FCS-MPC for four-switch three-phase AC-DC converters with DC-link capacitor voltage balancing

Due to the decrease in the number of switches for the four-switch three-phase alternating current-direct current(FSTP AC-DC)converter,it can easily lead to DC-link capacitor voltage imbalance and the system stability reduction.In order to solve these problems,a finite control set model predictive control(FCS-MPC)for FSTP AC-DC converters with DC-link capacitor voltage balancing is proposed.In this strategy,in order to facilitate calculation,theαβcoordinate system model is established and all voltage vectors are evaluated by establishing a cost function.During the whole process,phase locked loop(PLL)and complex modulation strategy are not required.In the new established cost function,the additional objective term of suppressing capacitor voltage fluctuation is to eliminate effectively the capacitor voltages oscillations and deviations and improve the system reliability.The simulation results show that the proposed strategy can keep the capacitor voltage balancing and has good dynamic and static performance.

Sliding mode control of three-phase AC/DC converters using exponential rate reaching law

Sliding mode control(SMC) becomes a common tool in designing robust nonlinear control systems, due to its inherent characteristics such as insensitivity to system uncertainties and fast dynamic response.Two modes are involved in the SMC operation, namely reaching mode and sliding mode.In the reaching mode, the system state is forced to reach the sliding surface in a finite time.The major drawback of the SMC approach is the occurrence of chattering in the sliding mode, which is undesirable in most applications.Generally, the trade-off between chattering reduction and fast reaching time must be considered in the conventional SMC design.This paper proposes SMC design with a novel reaching law called the exponential rate reaching law(ERRL) to reduce chattering, and the control structure of the converter is designed based on the multiinput SMC that is applied to a three-phase AC/DC power converter.The simulation and experimental results show the effectiveness of the proposed technique.

Vector Control of Three-Phase Solar Farm Converters Based on Fictive-Axis Emulation

In this paper,a new method for adjusting the current of three-phase voltage source DC-AC converter in orthogonal(DQ)reference frame is presented.In the DQ reference system,AC variable appears in the constant form of DC,making the controller design the same as the DC-DC converter[1].It provides controllable gain benefits at the steady-state operating point,and finally realizes zero steady-state error[2].In addition,the creative analytical model is dedicated to building up a series of virtual quantities orthogonal to the actual single-phase system.In general,orthogonal imaginary numbers get the reference signal by delaying the real quantity by a quarter period.However,the introduction of such time delay makes the dynamic response of the system worse.In this paper,orthogonal quantities are generated from a virtual axis system parallel to the real axis,which can effectively improve the dynamic performance of traditional methods without increasing the complexity of controller structure.Through PSCAD simulation,the ideal experimental results are obtained.

Three-phase Voltage-fed Quasi-Z-Source AC-AC Converter

The paper proposes a novel three-phase voltage-fed quasi-Z-source ac-ac converter topology to overcome the shortcomings of the traditional three-phase AC-AC chopper.The quantitative relationship between the output voltage and duty-ratio is deduced by investigating the topology and operating principle.It can provide buck-boost function,and the output voltage of the circuit can keep stable in the case of voltage sagging.Simulation is performed using the MATLAB software,and the experimental circuit is built based on the simulation results,the simulation and experimental results verify the correctness and feasibility of the proposed ac-ac converter topology.

Finite control set model predictive control of three-port converter for interfacing a PV-battery energy storage system to a three-phase stand-alone AC system

