Analysis of the Harmonic Performance of Power Converters and Electrical Drives

Power converters have progressively become the most efficient and attractive solution in recent decades in many industrial sectors, ranging from electric mobility, aerospace applications to attain better electric aircraft concepts, vast renewable energy resource integration in the transmission and distribution grid, the design of smart and efficient energy management systems, the usage of energy storage systems, and the achievement of smart grid paradigm development, among others.In order to achieve efficient solutions in this wide energy scenario, over the past few decades, considerable attention has been paid by the academia and industry in order to develop new methods to achieve power systems with maximum harmonic performance aiming for two main targets. On the one hand, the high-performance harmonic performance of power systems would lead to improvements in their power density, size and weight. This becomes critical in applications such as aerospace or electric mobility, where the power converters are on-board systems. On the other hand, current standards are becoming more and more strict in order to reduce the EMI and EMC noise, as well as meeting minimum power quality requirements (i.e., grid code standards for grid-tied power systems)

Passivation of Grid-Following VSCs: A Comparison Between Active Damping and Multi-Sampled PWM

This article compares different strategies used to enhance the stability properties of grid-following voltage-source converters (VSCs). Because of digital delays, VSC admittance exhibits a nonpassive zone, which introduces negative damping and may destabilize the grid-connected operation. It is shown that typically used active damping (AD) strategies only bring positive impact up to a certain frequency, while deteriorating admittance properties around and above the Nyquist frequency. Multi-sampled pulsewidth modulation (MS-PWM) greatly extends the passive admittance region, using only a single-loop current controller. Experimental admittance measurements are performed on a single-phase VSC, up to twice the switching frequency. Subsequently, different grid-connected scenarios are tested to show that MS-PWM retains stable operation, where AD methods cause instability. This article also offers analytic modeling and experimental measurements of noise propagation for compared strategies. It is shown that derivative-based AD is not highly sensitive; however, MS-PWM offers additional noise suppression

Analysis of two level and three level inverters

The power electronics device which converts DC power to AC power at required output voltage and frequency level is known as inverter. Inverters can be broadly classified into single level inverter and multilevel inverter. Multilevel inverter as compared to single level inverters have advantages like minimum harmonic distortion, reduced MI/RFI generation and can operate on several voltage levels. A multi-stage inverter is being utilized for multipurpose applications, such as active power filters, static var compensators and machine drives for sinusoidal and trapezoidal current applications. The drawbacks are the isolated power supplies required for each one of the stages of the multiconverter and it’s also lot harder to build, more expensive, harder to control in software. This project aims at the simulation study of three phase single level and multilevel inverters. The role of inverters in active power filter for harmonic filtering is studied and simulated in MATLAB/SIMULINK. Firstly, the three phase system with non-linear loads are modeled and their characteristics is observed . Secondly, the active power filters are modeled with the inverters and suitable switching control strategies ( PWM technique) to carry out harmonic elimination

Control analysis and design of medium voltage converter with multirate techniques

This work aims to unify the current knowledge about multirate controllers with design techniques for grid-tied converters, in this occasion, connected to Medium Voltage AC grid. Therefore, the multirate contributions, that have been given so far, are studied, as well as everything related to modulation techniques for power converters. The temporal implications of the DSPWM actuator will be correlated to multirate analysis, in addition to possible alternatives for applications with a lower sampling frequency than modulation one. Finalizing with explanations and result demonstrations of controllers working between two frequencies or rates, by means of the available power converter in laboratory.Este trabajo pretende unir el conocimiento actual sobre controladores multitasa o multifrecuencia (multirate) con técnicas de diseño para convertidores conectados a la red, en este caso concreto, a la red alterna (AC) de Media Tensión. Por tanto, se estudian las contribuciones multirate realizadas hasta la fecha, así como todo lo relacionado con la modulación de la señal de control para los convertidores. Las implicaciones temporales del actuador DSPWM se relacionarán con el análisis multitasa, así como se explicarán posibles alternativas para aplicaciones con una frecuencia de muestreo menor que la de modulación. Finalizando con la explicación y presentación de resultados de controladores trabajando entre dos frecuencias o tasas, mediante simulaciones del convertidor disponible en laboratorio.Máster Universitario en Ingeniería Industrial (M141

System identification and adaptive current balancing ON/OFF control of DC-DC switch mode power converter

PhD ThesisReliability becomes more and more important in industrial application of Switch Mode Power Converters (SMPCs). A poorly performing power supply in a power system can influence its operation and potentially compromise the entire system performance in terms of efficiency. To maintain a high reliability, high performance SMPC effective control is necessary for regulating the output of the SMPC system. However, an uncertainty is a key factor in SMPC operation. For example, parameter variations can be caused by environmental effects such as temperature, pressure and humidity. Usually, fixed controllers cannot respond optimally and generate an effective signal to compensate the output error caused by time varying parameter changes. Therefore, the stability is potentially compromised in this case. To resolve this problem, increasing interest has been shown in employing online system identification techniques to estimate the parameter values in real time. Moreover, the control scheme applied after system identification is often called “adaptive control” due to the control signal selfadapting to the parameter variation by receiving the information from the system identification process. In system identification, the Recursive Least Square (RLS) algorithm has been widely used because it is well understood and easy to implement. However, despite the popularity of RLS, the high computational cost and slow convergence speed are the main restrictions for use in SMPC applications. For this reason, this research presents an alternative algorithm to RLS; Fast Affline Projection (FAP). Detailed mathematical analysis proves the superior computational efficiency of this algorithm. Moreover, simulation and experiment result verify this unique adaptive algorithm has improved performance in terms of computational cost and convergence speed compared with the conventional RLS methods. Finally, a novel adaptive control scheme is designed for optimal control of a DC-DC buck converter during transient periods. By applying the proposed adaptive algorithm, the control signal can be successfully employed to change the ON/OFF state of the power transistor in the DC-DC buck converter to improve the dynamic behaviour. Simulation and experiment result show the proposed adaptive control scheme significantly improves the transient response of the buck converter, particularly during an abrupt load change conditio

