Ingeteam Wind Energy introduces firmware development methodology

Ingeteam Wind Energy has introduced a new wind controller firmware development methodology. The company says the methodology has been shown to reduce the critical on-site validation and certification phase with their qualification process, and aims to speed up the time to market and commercial production capacity of new wind farm developments whilst ensuring the level of reliability in the field. Securing the transmission capacity and interconnectivity of new wind turbines to the grid is a crucial moment during the installation of any new wind farm. This critical phase often involves up to six months of field tests to ensure that all the elements are working properly before the wind farm achieves full certification. At the heart of this process is the power converter connecting each turbine to the transmission network. The firmware program within the converter controls and ensures the correct electrical behaviour and safe operation of the electrical grid, which is why its behaviour must be rigorously tried and tested prior to installation, the company said. Ingeteam’s firmware development and validation process uses simulation models. The firmware development procedure involves an iterative qualification process. Using software-in-the-loop (SiL) and hardware-in-the-loop (HiL) validation procedures, any issues found during the validation stage are fed back into the development stage to be corrected. The SiL models allow detailed debugging down to individual breakpoints on the source code, while the HiL simulations, using real-time execution, provide full software and hardware controller integration testing. The advantage of this step is that the firmware tested is exactly the same as the firmware released to production, Ingeteam says. Ingeteam is a technology group. Written from a company news release.