794

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 48, NO. 4, AUGUST 2001

A Fast Dynamic DC-Link Power-Balancing Scheme

for a PWM ConverterInverter System
Namho Hur, Student Member, IEEE, Jinhwan Jung, Associate Member, IEEE, and Kwanghee Nam, Member, IEEE

AbstractWe propose a new converter control scheme for

a converterinverter system. The strategy is to fully utilize the
inverter dynamics in controlling the converter dynamics. We
obtain the power dynamics for both converter and inverter
systems, and control the converter power so that it matches the
required inverter power exactly. Then, in the ideal case, no power
flows through the dc-link capacitors and, thus, the dc-link voltage
does not fluctuate even though a very small amount of the dc-link
capacitance is used. In forcing the converter power to match the
inverter power, we utilize the masterslave control concept. We
control the dc-link voltage level indirectly through the stored
capacitor energy in order to exploit the advantage of the linear
dynamic behavior of the capacitor energy. This helps us to circumvent a complex control method in regulating the dc-link voltage.
Through simulation and experimental results, the superiority of
the proposed converter control scheme is demonstrated.
Index TermsDC-link capacitor energy control, masterslave
model, power-balancing control, pulsewidth modulation converterinverter system.

I. INTRODUCTION

HE pulsewidth modulation (PWM) converterinverter

system is widely used in the field of ac motor drives.
Aluminum electrolytic capacitors are normally installed in the
system as the energy storage element, but in some applications,
such as high-power or high-voltage motor drives, the aluminum
electrolytic capacitor has several drawbacks from the viewpoints of size, weight, cost, and reliability [5]. Specifically, the
most important one among them is reliability. Due to continuous out-gassing, the properties of the electrolytic capacitors
deteriorate gradually as time goes by. Hence, the capacitor is
the major factor limiting the lifetime of inverter systems.
We are inclined to reduce the dc-link capacitor size as a means
to reduce the cost and the volume of the inverter. However,
a small capacitance leads to a large voltage fluctuation in the
dc-link voltage and, consequently, causes semiconductor switch
breakdown.
Manuscript received December 21, 2000; revised February 1, 2001. Abstract
published on the Internet June 6, 2001.
N. Hur was with the Department of Electrical Engineering, Pohang University
of Science and Technology, Pohang 790-784, Korea. He is now with the Radio
and Broadcasting Technology Laboratory, Electronics and Telecommunications
Research Institute, Taejon, Korea (e-mail: namho@etri.re.kr).
J. Jung was with the Department of Electrical Engineering, Pohang University of Science and Technology, Pohang 790-784, Korea. He is now with the
Control System Research Team, Advanced R&D Center, Hyundai Motor Company, Kyungki-Do, Korea (e-mail: jhjung@hyundai-motor.com).
K. Nam is with the Department of Electrical Engineering, Pohang University
of Science and Technology, Pohang 790-784, Korea (e-mail: kwnam@postech.
ac.kr).
Publisher Item Identifier S 0278-0046(01)06281-5.

