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MAS DE NADA: Modeling and Advanced Software Development for Electrical Networks in Aeronautical Domain Analysis

Final Report Summary - MAS DE NADA (MAS DE NADA: Modeling and Advanced Software Development for Electrical Networks in Aeronautical Domain Analysis)

Executive Summary:
The main objective of MAS DE NADA is the development of an Electrical Network Analysis Model (ENAM) in Saber simulation environment and at behavioral modeling level, interacting with a
software tool to be implemented, in order to perform a number of analyses. Specifically, the MAS DE NADA tool interacts with the ENAM Saber model in order to perform analyses of power quality,
stability and failure mode of different configurations for the Electrical Test Bench (ETB). The complexity of the Saber ENAM model is completely transparent to the MAS DE NADA tool user,
that uses an intuitive GUI in order to perform the different analyses. Hence the project is based on the following keypoints: 1) a detailed Saber model for the ENAM has been implemented in order to perform short transient analyses. In addition to the Saber models delivered by the equipment supplier, some other has been delivered and integrated into a global ENAM architecture, in conjunction with the available supplier models. The ENAM arranged schematic has been tested in order to evidence its performances and absence of destructive phenomena (e.g. overcurrents, overvoltages) on the correspondent ENAM, configured as a virtual representation of the Copper Bird electrical test bench.
2) an user-friendly software has been implemented in order to interface with the Saber ENAM model and perform the required tests. The software has been implemented as standalone, however requiring
the presence of both the Saber schemes and a full Saber package installed on the target machine, but hiding to the user the complexity of the Saber environment. The MAS DE NADA software uses
specific AIM language scripts for implementing the post-processing functionalities (i.e. power quality, fault tree analysis, industrial stability analysis)
Project Context and Objectives:
WP1 (Analysis) phase has been devoted to the MAS DE NADA tool analysis and to the modeling task of missing ENAM models. First the requirements elicitation phase has been performed, defining
the functionalities of the software and the capabilities of the software to correctly process the ENAM model. A study has been performed in order to investigate the SABER simulation processes, referring to the AIM language, that SABER uses for interacting with the models, in order to reproduce it on the MAS DE NADA tool. Moreover, a theoretical study of the ENAM architecture has been done, for better comprehension of the models of the ENAM. A literature mathematical model, close to the one received, has been studied for each ENAM equipment. In WP 2 (Development), the software requirements have been translated into a software architecture, through a devoted design phase. A task required the software life-cycle typical activities, starting from detailed analysis of the requirements elicited. At the end of design phase, the implementation of the software has been performed, requiring coding and integration activities. In order to facilitate the software usage, a simple and highly user-friendly GUI has been developed. Activities have been performed in order to correctly interface the MAS DE NADA software with the SABER routines used to launch simulation and process results. Moreover, the power quality criteria derived in parallel WP3 task have been translated in algorithms, to be implemented as scripts in the target language (i.e. AIM language), in order to process the results obtained by launching a Saber simulation on the ENAM from the MAS DE NADA tool. Finally, the missing ENAM models (i.e. the I-PRIMES modules) have been implemented and integrated into ENAM Saber architecture. WP 3 (Verification and validation) activities have focused on the testing phase process, for ENAM model and developed software. Preliminarily, it has been necessary to perform a task for derivation of theoretical methods, for each one of the specified tests (i.e. power quality, stability and fault tree analysis). Available standards and previous similar works have been considered at the purpose. About stability tests formulation, the industrial standards have been analyzed in order to retrieve some key figuresadopted for stability assessment. About failure mode analysis, Fault Tree Analysis theory has been analyzed. Successively, the fault tree for the electrical architecture has been derived, based on the failure rates of the base components. Note that a reference architecture has been considered, due to unavailability of failure rates for actual CopperBird equipment. Finally, about power quality, some short-transient analyses key indicators have been considered, specifically: THD,
Power Factor, DC network ripple and waveforms after switching. Theoretical basis have been analyzed in this task, to be provided as input for WP2 activities, already discussed above. At a later stage of WP3, power quality, stability, and failure mode tests have been performed on the ENAM integrated model. Specifically, the tests have been performed by using MAS DE NADA tool, and it has to be highlighted that the "stability" tests have been considered as indicator of a successful integration of the ENAM architecture, therefore validating such activity. Instead, the validation of the MAS DE NADA tool itself has been performed with software testing methods, act to verify any potential bug in the software code, while the power quality and failure mode tests can be considered instead just as “verification” test of the MAS DE NADA tool. A final WP 4 (Optimization) has been focused on the analysis of the feedbacks collected during the test phases. In details, additional software functionalities have been included in an optimization process (i.e. the generic fault tree creation tool), trying to accommodate final user necessities.
Project Results:
It can be possible to summarize the results of the MAS DE NADA project as follows:
- implementation of a new software devoted to perform specific tests for aeronautical testbench, in a compact and standalone way
- definition of rigorous criteria for power quality, network stability, failure mode characteristics and system reliability, to be assumed as reference for aeronautical electrical networks
- development of a SABER model of the ENAM, by composing the different models provided by the equipment suppliers, also interacting with ad-hoc implemented models
Potential Impact:
MAS DE NADA software has been developed keeping in mind that a software interacting with aeronautical electrical network models developed in SABER was not available at the beginning of the project. Therefore, a main idea of MAS DE NADA tool was offering a compact way for a complete testing of an aeronautical electrical architecture, furthermore not limited to the network received as a project input. In fact, the software has been implemented for offering to the user the possibility of result post-processing after a simulation, by simply specifying the interest variables to be monitored (e.g. for power quality) and some additional custom parameter, as well as the modification of the electrical architecture, if the results were not convincing. Therefore, the MAS DE NADA project has impact for offering a complete reference in such topic. In order to implement the depicted post-processing capabilities, the software embeds devoted functions, both in order to access to the SABER schematics and to verify the theoretical criteria. For this last purpose, it was necessary also to implement such functions in AIM language. From the study carried out on this point, an impact is foreseen in terms of an increased SABER schematics degree of openness.
In fact, usually SABER schematics are not easily suitable for interaction with external domains, limiting such possibilities to co-simulation with an external environment (e.g. Matlab), differently from some different open source modeling environment (e.g. Modelica-based). However, also co-simulation is a fragile approach, moreover requiring modifications to the schematic to be processed. As a consequence, the AIM language usage for interaction between the MAS DE NADA software and SABER, could become a reference for similar projects or activities where it will be necessary a deep interaction with the SABER processes.
List of Websites:
http://research.diii.unina2.it/acl/projects.html