UPS inverter design using discrete-time sliding-mode control scheme

This paper presents a novel discrete-time sliding-mode control algorithm for an uninterruptible power supply (UPS) inverter design. The approach offers a dual-loop design, in which a current predictor utilizes the tracking error of output voltage to estimate the desired inductor current, while a current controller is adopted to regulate the inductor current and, thus, produces a control command to the pulsewidth modulation inverter. An explicit condition for stable controller design is derived. The efficacy of this scheme is validated via a successful implementation on a digital-signal-processor-based UPS inverter. The proposed scheme has shown its robustness on low output voltage distortion, excellent voltage regulation, and it is insensitive to load variation, even under nonlinear loads. Experimental studies were performed to further validate the effectiveness of this scheme     

Parallel processing inverter system

A novel method of instantaneous voltage and power balance control of a parallel processing inverter system is proposed. It consists of a high-speed switching PWM (pulsewidth modulated) inverter with an instantaneous current minor loop controller, a voltage major loop controller, and a power balance controller. This system realizes the following functions with only one inverter: constant AC output voltage control with reactive power control, active filtering to absorb load current harmonics, DC voltage and current control as AC-to-DC converter, and uninterruptible power supply (UPS) for stand-alone operation. This system covers a wide application range, including UPS systems, new energy systems, and active filters with voltage control functions     

Investigating an LCL load resonant inverter for inductive power transfer applications

A inductor/capacitor/inductor load resonant inverter is investigated for inductive power transfer applications. The inverter uses a variable frequency controller and operates in discontinuous current mode. The steady state operation of this system is determined by a power flow balance between the inverter and the resonant tank. The results are used to design a system to achieve maximum power transfer.     

Analysis of Control-Delay Reduction for the Improvement of UPS Voltage-Loop Bandwidth

This paper investigates the effects of control-delay minimization in the dynamic performance of the output stage of uninterruptible power supplies (UPSs) by shifting the sampling time of inductor current and output voltage toward the duty-cycle update instant. This paper shows how a small shift of the output-voltage sampling can significantly increase the UPS voltage-loop bandwidth while keeping the same stability margin. Instead, less contribution comes from the delay minimization of the inductor-current sampling, so that current-ripple cancellation techniques are not needed. A detailed model based on the modified $Z$ -transform, which accounts for different time delays in multiloop control, is proposed. The effectiveness of the proposed analysis is demonstrated by simulation and experimental results on a typical industrial three-phase/three-phase 8-kHz 30-$hbox{kVA}$ UPS prototype. By using two control designs based on the same phase margin, the output-voltage total harmonic distortion with the normalized distorting load is reduced from 6.8% to 5.7%, using a delay of the output voltage sampling equal to 25 $muhbox{s}$.      

Line harmonics reduction in high-power systems using square-waveinverters-based dominant harmonic active filter

This paper presents a dominant harmonic active filter (DHAF) scheme using small-rated square-wave inverters for supply line harmonic current reduction for high-power nonlinear loads in the range of 10 MW and above to meet IEEE 519 harmonic standard. The active filter inverters are connected in series with the fifth and seventh L-C tuned filters, respectively. A synchronous reference frame-based controller which achieves harmonic isolation for the dominant fifth and seventh harmonic load currents in the presence of supply voltage harmonic distortion is presented. Impact of mistuned passive filters on the operation and rating of the square-wave active filter inverters is examined. Simulation results validate the proposed harmonic isolation controller under mistuned fifth and seventh L-C tuned filter conditions and supply voltage harmonic distortion. The proposed scheme is general and applicable for high-power 6- or 12-pulse rectifier loads. The use of small-rated square-wave inverters (approximately 2% of load kilovoltampere rating) increases the cost effectiveness of the DHAF system for high-power applications     

Development of Robust Current 2-DOF Controllers for a Permanent Magnet Synchronous Motor Drive With Reaction Wheel Load

This paper develops robust 2-DOF current and torque control schemes for a permanent magnet synchronous motor (PMSM) drive with satellite reaction wheel load. A DSP-based experimental PMSM-driven reaction wheel system is established, and the key motor parameters are estimated for realizing the proposed control schemes. In the proposed current control schemes, the traditional 2-DOF controller is augmented with an internal model feedback resonant controller or a robust tracking error cancellation controller (RECC). Comparative performance and error analyses of these two proposed control schemes are given. Accordingly, an improved robust 2-DOF current control scheme combining the resonant controller and the RECC is further proposed. The resonant controller enhances the transient and steady-state tracking of the sinusoidal current, simultaneously rejecting the back electromotive force. A similar robust tracking control for the observed torque can be designed, which exhibits quick transient response. Effectiveness of the proposed controls and the driving performance of the whole reaction wheel are evaluated experimentally.      