Various dc-link voltage control schemes [1][5], [7], [8] have

been proposed. Malesani et al. [5] and Wu et al. [8] employed
a measured load current. Singh et al. [7] utilized the measured
dc-link voltage and load current for the feedforward power control. However, it is not an easy task to measure the load current,
since there is a prior necessity to reduce the stray inductance of
the bus bar system between capacitors and insulated gate bipolar
transistors (IGBTs). The current sensor installation problem becomes more serious as the inverter power rating becomes large
[3]. As an alternative method, Habetler [2] utilized an estimated
load current by using the static dc-link power flowing into the
inverter. But it has a performance limit during the transient period since it involves a low-pass filter. Dixon et al. [1] compensated for the load current by utilizing the dc-link voltage error.
Kim and Sul proposed a fast dc-link voltage controller for the
PWM converterinverter system having a very small dc-link capacitance with the use of motor variables in the steady state [4].
However, since the previous control schemes do not consider
the inverter power dynamics directly, the dc-link voltage error
becomes quite large, especially when the motor speed changes
suddenly.
In this paper, we consider a method of reducing the dc-link
capacitance by improving the converter current control. The
conventional method aims at keeping a desired dc-link voltage
level and the unity power factor separated from the inverter dynamics. However, the strategic point of the proposed approach
is to incorporate the inverter dynamics with converter control.
This method provides us with a much faster response since the
converter operates with the knowledge of the inverter operating
status. In such a case, it is possible to control the converter current so that the exact amount of current required by the inverter
is supplied to the inverter. Consequently, no current flows into
the dc-link capacitor and, as a result, the dc-link voltage does not
fluctuate even though a very small capacitance is used. Such an
idea was studied by Jung et al. [3] with the use of the feedback
linearization control method, but in our approach we utilize a
masterslave control method [6] in forcing the converter power
to track the inverter power. Another difference from [3] is the
fact that the dc-link voltage regulation is achieved through the
control of the stored energy in the dc-link capacitors.
II. POWER DYNAMICS OF INVERTER AND CONVERTER
A common configuration of a PWM converterinverter
system sharing a single capacitor bank is shown in Fig. 1. In
the following, we derive a dynamic dc-link power-balancing
controller such that the dynamics of the converter power is
equal to that of the inverter power. The required power for the

02780046/01$10.00 2001 IEEE

HUR et al.: DC-LINK POWER-BALANCING SCHEME

795

Fig. 1. Configuration of a PWM converterinverter system sharing a single capacitor.

inverter is not predictable due to frequent command changes

and load variations. Specifically in the motor drive application,
the speed profile and load variation are unknown to the inverter.
However, the inverter operation status is reflected by the motor
terminal voltages and currents. Using those variables, we
compute the time derivatives of the inverter power and the
power dynamics of the inverter.
We will treat the inverter power dynamics as a master system,
and consider the converter power dynamics as a slave system
that must exactly track the inverter power dynamics. Next, using
the stored capacitor energy as a variable, we develop a controller
for the dc-link voltage regulation.

where
and
denote the -axes
and
the - -axes current commands,
current errors, and
respectively. and denote the proportional gain and the integral gain, respectively. If a proportionalintegral (PI) controller
is used in the current loop instead of an IP controller, we need to
and
which is not desirable. This point was
differentiate
also discussed in [3].
and
are the coupling comNote that
is the back-EMF compenpensation terms and
sation term. The control block diagram with motor dynamics is
shown in Fig. 2.
The power from the dc link to the induction motor is given by

A. Induction Motor Power Dynamics

Choosing the stator current and rotor flux as a state vector,
we can describe the dynamics of an induction motor in a synchronously rotating (rotor flux) reference frame as follows:

(7)
From (1), (2), and (5)(7), we obtain the dynamics of the inverter
power as follows:

(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
and
denote the -axes stator currents,
and
where
the -axes rotor fluxes, and
and
the -axes
stator input voltages, respectively. The superscript denotes the
.
quantity in the synchronous reference frame, where
We denote the stator (rotor) self-inductance, the mutual inductance, the stator (rotor) resistance, and the rotor time constant
,
,
, and
, respectively. We
by
denote the total leakage coefficient, the electrical angular ve, , and ,
locity, and the rotor speed by
.
respectively. The slip speed is defined by
We assume that the stator currents are regulated by an integral-proportional (IP) controller with compensation terms such
that

(8)
where

(5)
(6)

(9)

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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 48, NO. 4, AUGUST 2001

Fig. 2. Control block diagram of an induction motor using an IP current controller.

