• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.17 no.6
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• pp.1587-1599
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• 2017

This paper proposes a real-time implementation of an optimal operation of a double stage grid connected wind power system incorporating an active power filter (APF). The system is used to supply the nonlinear loads with harmonics and reactive power compensation. On the generator side, a new adaptive neuro fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) based maximum power point tracking (MPPT) control is proposed to track the maximum wind power point regardless of wind speed fluctuations. Whereas on the grid side, a modified predictive current control (PCC) algorithm is used to control the APF, and allow to ensure both compensating harmonic currents and injecting the generated power into the grid. Also a type 2 fuzzy logic controller is used to control the DC-link capacitor in order to improve the dynamic response of the APF, and to ensure a well-smoothed DC-Link capacitor voltage. The gained benefits from these proposed control algorithms are the main contribution in this work. The proposed control scheme is implemented on a small-scale wind energy conversion system (WECS) controlled by a dSPACE 1104 card. Experimental results show that the proposed T2FLC maintains the DC-Link capacitor voltage within the limit for injecting the power into the grid. In addition, the PCC of the APF guarantees a flexible settlement of real power exchanges from the WECS to the grid with a high power factor operation.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.17 no.6
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• pp.1625-1636
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• 2017

A power electronic transformer (PET) based on the cascaded H-bridge (CHB) and the isolated bidirectional DC/DC converter (IBDC) is capable of accommodating a large scale battery energy storage system (BESS) in the medium-voltage grid, and is referred to as a power electronic transformer based battery energy storage system (PET-BESS). This paper investigates the PET-BESS and proposes a coordinative control strategy for it. In the proposed method, the CHB controls the power flow and the battery state-of-charge (SOC) balancing, while the IBDC maintains the dc-link voltages with feedforward implementation of the power reference and the switch status of the CHB. State-feedback and linear quadratic Riccati (LQR) methods have been adopted in the CHB to control the grid current, active power and reactive power. A hybrid PWM modulating method is utilized to achieve SOC balancing, where battery SOC sorting is involved. The feedforward path of the power reference and the CHB switch status substantially reduces the dc-link voltage fluctuations under dynamic power variations. The effectiveness of the proposed control has been verified both by simulation and experimental results. The performance of the PET-BESS under bidirectional power flow has been improved, and the battery SOC values have been adjusted to converge.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.17 no.6
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• pp.1658-1671
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• 2017

To address the inaccurate load demand sharing problems among parallel inverter-interfaced voltage-controlled distributed generation (DG) units in islanded microgrids (MGs) with different DG power ratings and mismatched feeder impedances, an enhanced voltage control scheme based on the active compensation of circulating voltage drops is proposed in this paper. Using the proposed strategy, reactive power and harmonic currents are shared accurately and proportionally without knowledge of the feeder impedances. Since the proposed local controller consists of two well-separated fundamental and harmonic voltage control branches, the reactive power and harmonic currents can be independently shared without having a remarkable effect on the amplitude or quality of the DGs voltage, even if nonlinear (harmonic) loads are directly connected at the output terminals of the units. In addition, accurate load sharing can also be attained when the plug-and-play performance of DGs and various loading conditions are applied to MGs. The effects of communication failures and latency on the performance of the proposed strategy are also explored. The design process of the proposed control system is presented in detail and comprehensive simulation studies on a three-phase MG are provided to validate the effectiveness of the proposed control method.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.19 no.6
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• pp.1505-1514
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• 2019

The permanent magnet synchronous motor (PMSM) is widely used in various fields and the proportional-integral (PI) controller is popular in PMSM control systems. However, the motor parameters are usually unknown, which can lead to a complicated PI controller design and poor performance. In order to design a PI controller with good performance when the motor parameters are unknown, a control algorithm based on stability margin is proposed in this paper. First of all, based on the mathematical model of the PMSM and the least squares (LS) method, motor parameters are estimated offline. Then based on the estimation values of the motor parameters, natural angular frequency and phase margin, a PI controller is designed. Performance indices including the natural angular frequency and the phase margin are used directly to design the PI controller in this paper. Scalar functions of the d-loop and the q-loop are selected. It can be seen that the designed controller parameters satisfy Lyapunov large scale asymptotic stability theory if the natural angular frequencies of the d-loop and the q-loop are large than 0. Experimental results show that the parameter estimation method has good accuracy and the designed PI controller proposed in this paper has good static and dynamic performances.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.19 no.6
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• pp.1366-1379
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• 2019

