A new approach for teaching power electronics converter experiments

This paper presents a new methodological approach to teaching power electronics converter experiments. This approach is based on a reconfigurable hardware-software platform for use in converter experiments in a basic power electronics course. This course is an optional subject, and, therefore, the experiments need to motivate the students. The platform is controlled by software (made in a LabVIEW environment) run on a PC. The student can control the fundamental parameters of the selected converter topology through the user interface and, with a little work, can compare the results with a real circuit. An example of use of the methodology in an inverter experiment is included.