Aurora interface implementation
for Power HIL applications

NOVELIC has developed an implementation of the Aurora protocol in Power-Hardware-in-the-Loop (PHIL) applications to connect power amplifiers, HILs and high precision/high bandwidth measurement equipment in a real-time data exchange setup.

Why Aurora

It is a robust and versatile high-speed serial communication standard that allows efficient communication with a wide range of embedded systems where high bandwidth and low latency are essential. The use of flexible channel configurations makes this protocol the ideal choice for complex simulation setups such as Power-Hardware-in-the-Loop (PHIL). The key benefits are:

The challenges

To achieve interoperability within the PHIL, the following challenges are addressed:

Time Synchronization

Implemented and validated flexible synchronization schemes to support both master-slave and asynchronous clock domains, ensuring accurate data alignment across systems

Jitter Management

Analyzed jitter and applied reliable solutions to keep signals aligned and stable at different data rates.

Custom Aurora Protocol Implementation

Developed tailored Aurora-based communication frameworks for easy data exchange between HIL platforms and amplifier control boards, including:

• Embedding setpoint, measurement, and control data within Aurora frames
• Custom definition of protocol headers and footers for frame parsing and validation
• Designing and integrating Quality of Service (QoS) modules (to ensure stable and predictable data transfer under varying conditions)
• FPGA-Based Amplifier Emulator for Aurora Testing: Our engineers have developed a compact amplifier emulator enabling early-stage testing of Aurora communication and protocol without the need for physical hardware. With this approach, development is accelerated, and costs are reduced.

The solution

With its valuable knowledge and hands-on experience, the NOVELIC team successfully integrated the Aurora 8B/10B protocol (up to 5 Gbps) and the Aurora 64B/66B protocol (up to 10 Gbps) across various FPGA platforms. This enabled robust communication architectures tailored for PHIL systems with different HIL manufacturers. Using the vast expertise our team ensured optimal use of FPGA resources, low-latency signal processing, and reliable data exchange, which are critical for real-time control and measurement in power electronic testing and simulation environments.

Enhanced PHIL Simulation Control Through Intuitive GUIs and Schematic Modeling

Involving both GUI and PHIL experts, our team has developed intuitive Graphical User Interfaces (GUIs) and schematic models for real-time simulation control. This way the simulation process becomes more user-friendly and transparent, allowing easier interaction, monitoring, and adjustment of system parameters.

Delivering High-Speed Communication Excellence for PHIL Systems

In PHIL applications, we effectively combined Aurora with other high-speed interfaces such as Ethernet, PCIe, CAN, LVDS, or custom parallel interfaces to create flexible, reliable, high-performance real-time systems.