Modeling and Testing of Protection Devices for SPS using MATLAB/Simulink and VTB

For both terrestrial and shipboard power systems (SPS), a protection system is essential to minimize the effects of faults in the system. SPS present challenges, such as increased fault vulnerability and lack of electrical ground in the system. For this reason, protection devices such as digital relays have to be designed such that the whole SPS protection system ensures the reliability and survivability of the electric ship. The development of elaborate digital protection devices requires appropriate tools for modeling, simulation, and testing. This paper explores the application of two software tools in protective relay modeling, simulation and testing. The first software tool is MATLAB/simulink and the second is the virtual test bed (VTB). An instantaneous overcurrent relay model has been developed using both software tools. To test this model, a transmission line protection application has been developed. In MATLAB/simulink, the proposed overcurrent relay model has been tested for fault conditions applied on a simple power system. The same test is replicated in VTB. Future work includes the implementation of the proposed overcurrent relay model on a hardware platform (dSPACE controller board) to perform hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) testing using a real-time simulation platform, such as the real-time extension of VTB, VTB-RT.