High-gain DC/DC converters have become one of the key technologies for the grid-connected operation of new energy power generation, and its research provides a significant impetus for the rapid development of new energy power generation. Inspired by the transformer effect and the ripple-suppressed ability of a coupled inductor, a double-coupled inductor high gain DC/DC converter with a ripple absorption circuit is proposed in this paper. By integrating the diode-capacitor voltage multiplying unit into the quadratic Boost converter and assembling the independent inductor into the magnetic core of structure coupled inductors, the adjustable range of the voltage gain can be effectively extended and the limit on duty ratio can be avoided. In addition, the volume of the magnetic element can be reduced. Very small ripples of input current can be obtained by the ripple absorption circuit, which is composed of an auxiliary inductor and a capacitor. The leakage inductance loss can be recovered to the load in a switching period, and the switching-off voltage spikes caused by leakage inductance can be suppressed by absorption in the diode-capacitor voltage multiplying unit. On the basis of the theoretical analysis, the feasibility of the proposed converter is verified by test results obtained by simulations and an experimental prototype.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.19 no.5
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• pp.1303-1314
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• 2019

This paper studies the harmonic characteristics of ship electric propulsion systems and their treatment methods. It also adopts effective measures to suppress and prevent ship power systems from affecting ship operation due to the serious damage caused by harmonics. Firstly, the harmonic characteristics of a ship electric propulsion system are reviewed and discussed. Secondly, aiming at problems such as resonant frequency and filter characteristics variations, resonance point migration, and unstable filtering performances in conventional passive filters, a method for fully tuning of a passive dynamic tunable filter (PDTF) is proposed to realize harmonic suppression. Thirdly, to address the problems of the uncontrollable inductance L of traditional air gap iron core reactors and the harmonics of power electronic impedance converters (PEICs), this paper proposes an electromagnetic coupling reactor with impedance transformation and harmonic suppression characteristics (ECRITHS), with the internal filter (IF) designed to suppress the harmonics generated by PEICs. The ECRITHS is characterized by both harmonic suppression and impedance change. Fourthly, the ECRITHS is investigated. This investigation includes the harmonic suppression characteristics and impedance transformation characteristics of the ECRITHS at the fundamental frequency, which shows the good performance of the ECRITHS. Simulation and experimental evaluations of the PDTF are carried out. Multiple PDTFs can be configured to realize multi-order simultaneous dynamic filtering, and can effectively eliminate the current harmonics of ship electric propulsion systems. This is done to reduce the total harmonic distortion (THD) of the supply currents to well below the 5% limit imposed by the IEEE-519 standard. The PDTF also can eliminate harmonic currents in different geographic places by using a low voltage distribution system. Finally, a detailed discussion is presented, with challenges and future implications discussed. The research results are intended to effectively eliminate the harmonics of ship electric power propulsion systems and to improve the power quality of ship power systems. This is of theoretical and practical significance for improving the power quality and power savings of ship power systems.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.922-933
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• 2019

The arm inductance (AI) of a modular multilevel converter (MMC) affects both the fault and circulating current magnitudes. In addition, it has an impact on the inverter efficiency and harmonic content. In this study, the AI of a three-phase MMC is optimized in a novel way in terms of DC voltage utilization, harmonics and efficiency. This MMC has 10 submodules (SM) per arm and the power circuit topology of the SM is a half-bridge. The optimum AI is adopted and verified in an MMC that has 100 SMs per arm. Then the phase shift (PS) and phase disposition (PD) pulse width modulation (PWM) methods are investigated for better DC voltage utilization, efficiency and harmonics. It is found that similar performances are obtained for both modulation techniques in terms of DC voltage utilization. However, the total harmonic distortion (THD) of the PS-PWM is found to be 0.02%, which is slightly lower than the THD of the PD-PWM at 0.16%. In efficiency calculations, the switching and conduction losses for all of the semiconductor are considered separately and the minimum efficiency of the 100-SM based MMC is found to be 99.62% for the PS-PWM and 99.64% for the PD-PWM with the optimal value of the AI. Simulation results are verified with an experimental prototype of a 6-SM based MMC.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.19 no.5
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• pp.1224-1234
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• 2019

