Implementation of voltage control of buck converter using Beckhoff programmable logic controller

Abstract

The subject of this paper is design, testing and implementation of voltage control of buck power electronics converter using
programmable logic controller (PLC) which is based on Beckhoff technology. The proposed control structure is first modelled in the
Matlab/Simulink software environment. The built Simulink model is then integrated and transferred to the TwinCAT 3 software which
converts personal computer (PC)/laptop into the real-time PLC. This paper proposes an experimental platform consisting of the
following components: laptop computer used as the PLC, Beckhoff input/output (I/O) interface, power electronics converter with gate
driver module, and electronic modules for measuring and adjusting the signals between the converter and the Beckhoff PLC. In this
paper, the control is implemented on the example of the buck converter. However, the proposed modular experimental platform can
be used for any type of the converter. Thanks to the integration of the Matlab/Simulink and TwinCAT 3 software environments and
the modularity of the platform, the proposed experimental platform is suitable for rapid prototyping of different control structures of
power electronics converters, which is especially useful for educational and research purposes. The given experimental results validate
excellent performances of the proposed platform.