B. PWM Converter Power Dynamics

Choosing the dc-link voltage and line currents as a state
vector, one can describe the dynamics of the PWM converter in
a synchronous (source voltage) reference frame as follows:
(10)
(11)
(12)
and
denote the dc-link voltage and capacitor curwhere
and
the - and -axes source voltages,
rent, respectively,
and the - and -axes converter terminal voltages, and
and
the - and -axes line currents. denotes the angular
frequency of the source voltage and the capacitance of the dc
link.
Aligning the reference frame to the axis of the source
. The power from the source to the
voltage, we obtain
converter is given by
(13)

III. POWER-BALANCING CONTROL SCHEME USING

MASTERSLAVE MODEL

THE

We will treat the converter and inverter as separate systems.

The power flows of converter and inverter are opposite all the
time. If one is in supplying mode, then the other is in sinking
mode. Note that if the power balance is achieved between inverter and converter, then the stored energy in the dc-link capacitor will not vary, yielding no variation in the dc-link voltage. In
, then the dc-link voltage will not
other words, if
vary.
A. MasterSlave Control
In balancing the converterinverter powers, we will use a
masterslave control methodology developed in [6]. The key
idea of the masterslave control is to drive the slave system so
that its output exactly matches that of the master. Note that the
inverter needs to serve for the motor motion control. Hence,
the inverter power system needs to be the master, while the
converter has to be the slave that provides/retrieves the exact
amount of power that the inverter needs/produces. From (8) and
and the slave dy(15), we obtain the master dynamics
such that
namics
(16)

We construct a -axis current controller for the converter such

that

(17)
(14)
Then, with the input
[3]. This then results in
, thus, a unity
where ,
power factor. We obtain from (11) and (13) that
(18)
(15)
However, the -axis control input voltage
in the following section.

will be specified

we obtain the closed-loop system as shown in Fig. 3. We

as two independent outputs and
choose
as two independent inputs, where
and

HUR et al.: DC-LINK POWER-BALANCING SCHEME

Fig. 3.

797

Proposed dynamic dc-link power-balancing scheme using the masterslave concept.

. Then, we obtain the following transfer

function matrix from Fig. 3:

(20) that the approximation

is valid in the
low-frequency range. Note that is a control variable. If we let
, then
, thereby keeping the dc-link voltage
constant.
, we obtain from (19) that
With the use of

(19)
where is a bounded external input.
Proposition 1: Consider the control loop shown in Fig. 3.
Then, it follows that
(20)
in the steady state.
Proof: Applying (18) to (15), we obtain the following:

Therefore, we have

Proposition 1 is a simplified version of the proposition in [6].

The statement in the steady state means that equality (20) is
is a design factor,
valid after the initial error decays out.
needs to be chosen such that (19) is stable. There are
but
; however, if we let
,
various choices for
, i.e., the gain of
is almost equal
then
to the infinity in the low frequency range. Thus, it follows from

(21)

Therefore, all transfer functions of (21) are proper and stable if

,
.
B. DC-Link Voltage Control Using the Capacitor Energy as
a Variable
is an external input that will be used for controlling the
. For the case when we desire to keep
dc-link voltage
the dc-link voltage constant, we set equal to zero so that
. On the other hand, can be used for
leveling up and down the dc-link voltage. We achieve voltage
control by controlling the energy flowing in and out of the
and
capacitor. For this purpose, we let
. Then, it follows that

Utilizing a dc-link voltage command

, we define
. Choosing
and uti, we obtain the
lizing (20) with the fact that
control block diagram shown in Fig. 4.
Proposition 2: Consider the control loop shown in Fig. 3. We
is chosen such that the whole
assume that
for
system (19) is stable. Choose

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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 48, NO. 4, AUGUST 2001

Fig. 4. Control block diagram for dc-link voltage regulation that utilizes W = (1=2)CV

as a variable.

