• Journal of Power Electronics
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• 제15권1호
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• pp.190-201
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• 2015

This paper uses the switching function approach to present a simple state model of the Vienna-type rectifier. The approach introduces the relationship between the DC-link neutral point voltage and the AC side phase currents. A novel direct power control (DPC) strategy, which is based on the sliding mode control (SMC) for Vienna I rectifiers, is developed using the proposed power model in the stationary ${\alpha}-{\beta}$ reference frames. The SMC-based DPC methodology directly regulates instantaneous active and reactive powers without transforming to a synchronous rotating coordinate reference frame or a tracking phase angle of grid voltage. Moreover, the required rectifier control voltages are directly calculated by utilizing the non-linear SMC scheme. Theoretically, active and reactive power flows are controlled without ripple or cross coupling. Furthermore, the fixed-switching frequency is obtained by employing the simplified space vector modulation (SVM). SVM solves the complicated designing problem of the AC harmonic filter. The simplified SVM is based on the simplification of the space vector diagram of a three-level converter into that of a two-level converter. The dwelling time calculation and switching sequence selection are easily implemented like those in the conventional two-level rectifier. Replacing the current control loops with power control loops simplifies the system design and enhances the transient performance. The simulation models in MATLAB/Simulink and the digital signal processor-controlled 1.5 kW Vienna-type rectifier are used to verify the fast responses and robustness of the proposed control scheme.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• 제16권1호
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• pp.362-373
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• 2016

The on-line measurement of high-power IGBT collector current is important for the hierarchical control and short-circuit and overcurrent protection of its driver and the sensorless control of the converter. The conventional on-line measurement methods for IGBT collector current are not suitable for engineering measurement due to their large-size, high-cost, low-efficiency sensors, current transformers or dividers, etc. Based on the gate driver, this paper has proposed a current measuring circuit for IGBT collector current. The circuit is used to conduct non-intervention on-line measurement of IGBT collector current by detecting the voltage drop of the IGBT power emitter and the auxiliary emitter terminals. A theoretical analysis verifies the feasibility of this circuit. The circuit adopts an operational amplifier for impedance isolation to prevent the measuring circuit from affecting the dynamic performance of the IGBT. Due to using the scheme for integration first and amplification afterwards, the difficult problem of achieving high accuracy in the transient-state and on-state measurement of the voltage between the terminals of IGBT power emitter and the auxiliary emitter (u_Ee) has been solved. This is impossible for a conventional detector. On this basis, the adoption of a two-stage operational amplifier can better meet the requirements of high bandwidth measurement under the conditions of a small signal with a large gain. Finally, various experiments have been carried out under the conditions of several typical loads (resistance-inductance load, resistance load and inductance load), different IGBT junction temperatures, soft short-circuits and hard short-circuits for the on-line measurement of IGBT collector current. This is aided by the capacitor voltage which is the integration result of the voltage uEe. The results show that the proposed method of measuring IGBT collector current is feasible and effective.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• 제11권5호
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• pp.759-766
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• 2011

This paper focuses on monitoring and predicting the short circuit faults of the rotor windings of large turbo-generator systems. For the purpose of increasing efficiency and decreasing maintenance cost, a method that combines the HHT (Hilbert Huang Transform) with a wavelet has been studied. This method is based on analyzing a classical Albright detecting coil. Due to the Empirical Mode Decomposition (EMD) and the Intrinsic Mode Functions (IMF) of the HHT the exact location of a short circuit of rotor windings may be given. However, a part of the useful information is eliminated by the unreasonable decomposing scale of the wavelet. Based on the thermodynamics modeling method, this study was illustrated with a 50MW turbo-generator system that is installed in Northern China. The analysis results, which have very good agreement with those of a previous study, show that the method of combining the HHT with a wavelet is an effective way to analyze and predict the short circuit faults of the rotor windings of large generators, such as supercritical turbo-generator systems and wind turbo-generator systems. This work can offer a useful reference for analyzing smart grids by improving the power quality of a distribution network that is supplied by a turbo-generator system.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• 제14권3호
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• pp.444-457
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• 2014

