Abstract-- A novel wind turbine emulator (WTE) based

on a torque controlled Brushless DC (BLDC) motor is

presented, which can emulate the steady-state and dynamic
characteristics of an actual wind turbine. Variable wind
speeds, turbine inertia and torque oscillation caused by
tower shadow and wind shear are all considered in the
construction of the actual wind turbine model and the
torque controlled BLDC model . A PI regulator is employed
to make sure that the output torque of BLDC tracks the
reference torque. The simulation results based on RT-LAB
real-time simulation platform verify the validity of the
proposed WTE.

Index Terms-- brushless DC, real-time simulation, torque
control, wind turbine emulator
I. INTRODUCTION
Wind energy is one of the most promising renewable
energies and wind power generation is developing fast as
serious environmental concerns and energy crisis are on
the rise. For the researches of control strategies and
hardware design of wind power generation, field or wind
tunnel experiments are required. In this way, the
performances of wind turbine, generator and control
system can be tested and evaluated. However, they are
not suitable for the early stages of research because of
uncontrollable environment and expensive costs.
Therefore, it is necessary to build a controlled test bench
with a wind turbine emulator (WTE) that represents the
output characteristics of an actual wind turbine (WT) and
drives the WT generator in the laboratory condition.
A WTE is usually a torque closed-loop controlled
motor that outputs the same mechanical power as an
actual WT does. In traditional emulation method, the
motor speed feedback and a given wind speed are used to
calculate the WT torque according to the steady-state
model of the WT. Then, the output torque of the motor
tracks the WT torque to accomplish the steady-state
emulation effectively. However, if the output torques of
the WTE and the WT are completely the same, the
dynamic processes of speed variation between the two
systems will be different due to the differences of friction
coefficient and moment of inertia. To solve this problem,
a few methods have been presented in the literature [1-3].
In order to increase the moment of inertia of WTE, a
large inertia disk is coupled to rotor shaft of the WTE
through a flexible coupling as discussed in [1]. But this
solution is lack of flexibility when emulating different
WT rotors. Another method compensates the reference

This work was supported by National Basic Research Program of
China (973Program 2007CB210302)
torque of the motor such that the WTE will produce the
same acceleration as the actual system. In [2], a 2nd order
observer is employed to observe the state variables of
emulation system and determine the compensation value.
However the control method is complicated to realize. In
[3] the compensation value is obtained by calculating the
product of acceleration and inertia difference, which is
easy to realize. However the solutions hereinbefore
neglect the difference of friction coefficient. So errors
exist in emulation process. To reproduce steady-state and
dynamic behaviors of actual WT, the following three
parts should be comprised in an integrated WTE.
1) A real time model simulator (RTMS), in which
the steady-state and dynamic mathematical
models of WT and wind speed are built.
2) A torque closed-loop controller (TCC), which
compares the output torque of WTE with the
reference torque received from the RTMS and
determines the driving signal.
3) A motor with associated driver, which responds
to the driving signal from the TCC, used as a
prime mover.
Duo to definite mathematical relationship between
output torque and armature current, the DC motors with
accurate control of electromagnetic torque are generally
used in the WTE. In [2], a permanent magnet DC motor
supplied by a four quadrant chopper is used to realize
emulation. A close loop control of the motor armature
current is developed and the electromagnetic torque of
the motor is precisely controlled through the armature
current. In [4], the method that uses a separately-excited
dc machine to emulate the WT is developed. The speed
range of emulator is extended by flux-weakening control.
However an additional speed loop is added that needs
both controls of the field and armature winding, making
the system complex and unpractical. In [5]-[6], the three-
phase full-bridge thyristor is adopted to drive the DC
motor. But the 6th order voltage and current harmonic in
the armature of the dc motor are produced, resulting in a
torque fluctuation that differs from the actual WT.
Furthermore, existences of commutators and brushes in
the DC motor add to structure complexity and low power
density, which makes it bulky, expensive and needs
frequent maintenance.
Compare with the DC motor, the induction motor (IM)
and the sinusoidal permanent magnet synchronous motor
(SPMSM) have the advantages of simple structure and
high power density. In [8]-[9], a WTE using the IM
motor is presented. However the realization method of
torque closed loop control is not presented. In [10], based
on the detailed analysis on the mathematical model of
Real-Time Simulation of BLDC-based Wind
Turbine Emulator Using RT-LAB
Honghao Guo, Bo Zhou, Jichen Li, Fangshun Cheng, Le Zhang
Aero-Power Sci-Tech Center, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing, China

