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Powersim Unveils New Power Electronics Simulator

July 10, 2020 by Alessandro Mascellino

Powersim, a firm developing simulation and design tools for power electronics just released DSIM, the latest addition to the company’s portfolio.

The new dedicated tool employs a novel approach to simulate power electronics and offers extremely fast simulation speeds. DSIM was specifically developed by Powersim to simulate microgrids and megawatt-level power converter systems.

PowerSim Unveils New Power Electronics Simulator Fig1
Image used courtesy of Powersim.

 

The DSIM Simulation Tool 

A microgrid is essentially a localized group of electricity sources, including power converters and generators, working together in a system. The systems often comprise several devices, making software simulations of microgrids a power and time-consuming operation.

The new DSIM tool from Powersim is developed to tackle this issue and optimize software resources to deliver extremely performant simulation times.

According to Powersim, the DSIM software is able to simultaneously simulate up to thousands of switches and fast switching (MHz) speeds.

DSIM would also be optimized to run on a regular personal computer as opposed to traditional simulation software requiring dedicated machines. Additionally, the DSIM software supports bi-directional switches, which should be used for operations such as switching in load or creating faults.

The new simulator software will be available in three versions featuring different switches limitations: 15 in the Lite version, 50 in the Pro, and unlimited for thousands of switches in the Enterprise.

 

PowerSim Unveils New Power Electronics Simulator Fig2
Image taken from a Powersim video. Image courtesy of Powersim. 

 

Improving Power Electronics Simulation

From a hardware standpoint, the software simulation of individual electronics components is now easily performed by most simulators in a relatively short time.

Having to simulate multiple components simultaneously, however, typically increases the simulation time from a few seconds to hours or days. To reduce these lengthy times, some models deploy techniques of abstraction of complexity and simplification of models, thus provoking a loss of fidelity in the results.

Alternatively (and to retain maximum fidelity), electronics firms have simulated these large systems by deploying real-time hardware simulation solutions, which are often both expensive and complex.

The new DSIM simulator now tries to solve the two series of issues above by optimizing simulation resources to allow more accurate models to be used while also simulating faster than traditional simplified models (in near “real-time” speed).

 

Leading the Simulation Industry

DSIM may be the spearhead of Powersim’s electronics simulation tools portfolio, but the company counts many products under its umbrella.

From PSIM Modules to solutions like SmartCtl Pro, DSP Hardware, and PE-Expert Hardware, Powersim offers design tools for power electronics research and product development for a variety of components.

These include power supplies, motor drives, and power conversion and control systems.

Powersim was founded in 1994 and has since then evolved from a simple power electronics simulator to a powerful simulation platform offering comprehensive simulation and design capabilities for multiple applications.