The Engineering Of A Common Test Platform For Power Modules

The rail transport in China, especially the high-speed rail transportation, has been developing rapidly in response to people’s increasing demand, which leads to a great progress of railway electrification as well as, more importantly, of core power panel. The proper running of railway smart power panel guarantees a secure and stable rail transport on schedule because they could deliver efficient power supply for the railway electrification, to which the operation of power panel module, the core component of railway smart power panel therefore is the key. Power module produces a wide range of power outputs which are sent to the railway network.In accordance with rules and regulations of The Ministry of Railways, power panel module must be inspected every six months and the substitute requires real-time inspection in troubleshooting. The inspection including checks on instructions and connection to power lines used to be complicated and hazardous and it is consequently essential and important to develop a safe, efficient and easy-to-use platform for testing power panel module. The thesis explicates the work on a common platform as such.The thesis starts with the research background, landscape and revelation, followed by detailed information on tested power panel module, such as design principles, classification and interface types, etc. Then the test platform is specified in terms of hardware, software and as a whole and the debugging conducted as well. In the last part the thesis details the optimization for the test platform based on a field testing and user proposals.The thesis focuses on hardware and software design for the test platform. Hardware consists of test cabinet - the core design - and load bank. With modularization as the design philosophy, test cabinet contains voltage-regulating system, smart connection and output monitoring system, control system, management system and communication unit, etc. The communication unit adopts serial ports and leverages modified factory control MODBUS Communication Protocol. Primarily applied to management system of the test platform taking advantage of software system used for embedded WINCE6.0 by Microsoft VS2005 development platform, software includes interface thread and worker thread with a hierarchy of classes and functions for software development.The test platform is tested and proven to be secure, stable and industry leading with broad applications to meet initial design requirements.