IM, the motor torque is controlled by regulating the stator
current and the slip frequency. However the poor
performance of the torque tracking results in torque error
existing in the dynamic process and the proposed WTE
can only generate the static characteristic of WT. In [11]-
[12], a SPMSM based on the vector control of rotor
magnetic field orientation is used as the WTE. The torque
can be regulated by controlling the q axis current.
However the coordinate transformation is needed and the
control method is complex.
The brushless DC motor (BLDCM) have the
advantages of simple control likes DC motor and high
power density likes other AC motors [14]. Thus it is an
effective tool to emulate the actual behavior of a WT.
This paper adopts BLDCM as a new type of WTE.
Considering the practical factors such as variable wind
speed, turbine inertia, friction coefficient, and torque
oscillation caused by tower shadow and wind shear, a
WTE which reproduces the steady-state and dynamic
behaviors of the actual WT is designed. A real time
simulation model of the WTE-generator system is
constructed. The control scheme of the WTE discussed in
this paper was implemented with a RT-LAB real-time
distributed simulation platform that allows for easy
adaptation to Hardware-in-the-Loop (HIL) or Rapid
Control Prototyping (RCP) simulation with I/O cards.
II. WIND TURBINE MODEL
In the actual wind power generation system, the WT
captures the kinetic power contained in the fluid air and
converts it to mechanical energy to drive the generator
via a gear box or a transmission shaft directly as shown in
Fig.1 (a). In the emulation system, the BLDCM is
connected with a generator to emulate the wind power
generation system as shown in Fig.1 (b). The BLDCM is
required to have the same characteristics as an actual WT,
thus accurate models of WT and drive train are necessary
to insure the authenticity of emulation.


(a) Wind power generation system

(b) Wind turbine emulation system
Fig. 1. Sketch of actual system and emulation system

A. Aerodynamic Characteristic of WT
According to the aerodynamic characteristic of WT,
the average torque T produced by a WT is a function of
the wind speed (v) and the torque coefficient (C
T
()),
which can be expressed as (1) where R is the radius of the
turbine and is the air density.
T=0.5R
3
C
T
()v
2
(1)
The torque coefficient of the fixed pitch WT is related
mathematically to the tip speed ratio (TSR) only, which
can be seen from Fig.2 (a) and the TSR is defined as the
ratio of line speed at rotating blade tip to wind speed
=
WT
R/v (2)
where
WT
is the rotating angular speed of WT.
The TSR is a significant parameter that represents the
operation state of WT. For a fixed pitch WT, the output
power will be maximum when the WT works at optimum
TSR (
opt
), and this value is unique. Furthermore, the
maximum power curve of WT can be obtained by linking
all the maximum power points under different wind
speeds. Based on (1), (2), and Fig.2 (a) the average
torque-speed curve produced by a WT under different
wind speeds can be plotted as Fig.2 (b).


(a) (b)
Fig. 2. CT()- and torque characteristic curve of wind turbine

For a common three-blade, horizontal axis WT, due to
the structural resistance of the tower, the wind speed may
decrease and even generate turbulent flows as the wind
passes by the tower. This effect is called tower shadow.
Besides, wind speed gradient exists with the height,
which can cause an effect called wind shear. Both factors
influence the output aerodynamic torque of WT and add a
periodic changed ripple to the average torque produced
by a WT
[13]
. Thus, the output aerodynamic torque T
WT
,
considering tower and wind shear, can be calculated as
[7]