This paper presents the design and realization of a digital PV simulator with a Push-Pull Forward (PPF) circuit based on the principle of modular hardware and configurable software. A PPF circuit is chosen as the main circuit to restrain the magnetic biasing of the core for a DC-DC converter and to reduce the spike of the turn-off voltage across every switch. Control and I/O interface based on a personal computer (PC) and multifunction data acquisition card, can conveniently achieve the data acquisition and configuration of the control algorithm and interface due to the abundant software resources of computers. In addition, the control program developed in Matlab/Simulink can conveniently construct and adjust both the models and parameters. It can also run in real-time under the external mode of Simulink by loading the modules of the Real-Time Windows Target. The mathematic models of the Push-Pull Forward circuit and the digital PV simulator are established in this paper by the state-space averaging method. The pole-zero cancellation technique is employed and then its controller parameters are systematically designed based on the performance analysis of the root loci of the closed current loop with $k_i$ and $R_L$ as variables. A fuzzy PI controller based on the Takagi-Sugeno fuzzy model is applied to regulate the controller parameters self-adaptively according to the change of $R_L$ and the operating point of the PV simulator to match the controller parameters with $R_L$. The stationary and dynamic performances of the PV simulator are tested by experiments, and the experimental results show that the PV simulator has the merits of a wide effective working range, high steady-state accuracy and good dynamic performances.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• 제13권3호
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• pp.369-380
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• 2013

Direct torque control based on space vector modulation (SVM-DTC) protects the DTC transient merits. Furthermore, it creates better quality steady-state performance in a wide speed range. The modified method of DTC using SVM improves the electrical magnitudes of asynchronous machines, such as minimizing the stator current distortions, the stator flux with electromagnetic torque without ripple, the fast response of the rotor speed, and the constant switching frequency. In this paper, the proposed method is based on two new control strategies for direct torque control with space vector modulation. First, fuzzy logic control is used instead of the PI torque and a PI flux controller to minimizing the torque error and to achieve a constant switching frequency. The voltages in the direct and quadratic reference frame ($V_d$, $V_q$) are achieved by fuzzy logic control. In this scheme, the switching capability of the inverter is fully utilized, which improves the system performance. Second, the close loop of stator flux estimation based on the voltage model and a low pass filter is used to counteract the drawbacks in the open loop of the stator flux such as the problems saturation and dc drift. The response of this new control strategy is compared with DTC-SVM. The experimental and simulation results demonstrate that the proposed control topology outperforms the conventional DTC-SVM in terms of system robustness and eliminating the bad outcome of dc-offset.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• 제15권2호
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• pp.455-468
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• 2015

A microgrid (MG) with integrated renewable energy resources can benefit both utility companies and customers. As a result, they are attracting a great deal of attention. The control of a MG is very important for the stable operation of a MG. The droop-control method is popular since it avoids circulating currents among the converters without using any critical communication between them. Traditional droop control methods have the drawback of an inherent trade-off between power sharing and voltage and frequency regulation. An adaptive droop control method is proposed, which can operate in both the island mode and the grid-connected mode. It can also ensure smooth switching between these two modes. Furthermore, the voltage and frequency of a MG can be restored by using the proposed droop controller. Meanwhile, the active power can be dispatched appropriately in both operating modes based on the capacity or running cost of the Distributed Generators (DGs). The global information (such as the average voltage and output active power of the MG and so on) required by the proposed droop control method to restore the voltage and frequency deviations can be acquired distributedly based on the Multi Agent System (MAS). Simulation studies in PSCAD demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed control method.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• 제15권4호
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• pp.1105-1118
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• 2015

Battery energy storage devices (ESDs) have become more and more commonplace to maintain the stability of islanded power systems. Considering the limitation in inverter capacity and the requirement of flexibility in the ESD, the droop control was implemented in paralleled ESDs for higher capacity and autonomous operation. Under the conventional droop control, state-of-charge (SoC) errors between paralleled ESDs is inevitable in the discharging operation. Thus, some ESDs cease operation earlier than expected. This paper proposes an adaptive accelerating parameter to improve the performance of the SoC error eliminating droop controller under the constraints of a microgrid. The SoC of a battery ESD is employed in the active power droop coefficient, which could eliminate the SoC error during the discharging process. In addition, to expedite the process of SoC error elimination, an adaptive accelerating parameter is dedicated to weaken the adverse effect of the constraints due to the requirement of the system running. Moreover, the stability and feasibility of the proposed control strategy are confirmed by small-signal analysis. The effectiveness of the control scheme is validated by simulation and experiment results.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• 제15권4호
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• pp.1047-1053
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• 2015

