Phasor Measurement Unit Development Toolkit Including PC Based Polyphase Signal Generator

Understanding of Phasor Measurement Unit (PMU) technology is enhanced when the student or researcher has detailed access to the signal and data flows within the instrument. In this paper, the authors discuss how the OpenPMU system can be used as a toolkit to provide such access to PMU data flows, enabling signals to be extracted, interpreted, analyzed and visualized at each stage of PMU signal processing. This toolkit is enhanced by the introduction of the authors’ affordable PC based polyphase signal generator, which allows researchers to inject physical signals into PMUs. This widens opportunities for use of the toolkit amongst teaching and research applications were expensive professional signal generators would not be available. The signal generator concept, implementation and method of operation are discussed and it is evaluated for its performance.