Fig. 5. Block diagram of the proposed converter control scheme that incorporates the inverter dynamics and utilizes the capacitor energy as a variable for the
dc-link voltage regulation.

some
,
. Then, we obtain the closed-loop system for
as shown in Fig. 4 and, thus,

be linear. This enables us to resolve a dc-link regulation problem

without recourse to a complex nonlinear control theory [3].
From Proposition 2 and (18), the final converter voltage input
is given by

(22)
Since the proof is straightforward, it is omitted. It should
for
. This implies
be noted that
for
, where
is the unit
step function. That is, we are controlling the dc-link voltage level
indirectly through the stored capacitor energy . It looks very
turns out to
interesting to note that the system dynamics for

(23)
Fig. 5 shows the complete control block diagram of the PWM
converter control scheme with the proposed input (23). In general, -axis current of the converter is utilized for the dc-link

HUR et al.: DC-LINK POWER-BALANCING SCHEME

799

Fig. 6. Control block diagrams of the conventional PWM converter.

voltage control. However, does not appear in Fig. 5. Instead,

is utilized.
The control schemes [1], [2], [4], [5], [7], [8] utilize just
in the current control loop. With those control schemes, the
dc-link voltage fluctuation is large, especially when the motor
speed changes abruptly. Such a limited performance is a conse.
quence of neglecting the dynamic characteristics of
IV. REASONS FOR THE FASTER RESPONSE CHARACTERISTICS
Fig. 6 shows the block diagrams of the widely used dc-link
voltage control scheme [1], [2], [5], [8], which we later call the
conventional control scheme. The objective is to regulate
to a constant value by making
, irrespectively of the load
. In the conventional control scheme, the load curcurrent
rent is compensated by injecting the feedforward voltage term
just after the voltage PI controller. The compensation term is calculated based on the power balance condition
between the source and the dc-link side. However, it should
are reflected
be noted that the dynamics of the load current
nowhere in the conventional control scheme. However, in the
,
proposed scheme shown in Fig. 5 we not only utilize
, but also the time derivative
. That
is, the inverter dynamics is utilized for the converter current conin the dc-link capacitor is kept
trol so that the stored energy
constant. Therefore, it reacts more promptly to a sudden change
in the load, for example, when the motor changes from a powering mode to a regeneration mode, and vice versa.
The other important difference is the places where the
compensating terms are injected. In Fig. 6, the compensating
term is applied in the voltage control loop, and the controller
is activated in proportion to the voltage error. Note that since
the dc-link capacitor is involved in the voltage loop, its control
bandwidth is much slower than that of the current loop. However, in the proposed scheme, the compensating term is applied
in the inner (current) control loop whose control band width
is much faster than that of the voltage loop. Note also from
is the exact amount of the voltage
Fig. 5 that

the converter has to provide in order to match

, and that it
is injected just in front of the converter.
for the convenFig. 7 shows the Bode plots of
tional control scheme and the proposed control scheme. The cur,
with the
rents , in Fig. 7(b) are calculated from
is constant. With the conventional scheme,
assumption that
the response degrades significantly as the frequency goes up.
However, with the proposed scheme, there is no noticeable performance degradation, even in the high-frequency region.
The above-mentioned facts support the reasoning that the proposed scheme reacts faster to the variation of the load change compared with the conventional scheme. Specifically, the dynamic response of the proposed scheme is fast enough to make the converter power match the inverter power, so that the stored energy in
the dc-link capacitor is kept constant. Thus, the proposed scheme
gives us a better method of achieving low voltage variation, especially when the capacitance of the dc-link capacitor is small.
V. SIMULATION AND EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
To assess the feasibility of the proposed control scheme, simulation studies were carried out under the following conditions:
,
motor power rating 9 kW (four pole),
,
mH,
mH,
mH, source voltage
220
(line to line),
mH,
F, and
V.
Fig. 8(a) and (b) shows the simulation results of motor
speed, inverter current, converter current, and dc-link voltage
when the motor speed changes from 1800 to 1800 r/min
under no-load condition. The maximum -axis current of the
inverter flows during the speed transient period. During the
first half period when the motor speed decreases from 1800
r/min to zero, the regenerative action takes place, making
-axis converter current negative. After the motor direction is
changed, the system goes into the motoring mode in which
the power flows out from the converter into the inverter with a
positive -axis converter current. Using the approximations, we
can estimate from Fig. 8(a) that the maximum inverter power is

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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 48, NO. 4, AUGUST 2001

Fig. 7. Bode plots of i (s)=i (s). (a) With the conventional control scheme. (b) With the proposed control scheme.