A comparative analysis of multiloop voltage regulation strategies for single and three-phase UPS systems

Most of the many reported control algorithms for uninterruptible power supplies (UPSs) use either filter inductor or filter capacitor currents as feedback variables to regulate the output voltage. This paper explores the fundamental performance issues associated with the use of these quantities as feedback variables, with a view to determining their contribution to the transient system response and output harmonic compensation in any particular situation. A proportional plus resonant (P+resonant) compensator is then added into the outer voltage regulation loop to achieve zero steady error, to develop a high performance UPS control algorithm, which is applicable to both single-phase and three-phase systems. Theory, simulation, and experimental results are presented in the paper.     

One-cycle control of three-phase active power filter with vector operation

Active power filters (APFs) provides an effective measure to eliminate the power line harmonic/reactive currents generated by nonlinear loads or by distributed energy sources that are connected to the grid. Active power filters are typically connected in parallel to the harmonic/reactive current sources and cancel the harmonic/reactive components in the line current so that the current flow into and from the grid is sinusoidal and in phase with the grid voltage. Since the APFs process only the harmonic/reactive power, their power-handling capability can be much higher than that of the cascade power-factor-correction methods. In this paper, the one-cycle control method is extended to control three-phase APFs. The proposed control approach employs one integrator with reset along with several logic and linear components to control a voltage-source converter to achieve three-phase unity power factor for the current to and from the power grid. No multipliers or sensors for the load current and the APF inductor current are required. Furthermore, there is no need to calculate the reference for controlling APF inductor current so that complicated digital computation is eliminated. The operation switching frequency is constant that is desirable for industrial applications. The proposed control approach features great simplicity, excellent harmonic/reactive current cancellation, and solid stability. It is a cost-effective solution for power quality control for electronic equipment, buildings, industrial facilities, ships, airplanes, distributed power generation stations, etc. All findings are supported by experimental results.     

Self-sustained oscillating resonant converters operating above theresonant frequency

This paper presents a new control technique for resonant converters. Unlike conventional variable frequency control which externally imposes the switching frequency, the proposed scheme is based on controlling the displacement angle between one of the resonant circuit variables, typically the current through the resonant inductor, and the voltage at the output of the inverter. As a result, zero-voltage switching (ZVS) can be ensured over a wide operating range. The proposed control technique cam be applied for series, parallel, and series-parallel resonant converters. As an example, the static characteristics and dynamic model of a series-parallel resonant converter with the proposed controller are derived and the system behaviour is investigated in detail. Experimental results are given to demonstrate the operation of resonant converters with the proposed controller and to validate the analysis     

Intelligent voltage control strategy for three-phase UPS inverters with output LC filter

This paper presents a supervisory fuzzy neural network control (SFNNC) method for a three-phase inverter of uninterruptible power supplies (UPSs). The proposed voltage controller is comprised of a fuzzy neural network control (FNNC) term and a supervisory control term. The FNNC term is deliberately employed to estimate the uncertain terms, and the supervisory control term is designed based on the sliding mode technique to stabilise the system dynamic errors. To improve the learning capability, the FNNC term incorporates an online parameter training methodology, using the gradient descent method and Lyapunov stability theory. Besides, a linear load current observer that estimates the load currents is used to exclude the load current sensors. The proposed SFNN controller and the observer are robust to the filter inductance variations, and their stability analyses are described in detail. The experimental results obtained on a prototype UPS test bed with a TMS320F28335 DSP are presented to validate the feasibility of the proposed scheme. Verification results demonstrate that the proposed control strategy can achieve smaller steady-state error and lower total harmonic distortion when subjected to nonlinear or unbalanced loads compared to the conventional sliding mode control method.     