Hybrid rotor position estimation methods that integrate a fundamental model and high frequency (HF) signal injection are widely used for the wide speed-range sensorless control of interior permanent-magnet synchronous machines (IPMSMs). However, the direct transition of two different schemes may lead to system fluctuations or system instability since two estimated rotor positions based on two different schemes are always unequal due to the effects of parameter variations, system delays and inverter nonlinearities. In order to avoid these problems, a seamless transition strategy to define and construct a virtual q-axis inductance is proposed in this paper. With the proposed seamless transition strategy, an estimated rotor position based on a fundamental model is forced to track that based on HF signal injection before the transition by adjusting the constructed virtual q-axis inductance. Meanwhile, considering that the virtual q-axis inductance changes with rotor position estimation errors, a new observer with a two-phase phase-locked loop (TP-PLL) is developed to accurately obtain the virtual q-axis inductance online. Furthermore, IPMSM sensorless control with maximum torque per ampere (MTPA) operations can be tracked automatically by selecting the proper virtual q-axis inductance. Finally, experimental results obtained from an IPMSM demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed seamless transition strategy.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.19 no.5
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• pp.1108-1121
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• 2019

The non-inverting buck-boost converter (NIBB) is a step-up and step-down DC-DC converter suitable for wide-input-voltage-range applications. However, when the input voltage is close to the output voltage, the NIBB needs to operate in the buck-boost mode, causing a significant efficiency reduction since all four switches operates in the PWM mode. Considering both the current stress limitation and the efficiency optimization, a novel design methodology for the optimal phase-shift modulation of a NIBB in the buck-boost mode is proposed in this paper. Since the four switches in the NIBB form two bridges, the shifted phase between the two bridges can serve as an extra degree of freedom for performance optimization. With general phase-shift modulation, the analytic current expressions for every duty ratio, shifted phase and input voltage are derived. Then with the two key factors in the NIBB, the converter efficiency and the switch current stress, taken into account, an objective function with constraints is derived. By optimizing the derived objective function over the full input voltage range, an offline design methodology for the optimal modulation scheme is proposed for efficiency optimization on the premise of current stress limitation. Finally, the designed optimal modulation scheme is implemented on a DSPs and the design methodology is verified with experimental results on a 300V-1.5kW NIBB prototype.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.846-857
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• 2019

Voltage step-down converters are very popular in distributed power systems, voltage regular modules, electric vehicles, etc. However, a high step-down voltage ratio is required in many applications to prevent the traditional buck converter from operating at extreme duty cycles. In this paper, a series capacitor interleaved buck converter with a soft switching technique is proposed. The DC voltage ratio of the proposed converter is half that of the traditional buck converter and the voltage stress across the one main switch and the diodes is reduced. Moreover, by paralleling the series connected auxiliary switch and the auxiliary inductor with the main inductor, zero voltage transition (ZVT) of the main switches can be obtained without increasing the voltage or current stress of the main power switches. In addition, zero current turned-on and zero current switching (ZCS) of the auxiliary switches can be achieved. Furthermore, owing to the presence of the auxiliary inductor, the turned-off rate of the output diodes can be limited and the reverse-recovery switching losses of the diodes can be reduced. Thus, the efficiency of the proposed converter can be improved. The DC voltage gain ratio, soft switching conditions and a design guideline for the critical parameters are given in this paper. A loss analysis of the proposed converter is shown to demonstrate its advantages over traditional converter topologies. Finally, experimental results obtained from a 100V/10V prototype are presented to verify the analysis of the proposed converter.