Fig. 8. Simulation results of motor speed, inverter current, converter current, and dc-link voltage when the motor speed changes from
no load and C = 75 F. (a) With the conventional control scheme. (b) With the proposed control scheme.

converter power is

kW, while the maximum

kW. That is, there is

01800 to 1800 r/min under

a power imbalance with the conventional control bscheme at

the moment of speed change, resulting in 20-V dc-link voltage

HUR et al.: DC-LINK POWER-BALANCING SCHEME

801

Fig. 9. Experimental setup.

Fig. 10. Experimental results of the inverter power P , the converter power P , the dc-link voltage V , the inverter phase current, and the converter phase
current when the motor speed changes from 1200 to 1200 r/min under no load and C = 75 F. (a) With the conventional control scheme. (b) With the proposed
control scheme.

fluctuation. But with the proposed scheme, it follows that

kW and, thus, there is almost no dc-link
voltage fluctuation, even at the motor speed change.

Fig. 9 shows the control block diagram used in the experiments. We utilize a single 32-bit floating-point digital signal
processor (DSP) (TMS320C31) for controlling both the con-

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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 48, NO. 4, AUGUST 2001

Fig. 11. Experimental results of the speed command and the actual speed, the d- and q -axes inverter currents, the d- and q -axes converter currents, and the dc-link
voltage when the motor speed changes from 1200 to 1200 r/min under no load and C = 75 F. (a) With the conventional control scheme. (b) With the proposed
control scheme.

verter and inverter. The inverter stack was constructed using

IGBTs (100 A, 1200 V). The experimental conditions are the
same as the ones used in the simulation study except the values
and the dc-link voltage command
of the speed command
are changed. In this case, the dc-link voltage command
is 450 V. The PWM signals are generated by two erasable
and programmable logic devices (EPLDs) for converter and
inverter, respectively. For both converter and inverter, the deadtime was set to be 5 s and the PWM switching frequency
4 kHz. The feedback rate of the dc-link power-balancing control loop was the same as the PWM switching frequency, while
that of the stored dc-link capacitor energy control loop was
1 kHz.
Fig. 10(a) and (b) shows the experimental results of the in, the converter power
, the dc-link voltage
verter power
, the inverter phase current, and the converter phase current
for the conventional control scheme and the proposed control
scheme, respectively. For both cases, the motor speed changes
from 1200 to 1200 r/min. From Fig. 10(a), we observe that the
kW, while the maximum
maximum inverter power is
kW. Hence, the load current is
converter power is
A, and the maximum capacitor
equal to
A. However,
current is equal to
kW.
with the proposed scheme [Fig. 10(b)],
Note also that the dc-link voltage fluctuation is almost 75 V with
the conventional control scheme, while with the proposed con-

trol scheme almost no dc-link voltage fluctuation is observed

except the PWM switching ripple.
Fig. 11 shows the experimental plots of motor speed command, actual motor speed, - and -axes inverter and converter
currents, and the dc-link voltage when the speed command
changes from 1200 to 1200 r/min, and then to 1200 r/min.
At this time, the amount of power variation in the converter
kW.
system is approximately
Comparing Fig. 11(a) with (b), one can see clearly the effectiveness of the proposed method in regulating the dc-link voltage
fluctuation. It should be emphasized that in this experimental
setup the total dc-link capacitance is 75 F, which is quite
small for a 9-kW motor load.
VI. CONCLUDING REMARKS
We have developed a new PWM converter control scheme
for a converterinverter system. The basic control idea of the
converter is to supply/extract the exact amount of power that
the motor needs. Then, there will be no variation in the stored
energy in the dc-link capacitor and, as a result, constant dc-link
voltage will be maintained. This converter control concept
enables us to use a very small size dc-link capacitance. We
have also derived dynamics for the converter and inverter. In
matching the converter power with the inverter power, we
utilized the masterslave concept. In the converter voltage