New cascaded control system for current-source rectifiers

A control method for current-source rectifiers (CSRs), which realizes substantially sinusoidal line currents, unity displacement power factor, and a dc-link current control with excellent dynamic properties is presented. CSRs are usually operated by pulsewidth-modulation (PWM) or space-vector-modulation techniques. However, due to the mains LC filter resonant circuits when using these modulation methods the system stability has to be investigated, resulting in restrictions on the minimum PWM frequency and the minimum size of the LC filter. Furthermore most known dc-link current control loops use dc-link inductors of considerable size. This limits the dynamic performance and, therefore, reduces the attainable efficiency of CSRs. To overcome these problems, a new cascaded dc-link current control system for CSRs is presented. Its inner capacitor voltage controller is based on a time-discrete modulation method, which realizes a fundamentally stable control of the mains LC filter resonant circuits, avoiding the mentioned restrictions. The system controlled by the superimposed dc-link current controller is linearized by a new approach, allowing excellent dynamic performance and, therefore, a comparatively small dc-link inductor to be used. The paper includes guidelines on how to design the mains filter components and the dc-link inductor. The feasibility of the presented cascaded controller is confirmed by measurements taken on a 60-kVA model current-source converter and different loads.     

一种新的三相补偿型UPS

介绍了一种采用PWM变流器串,并联组合方案的三相补偿型UPS系统结构。与在线式UPS相比,补偿型UPS中的串联变流器的容量仅为整个系统的10％－20％,降低了造价,但并不影响其性能,还给出了补偿型UPS的两种控制原理,以保证输入电流和输出电压正弦,且总的谐波畸变率小于5％。     

Performance evaluation of an FPGA controlled soft switched inverter

A field programmable gate array (FPGA) based controller is proposed for a dc link series resonant inverter. The basic operation of the zero current switching inverter is briefly described. A strategy of decoupling the control of the dc link current from the load current is identified and referred as decoupled current control (DCC). The use of gate-controlled devices like metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor/insulated gate bipolar transistor/MOS-controlled thyristor permits a higher resonance frequency at the link of the inverter. The increased frequency enables the application of pulse density modulation technique with a bang-bang controller to synthesise and control the wave-shapes of current and voltage of the inverter. The DCC strategy eliminates the conventional analogue controller. A digital sequence controller has been designed using the state machine technique for the reliable operation of the inverter. The digital design is implemented on a single chip FPGA. To verify the proposed control strategy and the FPGA controller, a prototype has been built and tested. The test results show that a sinusoidal inverter output voltage is maintained with total harmonic distortion less than 5% and a regulation of about 1% from no-load to full-load, including non-linear and transient loads. The performance of the inverter with the FPGA controller is promising and attractive for uninterrupted power supply applications.     

Discrete pulse modulation strategies for high-frequency invertersystems

High-performance, high-frequency inverter systems for UPS (uninterruptible power system) applications cannot be easily realized using conventional hard-switched PWM inverter topologies. Adoption of typical soft-switched inverters such as the resonant DC link inverter, require the use of discrete pulse modulation strategies. New controller structures are necessary to cope with stringent voltage regulation and distortion constraints in the presence of unbalanced and nonlinear loads. A controller that utilizes a load current feedforward strategy with a cost function current regulator to achieve excellent transient performance characteristics is presented. Voltage regulation is ensured using a synchronous frame regulator. Detailed simulation and experimental results verifying the concepts are presented. Although this work focuses on soft-switching inverters, the control concepts can be applied to conventional hard-switching inverters as well     

A Single-Phase DG Generation Unit With Shunt Active Power Filter Capability by Adaptive Neural Filtering

This paper deals with a single-phase distributed generation (DG) system with active power filtering (APF) capability, devised for utility current harmonic compensation. The idea is to integrate the DG unit functions with shunt APF capabilities, because the DG is connected in parallel to the grid. With the proposed approach, control of the DG unit is performed by injecting into the grid a current with the same phase and frequency of the grid voltage and with an amplitude depending on the power available from renewable sources. On the other hand, load harmonic current compensation is performed by injecting into the alternating current system harmonic currents like those of the load but with an opposite phase, thus keeping the line current almost sinusoidal. Both detection of the grid voltage fundamental and computation of the load harmonic compensation current have been performed by two neural adaptive filters with the same structure, one in a configuration ldquonotchrdquo and the other in the complementary configuration ldquoband.rdquo The ldquonotchrdquo filter has been used to compute the compensation current by eliminating only the contribution of the fundamental of the load current, whereas the ldquobandrdquo configuration is able to extract the fundamental of the coupling point voltage. Furthermore, because the active power generation and the APF features require current control of components at different frequencies, respectively, a multiresonant current controller has been adopted. The methodology has been tested successfully both in numerical simulation and experimentally on a suitably devised test setup. The stability analysis of the proposed control approach has been performed in the discrete domain.     

