Power Compensation Based on Digital Predictive Current Controlled Three-Phase Bi-directional Inverter with Wide Inductance Variation

T.-F. Wu, L.-C Lin, C.-H. Chang and Y.-K. Chen

Elegant Power Application Research Center (EPARC) Department of Electrical Engineering Nation Chung Cheng University Ming-Hsiung, Chia-Yi, Taiwan, R.O.C. E-mail: ieetfwu@ccu.edu.tw
AbstractThis paper presents power compensation based on digital predictive current controlled three-phase bi-directional inverter with wide inductance variation. The three-phase bidirectional inverter can fulfill both real power and reactive power compensation for ac grid. With the proposed control, the inverter can track sinusoidal reference currents precisely with unity power factor or power factors -0.5 ~ +0.5, and it is allowed to have wide inductance variation, reducing core size significantly. In the design and implementation, the inductances corresponding to various inductor currents are measured and tabulated into a single-chip microcontroller for tuning loop gain cycle by cycle, ensuring system stability. Moreover, a one-phase shift detection method for anti-islanding operation based on the proposed control is also presented. Measured results from a 10 kVA 3 bi-directional inverter have confirmed the feasibility of the discussed control approach and detection method.

presented. However, inductance variation with various current levels has not been considered in the controller design yet, which will result in poor stability at high power applications. In our previous research [7], a digital predictive current controlled 10 kW 3 bi-directional inverter with wide inductance variation has been designed and implemented. Based on its control, this paper presents a power compensation scheme for a 3 bi-directional inverter in dc distribution systems. The proposed control can also achieve islanding detection with a one-phase shift detection method. In the paper, operational principle and control laws of the inverter will be first presented, and the power compensation mechanism and the one-phase shift detection method will be then discussed. Experimental results measured from a 10 kVA 3 bidirectional inverter are presented to confirm the proposed control and detection method. II. REVIEW OF DIGITAL PREDICTIVE CONTROL Power circuit diagram of a three-phase six-switch bidirectional inverter is shown in Fig. 1. With wide inductance variation, the inverter would be unstable, especially in high current applications. The inverter operation includes gridconnection mode and rectification mode.

I.

INTRODUCTION

Recently, renewable power generation systems with gridconnection were studied widely. Renewable power will be converted into dc form and buffered with energy storage elements. This brings dc-driving opportunities for electric appliance and equipment which are mostly supplied with dc voltage sources. However, the distributed generation (DG) systems require bi-directional inverters to control the power flow between dc bus and ac grid, and to regulate the dc bus to a certain range of voltages. The DG systems also need to inject complex power to ac grid for reactive power compensation, which can supply capacitive or inductive loads. In the past studies, the power compensation based on sinusoidal pulse-width modulation (SPWM) [1], [2], space-vector pulse-width modulation (SVPWM) [3], [4], and two-phase modulation [5], [6] were

Fig. 1. Circuit diagram of a three-phase bi-directional inverter

978-1-4577-1216-6/12/$26.00 2012 IEEE

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A. Grid-Connection Mode Based on Kirchhoffs current law (KCL), space-vector pulse width modulation (SVPWM) and the state equations of the inverter, the control laws can be derived. In the control, one line period (T) is divided into six regions according to the zero-crossing points of the line currents, as shown in Fig. 2. In region 0~60, the gate driving signals can be determined from switching voltages uRS, uST and uTR, and their corresponding switching sequence is shown in Fig. 3. In region 0~60, time intervals T0(000 and 111), T1(100) and T2(101) can be expressed as follows:

(3) . In the above equations, D.H and D.L denote the duty ratios of

( LR + LS ) iv ( R ) + LS iv (T ) vRS 1 vDC T DRL vDC D = + 0 0 SH ( LT + LS ) iv (T ) + LS iv ( R ) 1 + vST DTL vDC vDC T

the upper arm and the lower arm, respectively.

(L R + LT )iv ( R ) LT iv ( S ) vTR + T T1 v DC v DC (1) = , T LR iv ( R ) LS iv ( S ) v RS 2 + T v DC v DC

and T0 = T-T1-T2,
where vRS and vTR are the line-to-line voltages, vDC is the dc-bus voltage, T is the switching period, and iv(R) and iv(S) are the variations of inductor currents in one switching cycle. Moreover, the predictive current control can be realized with a two-phase modulation. The control laws (duty ratio) for the inverter with the two-phase modulation [7] can be determined as:
Fig. 2. Six regions in one line period divided according to the zero-crossing points of line currents iR, iS and iT.

(LR + LS )iv ( R ) + LS iv (T ) vRS v DRH vDC DC , D = 0 SL + 1 ( LT + LS )iv (T ) + LS iv ( R ) vST DTH vDC vDC

(2)
Fig. 3. Switching Sequence in Region 0~60.

where
DRH = T2 T

III.

