A real-time digital twin approach on three-phase power converters applied to condition monitoring

This paper describes a methodology based on the digital-twin concept applied to the condition monitoring of three-phase power electronics converters. The proposed solution does not need additional hardware circuits or sensor calibration. The digital replica acts as a permanent watchdog, working in parallel with the converter control system and providing in real-time the signals to be monitored. An application for a Three Leg Neutral Point Clamped (3L-NPC) converter is demonstrated including theoretical analysis for the digital model, practical considerations about the real-time execution of the virtual representation, and experimental verification. The combination of two optimization algorithms (Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) and a genetic algorithm (GA)) working in series is employed to estimate the circuit parameters of interest, specifically the degradation of the output LC filter. The results shown in this paper serve as a first step for attaining a low-cost and robust parallel digital-twin model as a basis for its application to the concepts of monitoring and reliability. •Power electronics provide an excellent solution due to their energy efficiency conversion.•A real-time Digital Twin system is proposed as a condition monitoring solution.•The parameters estimation is performed through a combination of optimization algorithms.•The whole system has been validated in simulation and on a real converter.