T
WT
=T
m
+T
osc
=T
m
(1+asin(
WT
t)+bsin(3
WT
t)) (3)
where T
osc
is the periodic torque ripple and a=0.2, b=0.4
B. Dynamic Model and Torque Compensation
When the generator is connected to the WT through a
transmission shaft directly, the dynamic process of WT is
determined by WT torque and generator torque jointly.
So the moments of inertia, friction coefficients of WT
and generator need to be considered to ascertain the
dynamic characteristic of WT. The mechanical equation
is given by (4), which describes the dynamic behavior of
the actual system. Similarly, the mechanical equation of
the WT emulation system is expressed as (5)
T
WT
=T
L
+ B
WT

WT
+ ( J
WT
+J
G
)d
WT
/dt
T
e
=T
L
+ B
m

r
+ ( J
m
+J
G
)d
r
/dt
(4)
(5)
where T
L
and T
e
are the torques of generator and
BLDCM, B
WT
and B
m
are the friction coefficients of the
actual system and WTE system,
r
is the rotating angular

speed of BLDCM, J
m
, J
WT
and J
G
are the moments of
inertia of BLDCM, WT and generator, respectively.
Owing to different inertias and friction coefficients of
the actual and the emulation systems, some differences
exist in the dynamic changing processes of the rotating
speed when the WT and the BLDCM have same output
torque. The dynamic process of the emulation systems is
faster since the inertia of BLDCM is usually much
smaller than that of the WT. However, the rapidly
changing processes of the rotating speed make a higher
demand on the response speed of the generator controller,
which is absolutely unnecessary.
To make
r
perform the same dynamic process of

WT
, the BLDCM reference torque should be modified as
T
ref
=T
WT
+(B
m
B
WT
)
r
+( J
m
J
WT
)d
r
/dt
= T
WT
+ T
COM

(6)
where, T
COM
is the compensation torque.
Compensation torque consists of two parts: inertia
compensation and friction coefficient compensation. The
inertia compensation operates in dynamic process only,
because the d
WT
/dt is equal to zero for a steady rotating
speed. So the inertia difference has no influence on the
steady-state emulation effect. Under the steady-state
condition, the friction coefficient compensation makes
the WTE connected generator get the same torque and
power as connecting to an actual WT. Fig.3 gives the
simulation model of the reference torque generation with
torque compensation and periodic torque ripple caused by
wind shear and tower shadow. Besides, a low pass filter
is necessarily used to suppress the high frequency noises
caused by the derivative of the rotating speed.


Fig. 3. Torque reference with torque compensation
III. TORQUE CLOSED-LOOP CONTROLLED BLDCM
The electromagnetic torque of the BLDCM should be
closed-loop controlled for a BLDCM based WTE.
Therefore, researches on the torque characteristic and
appropriate control strategy of the BLDCM are needed.
A. BLDCM Electromagnetic Torque Calculate
Discarding the commutators and brushes of DC motor,
the BLDCM has inherit the predominant performance of
the traditional motor such as the high power density, high
efficiency, easier control and without exciting wastage.
Different from the SPMSM, the BLDCM has a
trapezoidal back EMF due to different armature winding
arrangement of the stator and different shaping of the
magnets mounted on the rotor. For any rotor position, the
back EMF per phase is proportional to the rotating speed
and expressed as
2
( ) r
pW
e

= (7)
where p is the number of pole pairs, is the pole-arc
coefficient, W is the effective series turns per phase, is
the rotor electrical angle, is the flux.
The shape function of back EMF is defined as
2
( ) ( )
pW
f

= (8)
The back EMF shape function is related to the rotor
electrical angle and independent of the rotating speed.
Each phase of the BLDCM has a certain back EMF shape
function that can be measured by normalizing the back
EMF to the mechanical rotating speed or by finite
element analysis. As a result, the function of back EMF
related to the rotor electrical angle is expressed as
e
x
()=f
x
()
r
(9)
where the subscript x stands for a, b, and c phase. Fig.4
shows the relationship between e
x
() and f
x
() where E, F
are the peak values of e
x
() and f
x
(), respectively.