POWER COMPENSATION

and
DTH = T1 T2 . + T T

The control laws in the other regions can be also derived with the same procedure. B. Rectification Mode When the bi-directional inverter is operated in rectification mode with power factor correction, the inverter acts like a boost converter which is just the complementary operation of a buck converter in grid-connection mode. Thus, again based on the two-phase modulation, the control laws in region 0~60 for the rectification mode can be readily derived from (2) as follows:

The proposed predictive current control laws can also achieve power compensation with unity power factor (PF), leading PF and lagging PF. However, the control laws for power compensation require operation-mode changes when the degrees of current lagging or leading voltage are higher than 30. Fig. 4 shows the corresponding line-modulation duty ratios (LMDR) of phase-R inductor current (or line current) iR to line voltage vRS, vST, and vTR. It can be observed that the corresponding LMDR are still positive when the lagging degrees are below 30, as shown in Fig, 4(a), while the LMDR will go to negative value in region 180 ~ 240 and 0 ~ 60 when the leading degrees are over 30, as shown in Fig. 4(b). Therefore, the original control laws in grid-connection mode can be applied to power compensation at PF lagging or leading degrees below 30. If leading or lagging degrees are higher than 30, the original control laws cannot be applied directly to achieve power compensation with the gridconnection mode. The operation sequence in one line period is thus divided into 12 regions when the lagging or leading degrees are over 30, as shown in Fig. 5. The control laws for both leading and lagging PFs are then derived as follows.

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v RS LMDR: v DC

v TR v DC

v RS v DC

v TR v DC

LMDR:

vTR vDC

vRS vDC

vTR vDC

v RS vDC

Interval T0:

v DC LR v = L DC T
Interval T1:

LS iv ( R ), 0 1 v RS + LS + LT iv ( S ), 0 T0 v ST

(5)

0 LR 0 = L T
Interval T2:
Leading PF Fig. 4. The corresponding LMDR of inductor current iR to three-phase line voltage vRS, vST, and vTR when lagging degree < 30 LMDR: Lagging PF Leading PF

LS iv ( R ),1 1 vRS + LS + LT iv ( S ),1 T1 vST

LS iv ( R ), 2 1 v RS + LS + LT iv ( S ), 2 T2 vST

(6)

v DC LR 0 = L T
where

(7)

T0 = T-T1-T2,
T is the switching period, vRS and vST are the line-to-line voltages, vDC is the dc-bus voltage, and iv(.), N is the variation of inductor current iR ,iS or iT in each time interval TN, where N = 1, 2 and 3. The final duty ratio (control) is determined from current variation iv(.) and compensated current error c e (=Iref(n)-ifb(n)), where Gc is the current error compensator [7]. The overall control block diagram is shown in Fig. 7, revealing that the overall predictive duty ratio d(n+1) contains variation term dv(n+1), error term de(n+1), and linemodulation term D(n+1), vRS/vDC, vST/vDC, or vTR/vDC.

G i

Grid-connection mode

Grid-connection mode

Fig. 5. The corresponding LMDR of inductor current iR , iS, and iT to threephase line voltage vRS, vST, and vTR when (a) lagging 60 degrees, and (b) leading 60 degrees

A. Leading PF For deriving the control laws, the state equations of the 3 inverter shown in Fig. 1 need to be obtained, which are given as

u RS LR u = L ST T

diR LS dt v RS + , LS + LT diS vST dt

(4)

Fig. 6. Symmetrical switching sequence in leading mode.

where uRS and uST denote the switch voltages which change with the states of the switches. In the control, one line period is divided into 12 regions when the leading or lagging degrees are over 30, as shown in Fig. 5. In region 0~60, phase-R inductor will have no demagnetizing path, when line voltage vRS is negative and the inverter is operated in grid-connection mode. In this case, phase-R inductor can be only magnetized and demagnetized through its lower-arm diode, and phase-S lower-arm and phase-T upper-arm switches, as shown in Fig. 6. The switching sequence consists of three time intervals: T0, T1, and T2, and each of which has its corresponding state of switching voltage. Thus, according to the states of uRS and uST in region 0~60, equation (4) can be expressed in three different matrixes which are corresponding to the three time intervals, T0, T1, and T2.

i (n + 1) v()

Fig. 7. A block diagram of the proposed predictive control.

