New Non-contact CAN Sensors SP7001/SP7002: A Milestone for Automotive Testing

Posted on December 11, 2019December 11, 2019 by MDL Technologies

The new Non-Contact CAN Sensors SP7001/7002 are scheduled for release in December 2019.

Building upon the concept of the SP3000 Non-Contact Voltage Sensor , the new SP7001/7002 are specifically engineered to safely detect CAN-bus signals.

1. Detect in-vehicle CAN FD (CAN flexible data-rate) and CAN frame signals from above the wiring insulation

The new Non-Contact CAN Sensors let you detect the electrical signals in a CAN frame without any metallic contact simply by hooking the sensor onto a CAN bus cable. The SP7001 supports the CAN FD protocol, and the SP7002 is compatible only with networks following the CAN protocol. In the development and verification of CAN systems, engineers typically need to peel off part of the wiring insulation to directly probe or clip the metal wiring, or attach a sub-harness to the cables in order to capture the signal actually flowing through the cables. The issues with these methods are clear:

Extra time is needed to enable direct probing or attach a sub-harness
Compromised cables need to be replaced
The electrical characteristics of the CAN bus can be affected with direct probing, which may in turn affect the operation of the ECU. Some ECUs may shut down by design due to unexpected signals.

Because the SP7001/SP7002 can detect signals from outside the cable insulation, users can significantly reduce R&D and validation times and avoid the above other issues as well.

2. Ideal for public road testing

Vehicles need to be field tested on actual roads before going to market. Real road conditions make it difficult to stabilize alligator clips onto the CAN cables, making the SP7001/SP7002 ideal for this type of testing. By simply hooking the sensor onto the cable, no additional modifications to the car is required. The SP7001’s support for CAN FD lets researchers efficiently test and develop next generation vehicles with larger payloads per transmission.

3. Compatibility with a diverse range of CAN interfaces

The CAN sensors can be connected to the industry-standard D-sub 9pin interface, letting customers use the products with their existing CAN FD/CAN analysis systems from the get-go.

Electronic loads from MDL offer advanced, economical power supply testing

Posted on July 13, 2017July 25, 2017 by cherise

Electronic loads from MDL offer advanced, economical power supply testing

The new 63200E series high power DC electronic loads from Chroma enable simple and economical testing of a wide range of power supplies, on-board chargers, batteries and other power electronics components. Available from MDL Technologies, the programmable loads offer market leading accuracies of up to 0.02% + 0.02% FS for voltage and 0.1% + 0.1% FS for current.

The range has three operating voltage options of 150 V, 600 V and 1200 V, with models covering power ratings from 2 kW to 24 kW and up to 2000 A in a single unit. When greater power is required up to 20 units can be linked together in parallel in a master/slave configuration to produce a total power of 480 kW.

Among the features included are CC, CR, CV and CP modes, high speed programmable dynamic loading, short circuit simulation and smart fan control.

The Chroma 63200E high power DC electronic loads from MDL offer economical testing of a wide range of power supplies, batteries and other power electronics components.

“These compact models save space in the laboratory and other test environments, and offer an ultra high power density of 6 kW in a 4U chassis,” said MDL managing director Mark Lucock.

Applications include high power EV battery discharge testing, charger stations, fuel cells, AC/DC power supplies, on-board chargers and burn-in testing.

Also available from MDL is the even more powerful Chroma 63200A series, which includes functions such as dynamic synchronous control to allow the generation of complex multi-channel transient profiles.

They also accept digital data from DAQ cards or analogue data from function generators to allow user defined waveforms to be created.

Power Electronic – Hardware-in-the-Loop Emulators available at MDL

Posted on April 5, 2016April 4, 2017 by Philip Bailey

HIL402

Typhoon HIL are market and technology leaders in the rapidly growing field of ultra-high-fidelity controller-hardware-in-the-loop (cHIL) instruments for power electronics, automotive powertrains, microgrids and electricity distribution networks.

The first innovative product is the new Typhoon HIL402 , a notebook sized HIL emulator offering ultra-high fidelity real-time simulation. It allows engineers to design, test and verify controllers and control systems for applications such as smart inverters for solar and wind power, micro-grids and battery storage systems as well as hybrid and fully electric automotive powertrains.

