This study presents an interface method (IM) to interconnect real-time simulators (RTSs) without amplifiers for different intelligent electronic devices (IEDs), such as protective relays, smart meters, and other devices. It is a significant topic for the power systems protection community because there are many protection devices with different requirements. These protection devices have pinouts that measure bus voltages/currents and breaker pole states and generate trip/close pulse signals. Most of the emulation test beds with RTSs and HIL need amplifiers to connect IEDs from different product manufacturers because the low-voltage interface levels are not available in some instruction manuals. Additionally, commercial amplifiers have cutoff frequency limitations and have an excessive cost when several IEDs are wired onto test beds. Then, the validation of protection and control systems with RTSs and IEDs in the loop from different vendors without amplifiers results in an unfeasible alternative. In this paper, the IM was based on using an interface box, power source, and RTS to identify IED inputs/outputs. The sequence to recognize IED pinouts and calculate the current/voltage scaling factors is described. The IM was validated satisfactorily with RTS and a protection device (with unknown pinouts) in the loop.

本研究提出了一种接口方法 (IM)，可以在没有放大器的情况下为不同的智能电子设备 (IED) 互连实时模拟器 (RTS)，例如保护继电器、智能电表和其他设备。这是电力系统保护界的一个重要话题，因为有许多具有不同要求的保护装置。这些保护设备具有测量总线电压/电流和断路器极状态并生成跳闸/合闸脉冲信号的引脚排列。大多数带有 RTS 和 HIL 的仿真测试台都需要放大器来连接不同产品制造商的 IED，因为某些说明手册中没有提供低电压接口电平。此外，当多个 IED 连接到测试台上时，商用放大器具有截止频率限制并且成本过高。然后，来自不同供应商的没有放大器的回路中带有 RTS 和 IED 的保护和控制系统的验证导致了不可行的替代方案。在本文中，IM 基于使用接口盒、电源和 RTS 来识别 IED 输入/输出。描述了识别 IED 引脚和计算电流/电压比例因子的顺序。IM 已通过 RTS 和回路中的保护设备（具有未知引脚）得到令人满意的验证。