To obtain the overall inductor current variation over one switching period T, the current variation in each time interval is first expressed as follows:

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Interval T0:
LS + LT iv( R),0 L2 total i = v( S ),0 LT 2 Ltotal LS LS + LT v L2 L2 RS total T0 total LR vST LT 2 L2 total Ltotal LS v L2 total DC T0 LR vDC L2 total

(8)

Interval T1:
LS + LT L2 iv ( R ),1 total i = L T v ( S ),1 2 Ltotal LS L2 total LR L2 total v RS T1 v ST
LS v L2 DC total T2 LR 0 2 Ltotal

Additionally, it can be observed that each control law has two inductance variables. In other words, inductance variation has been taken into account by the controller to tune the duty ratios cycle by cycle corresponding to different current levels. Thus, the control laws shown in (13) can handle wide inductance variation. Note that the inductance varying with its inductor current can be measured off-line and tabulated into the memory of a microcontroller, or it can be measured with a self-learning program on-line. By including the compensated current error Gc ie (=Iref(n)ifb(n)), the control laws for region 0~60 shown in (13) can be modified as follows:
0 DRH D = LR iv ( R ) + ie ( R ) + LS iv ( S ) + ie ( S ) SL v DC T DTH (L + L ) i + i + L i + i R T v(R) e (R ) T v( S ) e (S ) v T DC 0 (14) v RS + 1 + v , DC vTR v DC

(9)

Interval T2:
LS + LT L2 iv ( R ), 2 total i = L T v ( S ), 2 L2 total LS LS + LT v RS L2 L2 total total T2 L LR v T ST 2 L2 total Ltotal

(10)

where

L2 total = L R L S + L S LT + LT L R .
By summarizing the above three state equations, we can have
LS + LT L2 iv ( R ) total = i LT v ( S ) 2 Ltotal LS LS + LT v RS L2 L2 total T total LR vST LT 2 L2 total Ltotal LS vDC L2 total LR v DC 2 Ltotal v DC T1 0 T2

where
ie ( ) = Gc ie( ) .

(11)

The control laws for other region can be derived by following the same procedure.

where

iv ( R ) = iv ( R ), 0 + iv ( R ),1 + iv ( R ), 2
and

iv ( S ) = iv ( S ), 0 + iv ( S ),1 + iv ( S ), 2 .
From (11), the time intervals, T0 and T2, can be determined as:

(LS + LT )iv ( R ) + LT iv ( S ) v + 1 TR T T0 v DC vDC . T = + L i L i v R v ( R ) S v ( S ) RS 2 +1+ T vDC vDC

B. Lagging PF When the inverter is operated in grid-connection mode at lagging degrees over 30, phase-T inductor current can be only magnetized and demagnetized through its lower-arm diode, and phase-R upper-arm and phase-S lower-arm switches, as shown in Fig. 8. Again, by following the same procedure, the control laws for region 30~ 60 can be then derived as
( LR + LT ) iv ( R ) + ie ( R ) + LT iv ( S ) + ie ( S ) v DC T DRH L + L i + ie( R ) + LT iv ( S ) + ie ( ) (S ) T v(R) D = S SL v DC T DTH 0

(12)

) )

And its corresponding control laws for the two-phase modulation can be then determined as:
0 0 D RH L i + L i v R v ( R ) S v ( S ) D = + 1 + RS , SL vDC vDCT DTH (LR + LT )iv ( R ) + LT iv ( S ) vTR vDC vDCT

v TR v DC (15) v ST , + 1 v DC 0

(13)

where

D SL =

DTH

T2 , T T = 1 0 , T

Fig.8. Symmetrical switching sequence in lagging mode.

IV. and DRL, RSH, and DTL are set to zero. The duty ratios for other regions can be also derived with the same procedure.

ONE-PHASE SHIFT ISLANDING DETECTION

The proposed power compensation control can be also applied for detecting islanding operation. The sequences of the

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three-phase line voltages and inductor currents for detecting islanding operation are shown in Fig. 9, where Fig. 9(a) denotes PF leading, Fig. 9(b) stands for PF lagging, and the dotted waveform is the original inductor current of phase S. First, one of the three-phase inductor currents is fixed, another will be shifted by leading or lagging F degrees, and the other will be just the sum of the other two currents with a negative sign. According to this control, islanding operation can be detected by varying phase lagging or leading.

Similarly, they have the same results when the inverter is operated at PF 0.5 lagging under 2 kW and 3 kW, as shown in Fig. 14. These distortions can be improved with a bipolar operation of the switches. C. Test with one-phase shift method Fig. 15 shows the three-phase currents and line voltage vRS based on phase-S current lagging. It can be observed that under grid-tied operation, the amplitude of phase-T current will become lower than the others. When the inverter is disconnected from the ac grid, the controller will detect a higher line voltage caused by phase-T current, which will lead to over voltage protection. The one-phase shift control also causes the phase angle variation among currents and an underfrequency condition will be detected, as shown in Fig. 16.

(a)

(b)

Fig. 9. A sequence of the three-phase line voltages and inductor currents for anti-islading by (a) phase leading and (b) phase lagging.

V.