Fig. 4. Back EMF and shape function

Therefore, the electromagnetic torque produced by the
BLDCM can be expressed as
( ) ( ) ( )
a a b b c c
e
r
a a b b c c
e i e i e i
T
f i f i f i

+ +
=
= + +

(10)
where e
a
, e
b
, e
c
, i
a
, i
b
, i
c
are the a, b, and c phase back
EMFs and armature currents, respectively. The BLDCM
torque is functionally related to the three-phase armature
currents and the rotor electrical angle.
B. Torque Control strategy
The current closed-loop control is usually used in the
BLDCM, which regulates the output torque indirectly. In
a BLDCM with two-phase feeding system, for example,
if a-b phase conduct, the f
a
() and f
b
() are in the positive
and the negative flattened region of the trapezoidal wave

respectively, as the region from /6 to /2 shown in Fig.4,
where f
a
()= f
b
()=F, i
b
= i
a
, i
c
=0. So the torque is
represented in (11)
T
e
=[f
a
() f
b
()] i
a
=2Fi
a
(11)
Set T
r
as the reference torque. The reference current i
r

of closed-loop controller used to regulate the torque can
be expressed as
i
r
= T
r
/2F (12)
It is seen that the torque control of the BLDCM is
simple as that of the DC motor in the two-phase
conducting period. However in the commutation period,
due to the influence of armature inductance, the phase
current cant change suddenly and three-phase
simultaneous conduction appears. At the same time,
commutation-torque-ripple occurs due to different slopes
of current increase and decrease, which is an unexpected
ripple torque in the WTE. As a result, the indirectly
torque regulation through current closed-loop control
disagree with the demand of WTE.
The output torque of the BLDCM should track the
reference torque calculated from WT model smoothly to
implement the accurate emulation of WT. Therefore a
direct torque closed-loop controller is employed which
enhances the torque tracking performance and reduces the
torque ripple of the BLDCM by proportional-integral (PI)
control. Fig.5 shows the integrated simulation model of
BLDCM with associated driver, electromagnetic torque
calculation and torque closed-loop control.


Fig. 5. Torque closed-loop control of BLDC
IV. REAL TIME SIMULATION
According to the BLDCM feedback speed and a given
wind speed, reference torque is calculated from (6). Then
the BLDCM based WTE is constructed through the PI
torque controller that forces the output torque of BLDCM
tracking the reference torque. The scheme of the
proposed WTE is shown in Fig.6.
RT-LAB is a distributed real-time platform of which
the software part is integrated with Matlab/Simulink to
build simulation models and the hardware part equipped
with multi-core PC processors to conduct real-time
simulation of those models, relying on high performance
of parallel data processing. Comparing to the traditional
simulation of Matlab/Simulink, the RT-LAB speeds up
model execution and enhances the efficiency of
simulation. In addition, RT-LAB can be used for
hardware-in-the-loop simulation system or rapid control
prototyping for the real objects control with the D/A, A/D
modules.


Fig. 6. Torque control scheme of the proposed WTE

To validate the feasibility of the proposed method,
real-time simulation of the WTE-generator system is
carried out in RT-LAB with three CPUs. As shown in
Fig.6, the system model is divided into three parts
conducted synchronously in different CPUs. Further, the
CPUs are running at 2.5GHz and simulation step is set to
10s.
The simulation results confirm that the BLDC based
WTE can reproduce the steady-state and dynamic
characteristics of an actual WT.
A. Simulation of Steady-state characteristics
Constant wind speeds of v
1
=5m/s, v
2
=6.5m/s, v
3
=8m/s
are selected to verify the emulation validity of steady-
state characteristic with torque closed-loop controlled
BLDC under no-load condition. The simulation results
are shown in Fig.7 where the green, red, and blue curves
stand for theoretically steady-state torque-speed
characteristic of the WT under the three wind speed
condition and the symbols of *, , are
corresponding characteristic of the WTE.


