New OP5600 Hardware Chassis Now Available for OPAL-RT Real-Time Digital Simulator Systems

Open, flexible design makes the OP5600 Simulator Chassis easily scalable and customizable to meet specific I/O requirements

OPAL-RT Technologies Inc. (www.OPAL-RT.com) today announced the launch of an advanced hardware chassis for the company’s complete line of Real-Time Digital Simulators and Hardware-in-the-Loop testing equipment. The OP5600 Chassis adds advanced monitoring capabilities and scalable I/O and processor power to OPAL-RT's line of Real-Time Digital Simulator systems including eMEGAsim, eDRIVEsim and eFLYsim, enable a number of Real-Time Simulation applications to be performed, including Hardware-in-the-Loop (HIL) testing, rapid control prototyping and FPGA development projects.

Built using lower cost, high availability Commercial-off-the-Shelf (COTS) components, the OP5600's modular and flexible design can be fully customized to meet specific I/O requirements and can be easily expanded as needed.

“The OPAL-RT approach has always been to develop open, easily customizable simulator products that can be expanded as the engineer’s needs expand,” said Jean Belanger, CEO and Co-founder of OPAL-RT Technologies. “The introduction of the OP5600 Simulator Chassis adds increased flexibility to our entire line of simulator products. This makes it much easier for the engineer to perform high-fidelity Real-Time Simulation and HIL testing of today’s increasingly complex electrical and power electronic systems using greater numbers of I/O than ever before.”

A growing number of power electronic system manufacturers are migrating to OPAL-RT Real-Time Digital Simulators from expensive analog test benches that lack OPAL-RT’s flexibility and scalability. By using OPAL-RT simulators equipped with the OP5600 chassis, manufacturers developing complex power grids, microgrids, wind farms, hybrid vehicles, more electrical aircrafts, electrical ships and other power electronic applications can perform Real-Time Simulation with time steps as low as 10 microseconds. In fact, by using OPAL-RT’s advanced FPGA-based simulator architecture, some subsystems can be simulated with a time step of less than 250 nanoseconds, achieving the highest accuracy available today.

The OP5600 Chassis consists of an upper section which contains I/O signal conditioning modules and a bottom section which contains the multi-core processor computer which hosts the software elements found in OPAL-RT's Real-Time Simulator systems including RT-LAB, OPAL-RT's Real-Time Simulation software platform.

As part of an eDRIVEsim, eFLYsim or eMEGAsim system, the OP5600 can be used either as a desktop system, or rack-mounted as part of a network of OPAL-RT Simulators communicating through high-speed PCI-E links.

The target computer included in the OP5600 Chassis consists of the following COTS components:

·        ATX motherboard, with up to 12 processor cores

·        6 DRAM connectors

·        250 GB hard disk

·        600 Watt power supply

·        PCIe boards (up to 8 slots, depending on the configuration)

Monitoring interfaces and monitoring connectors are accessed through the front of the OP5600 Chassis, while access to FPGA monitoring connections, all I/O connectors, power cables and the main power switch are accessible on the back of the OP5600. The OP5600's design also includes an option to connect up to 16 single-ended signals on Mini-BNC connectors, making it easy to monitor signals using an oscilloscope.

The OP5600 also has two FPGA options for I/O management:

·        A Xilinx ML605 development board, which is based on the Virtex-6 processor, is used for floating-point models and projects requiring the use of large amounts of on-board memory.

·        OPAL-RT's OP5142 User-configurable FPGA-based I/O Board is based on the Xilinx Spartan-3, and is ideal for fixed-point models using no on-board memory.

The OP5600 Chassis is now available and standard on OPAL-RT eMEGAsim, eDRIVEsim and eFLYsim Real-Time Simulators.  For more information, visit www.OPAL-RT.com

About OPAL-RT Technologies

Founded in 1997, OPAL-RT is the leading developer of open Real-Time Digital Simulators and hardware-in-the-loop testing systems for electrical, power electronic and electro-mechanical systems. OPAL-RT's unique approach integrates parallel, distributed computing with commercial-off-the-shelf technologies. OPAL-RT's customers perform Rapid Control Prototyping, System Integration, and Hardware-in-the-Loop testing of electric drives, electronic controllers and power distribution networks used in manufacturing, electric train networks, and by electrical utilities. Companies using OPAL-RT Simulators include ABB, BHEL, Denso, GE, Hitachi, Mitsubishi Electric, GM and Toyota.

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