Inductor design for high-power applications with broad-spectrumexcitation

The design of high-power inductors for applications with broad current spectrum excitation is a challenging task. The resonant inductor of a resonant DC-link inverter (RDCLI) is one such example. The inductor current consists of a resonant current component, a DC component, which supplies the active power to the load and a modulation component, which depends on the modulation strategy. In addition, the frequency and amplitude of the dominant current components change with operating point. Conventional inductor designs for single-frequency excitation do not perform well in broad-spectrum applications. In order to improve these designs, the impact of broad current spectrums on winding design, core selection, power density, and thermal-handling capability must be investigated. In this paper, alternate inductor topologies, which better address the above issues, are proposed and investigated     

Suppression of line voltage related distortion in current controlled grid connected inverters

The influence of selected control strategies on the level of low-order current harmonic distortion generated by an inverter connected to a distorted grid is investigated through a combination of theoretical and experimental studies. A detailed theoretical analysis, based on the concept of harmonic impedance, establishes the suitability of inductor current feedback versus output current feedback with respect to inverter power quality. Experimental results, obtained from a purpose-built 500-W, three-level, half-bridge inverter with an L-C-L output filter, verify the efficacy of inductor current as the feedback variable, yielding an output current total harmonic distortion (THD) some 29% lower than that achieved using output current feedback. A feed-forward grid voltage disturbance rejection scheme is proposed as a means to further reduce the level of low-order current harmonic distortion. Results obtained from an inverter with inductor current feedback and optimized feed-forward disturbance rejection show a THD of just 3% at full-load, representing an improvement of some 53% on the same inverter with output current feedback and no feed-forward compensation. Significant improvements in THD were also achieved across the entire load range. It is concluded that the use of inductor current feedback and feed-forward voltage disturbance rejection represent cost-effect mechanisms for achieving improved output current quality.     

A comparison of UPS for powering hybrid fiber/coaxial networks

Four distinct uninterruptible power supply topologies are presented here for powering hybrid fiber/coaxial (HFC) networks. Topologies based on a low frequency isolation transformer are found to have better efficiency than the topologies with high frequency transformer. However, the latter topologies have much better performance in terms of transient response, quality of the output voltage, input power factor, total harmonic distortion of the input current, size and weight. The series-parallel resonant based UPS topology is found to have best overall performance for the emerging HFC applications     

Electronic Ballast Control IC With Digital Phase Control and Lamp Current Regulation

A digital control architecture is presented for electronic ballasts that provides a phase sweep for reliable, soft lamp ignition and a smooth transition to lamp current regulation mode. The controller is based on an inner phase loop for fast regulation of the resonant tank operating point and an outer current loop for lamp current regulation. The inner loop operates on a simple digital control law that computes the required gate timing relative to the inductor current positive zero crossing. Phase control provides reliable drive of the resonant converter in the presence of large dynamic changes in the load impedance during lamp ignition and warm up and natural tracking of component variations with temperature and time. The primarily digital approach provides programmability for broad application, insensitivity to process and temperature variations, realization in low cost CMOS processes and few external components. Experimental results are presented for an integrated ballast controller fabricated in a 0.8 mum CMOS process used in a 400 W, 150 kHz HID electronic ballast.     

A new single-phase five-level PWM inverter employing a deadbeat control scheme

A single-phase five-level PWM inverter is presented to alleviate harmonic components of the output voltage and the load current. Operational principles with switching functions are analyzed. To keep the output voltage sinusoidal and to have the high dynamic performances even in the cases of load variations and the partial magnetization in filter inductor, the deadbeat controller is designed and implemented on a prototype. The validity of the proposed inverter is verified through simulation and experiments. To assess the proposed inverter, it is compared with the conventional single-phase three-level PWM inverter under the conditions of identical supply DC voltage and switching frequency. In addition, it is compared with the five-level cascaded PWM inverter.