This paper proposes a multiport bidirectional non-isolated converter topology that provides advantages in terms of simultaneous multiple operations,single-stage conversion,high power density and reduced power losses due to the lower number of switches.The proposed multiport converter uses a centralized non-linear controller known as a finite control set model predictive controller to manage the flow of power between different ports.It deals with the parallel operation of photovoltaic and battery energy storage systems for stand-alone alternating current(AC)systems.The converter connects the lower voltage battery to the photovoltaic port using a bidirectional buck/boost converter and the photovoltaic port is linked to the stand-alone AC load through a three-phase full-bridge inverter.Each leg of the three-phase converter will act as a bidirectional direct current(DC)/DC converter as well as an inverter simultaneously.Only six switches manage the power transfer between all the connected ports of photovoltaic-battery energy storage system linked to the stand-alone AC load.The proposed multiport converter is mathematically modelled and controlled by a finite control set model predictive controller.The system is validated in simulation(1-kW rating)and experimental environment(200-W rating).The hardware prototype is developed in the laboratory and the controller is implemented on the field-programmable gate array board.Two independent case studies are carried out to validate the efficacy of the system.The first scenario is for a change in solar irradiance,while the second scenario is for a change in the output load.

FPGA-Based Real-Time Simulation of Renewable Energy Source Power Converters

Developing the control of modem power converters is a very expensive and time-consuming task. Time to market can take unacceptable long. FPGA-based real-time simulation of a power stage with analog measured signals can reduce significantly the cost and time of testing a product. This new approach is known as HIL （hardware-in-the-loop） testing. A general power converter consists of two main parts： a power level （main circuit） and a digital controller unit, which is usually realized by using some kind of DSP. Testing the controller HW and SW is quite problematic： live tests with a completely assembled converter can be dangerous and expensive. A low-power model of the main circuit can be built under laboratory conditions, but it will have parameters （e.g. time constants and relative losses） differing from the ones of the original system. The solution is the HIL simulation of the main circuit. With this method the simulator can be completely transparent for the controller unit, unlike other computer based simulation methods The subject of this paper is to develop such a real-time simulator using FPGA. The modeled circuit is a three-phase inverter, which is widely used in power converters of renewable energy sources.

Grid-Connected PV Solar Energy Converter with Active and Reactive Power Control

This work proposes a 12 kW three-phase grid-connected single stage PWM DC-AC converter destined to process the energy provided by a photovoltaic array composed of 57 KC200GT PV modules with high power factor for any solar radiation. The PWM inverter modeling and the control strategy, using dqO transformation, are proposed in order to also allow the system operation as an active power filter, capable to compensate harmonic components and react power generated by the non-linear loads connected to the mains grid. An input voltage clamping technique is proposed to impose the photovoltaic operation on the maximum power point. Simulation and experimental results are presented to validate the proposed methodology for grid connected photovoltaic generation system.

Coordinated Control of Parallel Three-phase Four-wire Converters in Autonomous AC Microgrids

The coordinated control of parallel three-phase fourwire converters in autonomous AC microgrids is investigated in this paper.First,based on droop control,virtual impedance is inserted in positive-,negative-and zero-sequences to enhance system damping and imbalance power sharing.Then,to facilitate virtual impedance design,small signal models of the three-sequence equivalent circuits are established respectively.Corresponding indexes are proposed to comprehensively evaluate the impact of sequence virtual impedance on current sharing accuracy,voltage quality at the point of common coupling(PCC)and system stability.In addition,constraint of DClink voltage is also considered to avoid over modulation when subjected to unbalanced loads.Furthermore,to address the PCC voltage degradation resulting from virtual impedance,a voltage imbalance compensation method,based on low-bandwidth communication,is proposed.Finally,simulation and experimental results are provided to verify the correctness of the theory model,indicating that the proposed method can achieve PCC voltage restoration while guaranteeing the current sharing accuracy with desirable dynamics.

Overview on Fault-Tolerant Four-Switch Three-Phase Voltage Source Converters

With the rapid development and widespread applications of power electronic converters,strong fault-tolerant capability of power electronic converters is required since they play important roles in power systems.In this paper,a review of one of the most promising fault-tolerant topologies for semiconductor open-circuit fault,called four-switch three-phase(FSTP)topology,is presented in terms of modeling analysis,modulation techniques,and control strategies.The configuration of FSTP voltage source converter(VSC)is illustrated.To minimize the negative effects caused by the innate drawbacks of this fault-tolerant converter topology,considerable research has been carried out regarding modulation techniques and control strategies.The modulation principle for FSTP topology is explained in detail,since the performance of FSTP VSCs relies on it.This paper aims to illustrate current research progress on this fault-tolerant FSTP VSC topology.

