Inter-Rack Communication Card (IRC)

The InterRack Communication Card (IRC) manages communication between racks of RTDS Simulation hardware.

The IRC permits direct communications between the rack in which it is installed and up to six other racks. In a multi-rack simulation, equations representing different portions of the power system can be solved in parallel on the individual racks and the required data exchanged between them via the IRC communication channels. Thus, an RTDS Simulator comprised of many racks is able to simulate large power systems and still maintain real time operation.

The IRC utilizes shielded twisted pairs of conductors as the interconnection media to perform fast (660 Mbaud, full duplex) serial communication. IRC communication channels are dedicated and are not to be confused with Ethernet communications between the host workstation and the Simulator.