level inverters, multiple units of RT Box 1, RT Box 2 or RT Box 3 can be connected together via high-speed serial communication links. The RT Box 1 has four such high-speed bi-directional links, each of them supporting a data rate of 6.25 Gbit/s. Connected RT Boxes can be operated with a synchronous simulation time step or asynchronously.

Technical Specifications

Processor Xilinx Zynq Z-7030
  CPU cores 2 x ARM Cortex-A9, 1 GHz
Analog inputs Channels 16
  Resolution 16 bit, simultaneous sampling
  Voltage ranges -10 ... 10 V
  -5 ...   5 V
  Input type Differential
  Max. sample rate 2 Msps
  Input impedance 1 MΩ, 24 pF
  Connector D-SUB 37 pin male
Analog outputs Channels 16
  Resolution 16 bit, simultaneous update
  Voltage ranges -10 ... 10 V
    0 ... 10 V
  -5 ...   5 V
    0 ...   5 V
  Max. update rate 2 Msps
  Output impedance 0 Ω
  Max. output current 10 mA
  Connector D-SUB 37 pin female
Digital inputs Channels 32
  Logic levels 3.3 V (5 V tolerant)
  Connector D-SUB 37 pin male
Digital outputs Channels 32
  Logic levels 3.3 V
5 V
  Connector D-SUB 37 pin female
I/O protection Short-circuit Permanent
  Overvoltage -24 ... 24 V
Connectivity Gigabit Ethernet 1
  SFP+ interconnects
6.25 Gbps per lane
4
  CAN bus 2
  USB A 2.0 1
  Firmware SD card
Power supply
(internal)
100 ... 240 Vac
50 ... 60 Hz
50 VA
Size (mm) Depth x Width 310 x 250
  Height 100

Technical specifications of all RT Boxes in comparison.