EXPERIMENT RESULTS

The discussed power compensation was confirmed by a 10 kVA three-phase bi-directional inverter in a dc distribution system. The range of dc-bus voltage is specified from 360 V to 400 V. The nominal 3 line-to-line voltage is 220 Vrms and the line frequency is 60 Hz. The inverter inductance varies from 2 mH to 350 H per phase and the switching frequency is 20 kHz. The power diodes are realized with silicon carbide, which have no reverse-recovery time. Moreover, for antiislanding test, a 6.6 kVA RLC load with the resonant frequency of 60 Hz was built. A. Test with Wide Inductance Variation Figs. 10 and 11 show the current waveforms with and without considering wide inductance variation at 5 and 10 kW. The tests were based on the inverter operated in gridconnection mode. At 5 kW, as shown in Fig. 10, it can be seen that there is a little distortion at the peak current without considering inductance variation, while their difference is not significant at all. However, when the inverter is operated with 10 kW, as shown in Fig. 11, the measured inductor currents from the system without considering wide inductance variation have large distortion near the peak and a divergence in phase-R. B. Test with lagging PF and leading PF Fig.12 shows the waveforms of the three-phase currents and line-voltage vRS feedback signal at PF 0.95 (about 18 degree) lagging and leading under 800 W. Since the leading and lagging degrees are less than 30, the inverter can still use the control laws in grid-connection mode to achieve power compensation. Fig. 13 shows the three-phase inductor currents and line voltage vRS at PF 0.5 leading under 2 kW and 3 kW, which verify the proposed power compensation control with leading PF. However, it can be seen that there is a little current distortion at mode change under 2 kW power condition. The distortion becomes more significant under 3 kW, because the mode change occurs at the zero-crossing point of line voltages.

(iR, iS and iT: 10A/div; time: 2ms/div) (a)

(iR, iS and iT: 10A/div; time: 2ms/div)

(b) Fig. 10. Measured waveforms of the three-phase inductor currents under the control (a) with and (b) without considering wide inductance variation in grid-connection mode at 5 kW.

(iR, iS and iT: 10A/div; time: 2ms/div) (a)

(iR, iS and iT: 10A/div; time: 2ms/div) (b) Fig. 11. Measured waveforms of the three-phase inductor currents under the control (a) with and (b) without considering wide inductance variation in grid-connection mode at 10 kW.

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vRS
iR iS iT iS iT

iR

line vRS feedback signal (iR, iS and iT: 2A/div; time: 2ms/div) (a)

Current distortion at mode change (iR, iS and iT: 5A/div; time: 2ms/div) (a) vRS

iR

iS

iT iR iS iT

line vRS feedback signal (iR, iS and iT: 2A/div; time: 2ms/div) (b) Fig. 12. Measured waveforms of the three-phase inductor currents and linevoltage vRS feedback signal at (a) PF 0.95 leading and (b) PF 0.95 lagging under 800W power condition. vRS

Current distortion at mode change (iR, iS and iT: 5A/div; time: 2ms/div) (b) Fig.14. Measured waveforms of the three-phase inductor currents and linevoltage vRS at PF 0.5 lagging under (a) 2kW, and (b) 3kW power condition.

vRS

iR iR iS iT

iS iT

over voltage protection Current distortion at mode change (iR, iS and iT: 5A/div; time: 2ms/div) (a) vRS (iR, iS and iT: 10A/div; vRS: 100V/div; time: 2ms/div) Fig.15. Measured waveform of the three-phase currents and line voltage vRS in anti-islanding test with over voltage condition.

iR

iS

iT iR

vRS

iS iT

Current distortion at mode change (iR, iS and iT: 5A/div; time: 2ms/div) (b) Fig.13. Measured waveforms of the three-phase inductor currents and grid line-voltage vRS at PF 0.5 leading under (a) 2kW, and (b) 3kW power conditions.

under-frequency protection

(iR, iS and iT: 10A/div; vRS: 100V/div; time: 2ms/div) Fig.16. Measured waveform of the three-phase currents and line voltage vRS in anti-islanding test with under-frequency condition.

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VI.

CONCLUSIONS
[1]

Power compensation based on digital predictive current controlled three-phase bi-directional inverter with wide inductance variation has been presented in the paper. The control laws for both leading and lagging PF have been derived in detail. With the proposed control, the inverter can track sinusoidal reference currents precisely with unity power factor or power factors -0.5 ~ +0.5, and it is allowed to have wide inductance variation, reducing core size significantly. This paper has also proposed an anti-islanding method with one phase shift, which can detect islanding operation by examining over/under voltage and over/under frequency conditions. Experimental results have verified the feasibility of the proposed power compensation approach and islanding detection method. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT The authors would like to thank the institute of Nuclear Energy Research and the National Science Council, Taiwan, ROC, for funding this research.

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