A time-domain simulation tool to predict the dynamic power output of wind turbines in an offshore wind farm was developed in this study. A wind turbine model consisting of first or second order transfer functions of various wind turbine elements was combined with the Ainslie's eddy viscosity wake model to construct the simulation tool. The wind turbine model also includes an aerodynamic model that is a look up table of power and thrust coefficients with respect to the tip speed ratio and pitch angle of the wind turbine obtained by a commercial multi-body dynamics simulation tool. The wake model includes algorithms of superposition of multiple wakes and propagation based on Taylor's frozen turbulence assumption. Torque and pitch control algorithms were implemented in the simulation tool to perform max-Cp and power regulation control of the wind turbines. The simulation tool calculates wind speeds in the two-dimensional domain of the wind farm at the hub height of the wind turbines and yields power outputs from individual wind turbines. The NREL 5MW reference wind turbine was targeted as a wind turbine to obtain parameters for the simulation. To validate the simulation tool, a Danish offshore wind farm with 80 wind turbines was modelled and used to predict the power from the wind farm. A comparison of the prediction with the measured values available in literature showed that the results from the simulation program were fairly close to the measured results in literature except when the wind turbines are congruent with the wind direction.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• 제15권2호
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• pp.555-566
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• 2015

A TRIAC dimming LED driver that can control the brightness of LED arrays for a wide range of source voltage variations is proposed in this paper. Unlike conventional PWM LED drivers, the proposed LED driver adopts a TRIAC switch, which inherently guarantees zero current switching and has been proven to be quite reliable over its long lifetime. Unlike previous TRIAC type LED drivers, the proposed LED driver is composed of an LC input filter and a variable switched capacitance, which is modulated by the TRIAC turn-on timing. Thus, the LED power regulation and dimming control, which are done by a volume resistor in the same way as the conventional TRIAC dimmers, can be simultaneously performed by the TRIAC control circuit. Because the proposed LED driver has high efficiency and a long lifetime with a high power factor (PF) and low total harmonic distortion (THD) characteristics, it is quite adequate for industrial lighting applications such as streets, factories, parking garages, and emergency stairs. A simple step-down capacitive power supply circuit composed of passive components only is also proposed, which is quite useful for providing DC power from an AC source without a bulky and heavy transformer. A prototype 60 W LED driver was implemented by the proposed design procedure and verified by simulation and experimental results, where the efficiency, PF, and THD are 92%, 0.94, and 6.3%, respectively. The LED power variation is well mitigated to below ${\pm}2%$ for 190 V < $V_s$ < 250 V by using the proposed simple control circuit.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• 제11권3호
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• pp.360-368
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• 2011

This paper proposes an active frequency with a positive feedback in the d-q frame anti-islanding method suitable for a robust phase-locked loop (PLL) algorithm using the FFT concept. In general, PLL algorithms for grid-connected PV PCS use d-q transformation and controllers to make zero an imaginary part of the transformed voltage vector. In a real grid system, the grid voltage is not ideal. It may be unbalanced, noisy and have many harmonics. For these reasons, the d-q transformed components do not have a pure DC component. The controller tuning of a PLL algorithm is difficult. The proposed PLL algorithm using the FFT concept can use the strong noise cancelation characteristics of a FFT algorithm without a PI controller. Therefore, the proposed PLL algorithm has no gain-tuning of a PI controller, and it is hardly influenced by voltage drops, phase step changes and harmonics. Islanding prediction is a necessary feature of inverter-based photovoltaic (PV) systems in order to meet the stringent standard requirements for interconnection with an electrical grid. Both passive and active anti-islanding methods exist. Typically, active methods modify a given parameter, which also affects the shape and quality of the grid injected current. In this paper, the active anti-islanding algorithm for a grid-connected PV PCS uses positive feedback control in the d-q frame. The proposed PLL and anti-islanding algorithm are implemented for a 250kW PV PCS. This system has four DC/DC converters each with a 25kW power rating. This is only one-third of the total system power. The experimental results show that the proposed PLL, anti-islanding method and topology demonstrate good performance in a 250kW PV PCS.