PLECS is a tool for system-level simulations of power electronic circuits, motor drives, and other electrical systems. Its main strength is its extreme simulation speed, which is significantly faster than general-purpose SPICE simulators. It achieves this by using a piecewise-linear (PWL) modeling approach for the electrical components.
PLECS comes in two primary forms:
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PLECS Standalone: A full, independent application.
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PLECS Blockset: An extension (blockset) that runs inside the MATLAB®/Simulink® environment.
Key Features of PLECS (including version 4.9.5)
While the exact feature set can depend on your license (e.g., PLECS Standalone, PLECS Coder), version 4.9.5 would have included the following core capabilities:
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Fast Circuit Simulation: The hallmark of PLECS. It simulates switched networks very efficiently, making it ideal for complex power converters and long-duration transients.
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Thermal Modeling: You could define loss characteristics for semiconductors and simulate the thermal behavior of your system, including heatsinks and cooling, alongside the electrical simulation.
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Magnetic Component Modeling: A dedicated library for modeling transformers and inductors, including core saturation, hysteresis, and eddy current losses.
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Control System Design: A comprehensive library for building sophisticated control loops using transfer functions, PID controllers, filters, and logic.
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PLECS Coder: The ability to generate fast C-code from your PLECS model for Hardware-in-the-Loop (HIL) testing or to create a real-time simulation.
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3-Phase Components: Built-in libraries for three-phase machines (like PMSM, Induction Motors), grids, and converters.
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Comprehensive Component Library: Diodes, MOSFETs, IGBTs, thyristors, ideal switches, resistors, capacitors, inductors, voltage and current sources, sensors, etc.