Three-phase AC-DC Converter for Direct-drive PMSG-based Wind Energy Conversion System

In this paper,a wind energy conversion system(WECS)is presented for the electrification of rural areas with wind energy availability.A three-phase AC-DC converter based on a bridgeless Cuk converter is used for power extraction from the permanent magnet synchronous generator(PMSG).The bridgeless topology enables the elimination of the front-end diode bridge rectifier(DBR).Moreover,the converter has fewer components,simple control,and high efficiency,making it suitable for a small-scale WECS.A squirrel cage induction motor(SCIM)is used to emulate a MOD-2 wind turbine to implement the PMSG-based WECS.A direct-drive eight-pole PMSG is used in this study;thus,a low-input-voltage system is designed.The converter is designed to operate in the discontinuous inductor current mode(DICM)for inherent power factor correction(PFC)and the maximum power point tracking(MPPT)is achieved through the tip-speed ratio(TSR)following.The performance of the developed system is analyzed through simulation,and a 500 W hardware prototype is developed and tested in different wind speed conditions.

Modeling method of sequence admittance for three-phase voltage source converter under unbalanced grid condition

The admittance is a strong tool for stability analysis and assessment of the three-phase voltage source converters(VSCs) especially in grid-connected mode.However, the sequence admittance is hard to calculate when the VSC is operating under unbalanced grid voltage conditions. In this paper, a simple and direct modeling method is proposed for a three-phase VSC taking the unbalanced grid voltage as a new variable for the system.Then coupling in the three-phase system can be calculated by applying the harmonic linearization method. The calculated admittance of three-phase VSCs is verified by detailed circuit simulations.

Analysis on Circulating Current and Split Capacitor Voltage Balance for Modular Multilevel Converter Based Three-phase Four-wire Split Capacitor DSTATCOM

We propose a modular multilevel converter(MMC)based three-phase four-wire(3P4W)split capacitor distribution static synchronous compensator(DSTATCOM),aiming at compensating unbalanced and reactive load currents.Due to the zero-sequence current compensation,the circulating current char-acteristics of 3P4W MMC-DSTATCOM are different from conventional MMCs.Moreover,the distinct working principle of IMMC would affect the features of split capacitor voltage.The decoupled positive-,negative-and zero-sequence second-order and DC components of the circulating current are deduced explicitly.Two proportional-integral controllers with dual dq transformation are employed to suppress the positive-and negative-sequence components of second-order circulating current,while quasi proportional-resonance controller is designed to eliminate the zero-sequence component.Besides,the phenomenon of the unbalanced split capacitor voltages is revealed,and fast-tracking balancing method by controlling zero-sequence current flowing through the split capacitors is provided.Digital simulation results verify the accuracy of the analysis and the feasibility of the suppression methods.

Open-circuit fault diagnosis and fault tolerance for shunt active power filter

The open-circuit fault of the power switches in shunt active power filter(SAPF) would exacerbate the harmonic pollution of power grid, and degrade the reliability of the devices and system. A fault diagnosis method is proposed based on reference model and an over-modulation strategy under hardware fault tolerance for SAPF. First, a mathematic model is established for SAPF. Second, the residuals are generated by comparing the outputs of reference model and those of actual model, and open-switch fault is detected and diagnosed by residual evaluation. After that, hardware fault tolerance is performed with the three-phase four-switch(TPFS) topology to isolate the faulty phase. Finally, the over-modulation strategy is proposed to increase the voltage transfer ratio of the TPFS topology. Simulation and experimental results verified the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed method.