The HIL402 is designed to simplify work in all stages of the control development, from prototyping, through verification, all the way to fine-tuning of the production-ready controller.

With a 1 µs real-time simulation time step, 20 ns pulse width modulation (PWM) 47846_01 LR sampling time and ultra-low latency, offering 16 Analogue and 32 Digital inputs and outputs this HIL instrument sets the industry standard for real-time emulation of power electronics systems.

Its streamlined test suite allows one click operation of complex testing scenarios, and simulations can run accurately for days, weeks or months thanks to the sophisticated hardware platform and advanced numerical algorithms. The integrated oscilloscope function captures the 16 analogue and 32 digital channels with a 32 Mpts record length and the 1 MHz sample rate.

The HIL402 also comes with a new signal processing toolbox which has a comprehensive library of signal processing components that can be seamlessly integrated with electrical domain elements.

The Typhoon hardware-in-the-loop system is also useful in educational establishments since educators and researchers in the power electronics field can use it to perform research at a fraction of the cost of traditional power electronics laboratories, while giving their students industry relevant
hands-on experience in a completely safe teaching environment.

High speed interconnection
HIL402
Also available is the more powerful Typhoon HIL602 using a six-core processor for real time emulation. This ultra-high fidelity HIL simulator is an ideal tool for the development, testing, optimisation and quality assurance of grid connected converters such as solar and wind power generation, as well as automotive converters, electric propulsion drives, micro-grids and industry automation.

HIL602 units can be connected into one large, unified, super-HIL emulator using the lightning-fast 5 Gb/s real-time communication link. With a few cables, HIL602 emulators are transformed from a portable standalone HILs into a full blown HIL cluster emulator.

It is easy to simulate large power electronics systems, from micro-grids to parallel converter, maintaining the 1 µs simulation time step, 20 ns PWM resolution and the signature ultra-high fidelity.

For those not particularly familiar with the field, Typhoon HIL have started to run introductory webinars on HIL testing in power electronics. They take place on the first Thursday of every month.

New handheld digital RTH Scope Rider from Rohde and Schwarz available at MDL Technologies

Posted on February 3, 2016April 4, 2017 by Philip Bailey

The new RTH Scope Rider from Rohde & Schwarz is a portable digital oscilloscope with the capabilities of a laboratory instrument. Available from MDL Technologies, it has an acquisition rate of 50 000 waveforms per second, a 10 bit A/D converter and a maximum bandwidth of 500 MHz for the analogue input channels.

Effectively five instruments in one, it combines a laboratory performance oscilloscope, a logic analyser with eight additional digital channels, a protocol analyser with trigger and decoding capability, a data logger and a digital multimeter.

The rugged, 2.4 kg unit has a large?format capacitive touchscreen that allows it to be operated as intuitively as a tablet PC. Large buttons make it simple to use with gloved hands and a multifunction wheel allows easy parameter selection.

IP51 protection is provided from environmental hazards such as dust and dripping water, and the unit has passed all mechanical load tests in line with military standards. 47846_01 LR

The fully isolated instrument provides more than four hours of battery runtime and meets the safety requirements of IEC 61010-1 for CAT IV up to 600V and for CAT III up to 1000V.

The Scope Rider will be invaluable for testing equipment in a wide range of industries, including automotive, aerospace, defence, energy, industrial automation, medical instrumentation and power electronics.

As well as a microSD card, it houses USB and Ethernet ports and an integrated WLAN interface, enabling it to be remotely controlled by a smartphone, tablet PC or laptop.

MDL stocks the units as a Value Instruments Partner of Rohde & Schwarz, and there are two special offers running until 30 June 2016. For purchasers of the two channel Scope Rider there is a free extended accessory field package comprising a wireless LAN, web interface remote control, hard shell protective carrying case, car adapter, battery charger and extended accessory set.

With purchase of the four channel model, a free lab application package consists of units for mixed signal analysis, I2C/SPI serial triggering and decoding, UART/RS-232 serial triggering and decoding, and advanced triggering.