Fig. 7. Simulation result of WTE under steady-state

Under the same wind speed and rotating speed, the
BLDCM torque fits well with that of the actual WT,
which can be seen from Fig.7, where the errors are
caused mainly by different sampling times. Due to the
output torque of the BLDCM is regulated by a PWM
controller, the torque ripple exists and the average torque
is different from the instantaneous torque that is just
shown in Fig.7. There are more sampling points in high
speed region, where the instantaneous torque values
fluctuate within a narrow range around the theoretical

curve and the average torque is equal to the WT torque
actually. Furthermore, with a high switch frequency (20
kHz), the torque ripple can be filtered by moment of
inertia and has no influence on the rotating speed of
WTE.
B. Dynamic performance of WTE
In the wind power generation system, the generator
torque is regulated by the control algorithm. Different
generator torque decides the efficiency of WT and the
generated power. Accordingly, the maximum power point
tracking (MPPT) is realized by the generator torque
control in the wind power generation with fixed pitch
blades. In the simulation, maximum power curve of WT
is used as the generator power-speed characteristic and
the generator torque is
5 2 2
2
( )
0.5
T opt
gen
opt
C
T R k

= =
(13)
Considering the tower shadow and the wind shear
effects, Fig.8 shows dynamic simulation results with a
step changed wind speed that causes the WT torque and
the rotating speed to change correspondingly. Finally,
with the MPPT control, the system operates at the
maximum power point with a steady-state rotating speed.
Without compensation torque, the WTE have the larger
acceleration and the faster transient process than actual
WT because of the smaller inertia of BLDCM but the
same steady-state condition as the actual WT.


(a) Wind speed curve

(b) Dynamic processes of WTE and WT

(c) Value of compensation torque
Fig. 8. Simulation results of dynamic process while wind speed changes

The compensation torque eliminates the differences of
dynamic changed speeds between the WTE and the actual
WT as shown in Fig.8 (b). Furthermore, as a result of the
same rotating speed of the two systems, the generators
obtain accordant torque and power according to (13). So
from the perspective of generator, connection with the
WTE and the actual WT are same. Fig.8 (c) shows the
compensation torque. As the wind speed increases the
compensation torque is below zero equally decreasing the
output torque and speed rising rate of WTE. And the
contrary compensation effect appears as the wind speed
descends.
Fig.9 shows the amplification of Fig.8 by expanding
the time axis from 1.9s-2.34s where the wind speed is
constantly 8m/s. The tower shadow and the wind shear
affect the rotating speed even under the constant wind
speed condition. And the fluctuant range of the WTE is
larger than that of the actual WT, which increases the
output power fluctuation of the WTE connected generator,
resulting in inaccurate emulation. By adding the
compensation torque shown in Fig.9 (b) to the controller,
the dynamic processes of the two systems become
properly accordant, which can be seen from the black and
the red curves of Fig.9 (a).


(a) Wind shear and tower shadow caused fluctuation of rotating speed

(b) Value of compensation torque
Fig. 9. Influence of wind shear and tower shadow

Fig.10 shows the simulation results of the wind speed,
rotating speed, generator power, and compensation torque
from top to bottom when the average wind speed is equal
to 8m/s and the fluctuation is 2m/s. The actual wind speed
is stochastic causing the rotating speed of WT fluctuates.
So the torque compensation should be carried through the
whole time range of emulation, as shown in Fig.10 (d), to
make the WTE reproduce the dynamic process of actual
WT and the generators output the same power which can
be seen from Fig.10 (b), (c) where the black and the red
curves stand for the WTE and the WT, respectively.


(a) Wind speed curve

(b) Rotating speed of WTE and WT

(c) Generator power

(d) Value of compensation torque
Fig. 10. Simulation result of WTE and WT with fluctuant wind speed
V. CONCLUSIONS
This paper introduces a novel WT emulator based on
the BLDCM and associated controller used to reproduce
the steady-state and dynamic behaviors of the actual WT.
The following conclusions are obtained.
(1) The electromagnetic torque of the BLDCM can be
determined by the three phase armature currents and rotor
electrical angle. Compared with the traditional current
control, the torque closed-loop control accurately
regulates the output torque of the BLDCM.
(2) To emulate the dynamic behavior of the actual WT,
differences of mechanical parameters are needed to be
considered. The compensation torque is used to reduce
the speed changing rate and without the compensation
torque, the fluctuant range of the WTE will be larger than
that of the actual WT which influences the control effect
of the WTE connected generator.
(3) The torque closed-loop controlled BLDCM
emulates the steady-state and dynamic characteristic of
the actual WT effectively. It has been considered as an
essential and efficient tool for the research and design of
the wind power generation in laboratory condition.
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