Optimized damping for LCL filters in three-phase voltage source inverters coupled by power grid

The application of LCL filters has become popular for inverters connected to the power grid due to their advantages in harmonic current reductions. However,the power grid in a distribution system is non-ideal, presenting itself as a voltage source with significant impedance. This means that an inverter using an LCL filter may interact with other grid-connected inverters via the nonideal grid. In this paper, damping optimization of LCLfilters to reduce this interaction is studied for a three-phase voltage source inverter(VSI). Simulation results show that resonant oscillation occurs in a distributed power grid, even if the VSI with an LCL filter is well designed for standalone applications. A small-signal analysis is performed to predict this stability problem and to locate the boundary of the instability using an impedance approach. Based on these analytical results, optimized damping of the LCLfilter can be designed. The oscillation phenomena and optimized damping design are verified by simulations and experimental measurements.

Cascaded Multilevel Inverter Based Power and Signal Multiplex Transmission for Electric Vehicles

Power&signal multiplex transmission(P&SMT)is a technique that uses power electronic circuits for communication signal transmission.In this paper,a three-phase cascaded multilevel inverter-based P&S MT system is proposed.The proposed method can transmit communication signals without using a Controller Area Network bus,thereby reducing the wiring cost of the conventional electric vehicle(EV)communication system.The designed system can achieve motor speed regulation and battery balance discharging for EVs.With the combined pulse width modulation scheme and frequency shift keying method,both power and communication signals are transmitted successfully in a simulation model implemented in Matlab/Simulink.By evaluating the bit error rate of the transmitted signal,the maximum signal rate of the proposed system is determined as 600 bit/s.

Power Factor Correction Rectifier with a Variable Frequency Voltage Source in Vehicular Application

This paper presents a PFCVF (Power Factor Correction) rectifier that uses a variable frequency source for alternators for electric and hybrid vehicles application. In such application, the frequency of the signal in the alternator changes according to the vehicle speed, more over the loading effect on the alternator introduces harmonic currents and increases the alternator apparent power requirements. To overcome these problems and aiming more stability and better design of the alternator, a new third harmonic injection technique is proposed. This technique allows to preserve a good THD (Total Harmonic Distortion) of the input source at any frequency and to decrease losses in semiconductors switches, thereby allowing more stability and reducing the apparent power requirements. A comparative study between the standard and the new technique is made and highlights the effectiveness of the new design. A detailed analysis of the proposed topology is presented and simulations as well as experimental results are shown.

Practical Implementation of Embedded Controlled Reduced Switch Z-Source Inverter-Fed Induction Motor Drive

A cost-effective component minimized embedded controlled Z-source inverter for induction motor drive is presented. The proposed topology combines the advantages of a traditional four-switch three-phase inverter with the advantages of the z impedance network (two inductors in series and two X connected capacitors). This new topology, besides the self-boost property, has low switch count and it can operate as a buck-boost inverter. As a result, the new embedded controlled reduced switch Z-source inverter system provides ride through capability during voltage sags, reduces line harmonics, improves power factor, reliability and extends output voltage range. Analysis, simulation and experiment result will be presented to demonstrate these new features.

Model Predictive Current Control for Low-Cost Shunt Active Power Filter

Performance of a three-phase shunt active power filter(SAPF)relies on the capability of the controller to track the reference current.Therefore,designing an accurate current controller is crucial to guarantee satisfactory SAPF operation.This paper presents a model predictive current controller(MPCC)for a low-cost,four-switch,shunt active power filter for power quality improvement.A four-switch,B4,converter topology is adopted as an SAPF,hence offering a simple,robust,and low-cost solution.In addition,to further reduce overall cost,only two interfacing filter inductors,instead of three,are used to eliminate switching current ripple.The proposed SAPF model MPCC is detailed for implementation,where simulation and experimental results validate effectiveness of the proposed control algorithm showing a 20%improvement in total harmonic distortion compared with a conventional hysteresis band current controller.