OPAL-RT TECHNOLOGIES: Designing the Perfect Control Strategy

'Putting the power of industrial simulation on your desk’— OPAL-RT’s vision—is the answer to the unprecedented challenge that the technology industry has faced with simulation-based technologies for decades. Requiring exceptional processing power to design high-end systems using real-time simulation, the technology has been limited to large organizations that can afford the highly expensive, analog simulator or custom super computer to run simulations. That is precisely where OPAL-RT has carved its niche and has shown industries a new approach. “When we founded OPAL-RT two decades ago, I had one simple vision in mind. I decided to make sure that real-time simulation and its unlimited potential will be available to all organizations, engineers, and even students,”remarks Jean Belanger, CEO and CTO, OPAL-RT. Based in Montréal, the firm excels in delivering high-quality, affordable real-time digital simulation software solutions and hardware devices, and in designing control strategies for complex power electronics systems and smart grids for businesses of all sizes.

OPAL-RT’s unique value to the market stems from its skill in designing both mathematical simulation solvers and hardware. Since its inception, the firm’s mission has been to design simulators that could run seamlessly on standard PCs and deliver the same quality performance –or better– than the expensive, custom computer-based simulation solutions. This approach ultimately differentiated it from its industry peers. OPAL-RT also designs high-performance FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Arrays) boards and mathematical solvers to accurately simulate power electronics systems that enable testing and design of the fast control systems used in electric hybrid cars, more electric aircrafts, and micro-grids. Also, the simulators exhibit time step performance in the range of a few nanoseconds or microseconds, in contrast to the traditional systems that could only provide time steps of several hundred microseconds. The simulations based on OPAL-RT’s hardware devices thus greatly reduce the need for high-tech laboratories and extra expenditures for customers, while delivering much greater accuracy and flexibility than conventional systems.