In order to improve the real-time simulation efficiency of electromagnetic transient characteristics of distribution network faults

and avoid complex field-programmable gate array（FPGA） programming

an automatic real-time electromagnetic transient simulator based on FPGA was studied. First

the comprehensive modified augmented nodal analysis（MANA） method and the fixed admittance matrix nodal method（FAMNM） were used to build up a solver. Then an efficient sparse matrix-vector multiplier was established based on the optimal selection of the switching conductance parameters. Finally

the electromagnetic transient characteristics of the single-phase-to-ground fault were tested in the three-phase distribution network to verify the performance of the simulator. The results show that the special structure of MANA-FAMNM can achieve extremely low integration time step and avoid redesigning the FPGA code

and the applications program can be used directly in different topologies. The simulator can realize accurate reproduction of the electromagnetic transient characteristics occurring in the distribution network fault and the electromagnetic waves propagating in the transmission line in real time. The maximum error between the phase-phase voltage of the FPGA-RTS simulation and the software EMTP-RV off-line simulation is about 0.006 pu which fully meet the requirements of engineering applications. The simulator can be extended to industrial real-time embedded systems.