Measurements, Models, Systems and Design

531 s.

Dual active bridge converters in solid state transformers

This dissertation presents a comprehensive study of Dual Active Bridge (DAB) converters for Solid State Transformers (SSTs). The first contribution is to propose an ac-ac DAB converter as a single stage SST. The proposed converter topology consists of two active H-bridges and one high-frequency transformer. Output voltage can be regulated when input voltage changes by phase shift modulation. Power is transferred from the leading bridge to the lagging bridge. It analyzes the steady-state operation and the range of zero-voltage switching. It develops a switch commutation scheme for the ac-ac DAB converters. Simulation and experiment results of a scaled down prototype are provided to verify the theoretical analysis. The second contribution is to develop a full-order continuous-time average model for dc-dc DAB converters. The transformer current in DAB converter is purely ac, making continuous-time modeling difficult. Instead, the proposed approach uses the dc terms and 1st order terms of transformer current and capacitor voltage as state variables. Singular perturbation analysis is performed to find the sufficient conditions to separate the dynamics of transformer current and capacitor voltage. Experimental results confirm that the proposed model predicts the small-signal frequency response more accurately. The third contribution addresses the controller design of a dc-dc DAB converter when driving a single-phase dc-ac inverter. It studies the effect of 120 Hz current generated by the single-phase inverter. The limitation of PI-controller is investigated. Two methods are proposed to reduce the voltage ripple at the output voltage of DAB converter. The first method helps the feedback loop with feedforward from inverter, while the second one adds an additional resonance controller to the feedback loop. Theoretical analysis, simulation and experiment results are provided to verify the effectiveness of the proposed methods --Abstract, page iii

Modulation and Control Techniques for Performance Improvement of Micro Grid Tie Inverters

The concept of microgrids is a new building block of smart grid that acts as a single controllable entity which allows reliable interconnection of distributed energy resources and loads and provides alternative way of their integration into power system. Due to its specifics, microgrids require different control strategies and dynamics of regulation as compared to ones used in conventional utility grids. All types of power converters used in microgrid share commonalities which potentially affect high frequency modes of microgrid in same manner. There are numerous unique design requirements imposed on microgrid tie inverters, which are dictated by the nature of the microgrid system and bring major challenges that are reviewed and further analyzed in this work. This work introduces, performs a detailed study on, and implements nonconventional control and modulation techniques leading to performance improvement of microgrid tie inverters in respect to aforementioned challenges

Design and Control of Power Converters for High Power-Quality Interface with Utility and Aviation Grids

Power electronics as a subject integrating power devices, electric and electronic circuits, control, and thermal and mechanic design, requires not only knowledge and engineering insight for each subarea, but also understanding of interface issues when incorporating these different areas into high performance converter design.Addressing these fundamental questions, the dissertation studies design and control issues in three types of power converters applied in low-frequency high-power transmission, medium-frequency converter emulated grid, and high-frequency high-density aviation grid, respectively, with the focus on discovering, understanding, and mitigating interface issues to improve power quality and converter performance, and to reduce the noise emission.For hybrid ac/dc power transmission,• Analyze the interface transformer saturation issue between ac and dc power flow under line unbalances.• Proposed both passive transformer design and active hybrid-line-impedance-conditioner to suppress this issue.For transmission line emulator,• Propose general transmission line emulation schemes with extension capability.• Analyze and actively suppress the effects of sensing/sampling bias and PWM ripple on emulation considering interfaced grid impedance.• Analyze the stability issue caused by interaction of the emulator and its interfaced impedance. A criterion that determines the stability and impedance boundary of the emulator is proposed.For aircraft battery charger,• Investigate architectures for dual-input and dual-output battery charger, and a three-level integrated topology using GaN devices is proposed to achieve high density.• Identify and analyze the mechanisms and impacts of high switching frequency, di/dt, dv/dt on sensing and power quality control; mitigate solutions are proposed.• Model and compensate the distortion due to charging transition of device junction capacitances in three-level converters.• Find the previously overlooked device junction capacitance of the nonactive devices in three-level converters, and analyze the impacts on switching loss, device stress, and current distortion. A loss calculation method is proposed using the data from the conventional double pulse tester.• Establish fundamental knowledge on performance degradation of EMI filters. The impacts and mechanisms of both inductive and capacitive coupling on different filter structures are understood. Characterization methodology including measuring, modeling, and prediction of filter insertion loss is proposed. Mitigation solutions are proposed to reduce inter-component coupling and self-parasitics