HUR et al.: DC-LINK POWER-BALANCING SCHEME

controller, the dynamics of the inverter system is utilized,

yielding much faster dynamic responses. The proposed control
algorithm was implemented on a single DSP board, enabling
efficient data transfer between the converter system and the
inverter system. The proposed method has shown the possibility
of replacing problematic electrolytic capacitors with small film
capacitors. Film capacitors are known to have a long life span
and better reliability in comparison with electrolytic capacitors.
Further, the proposed control scheme is simple and does not
require any special device, so that it can be used for many
practical drive systems.

REFERENCES
[1] J. W. Dixon, A. B. Kulkarni, M. Nishimoto, and B. T. Ooi, Characteristics of a controlled-current PWM rectifierinverter link, IEEE Trans.
Ind. Applicat., vol. IA-23, pp. 10221028, Nov./Dec. 1987.
[2] T. G. Habetler, A space vector-based rectifier regulator for
AC/DC/AC converters, IEEE Trans. Power Electron., vol. 8, pp.
3036, Feb. 1993.
[3] J. Jung, S. Lim, and K. Nam, A feedback linearizing control
scheme for a PWM converterinverter having a very small DC link
capacitor, in Conf. Rec. IEEE-IAS Annu. Meeting, vol. 2, 1998, pp.
14971503.
[4] J. S. Kim and S. K. Sul, New control scheme for acdcac converter
without dc link electrolytic capacitor, in Proc. IEEE PESC93, 1993,
pp. 300306.
[5] L. M. Malesani, L. Rossetto, P. Tenti, and P. Tomasin, AC/DC/AC
PWM converter with reduced energy storage in the DC link, IEEE
Trans. Ind. Applicat., vol. 31, pp. 287292, Mar./Apr. 1995.
[6] N. Hur and K. Nam, A robust load sharing control scheme for parallel-connected multi systems, IEEE Trans. Ind. Electron., vol. 47, pp.
871879, Aug. 2000.
[7] B. N. Singh, B. Singh, and B. P. Singh, Fuzzy control of integrated
current-controlled converterinverter-fed cage induction motor drive,
IEEE Trans. Ind. Applicat., vol. 35, pp. 405412, Mar./Apr. 1999.
[8] R. Wu, S. B. Dewan, and G. R. Slemon, Analysis of a PWM ac to dc
voltage source converter under the predicted current control with a fixed
switching frequency, IEEE Trans. Ind. Applicat., vol. 27, pp. 756764,
July/Aug. 1991.

803

Namho Hur (S92) was born in Habcheon, Korea,

in 1969. He received the B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in electrical and electronic engineering from
Pohang University of Science and Technology, Pohang, Korea, in 1992, 1994, and 2000, respectively.
He is currently with the Radio and Broadcasting
Technology Laboratory, Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute, Taejon, Korea. His main
research interests are ac motor drives, control theory
and its application to power electronics, high-performance power converter/inverter systems, and threedimensional television systems.

Jinhwan Jung (S95A99) was born in Seoul,

Korea, in 1972. He received the B.S. degree from
Pusan National University, Pusan, Korea, and the
M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from Pohang University
of Science and Technology, Pohang, Korea, in
1994, 1996, and 1999, respectively, all in electrical
engineering.
He is currently a Senior Research Engineer with
the Control System Research Team, Advanced R&D
Center, Hyundai Motor Company, Kyungki-Do,
Korea. His main interests are ac motor control for
high-speed operation, EV motor drives, and power converter/inverter systems.

Kwanghee Nam (S83M86) was born in Seoul,

Korea, in 1956. He received the B.S. and M.S.
degrees in chemical technology and control and
instrumentation engineering from Seoul National
University, Seoul, Korea, in 1980 and 1982,
respectively, and the M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in
mathematics and electrical engineering from the
University of Texas, Austin, in 1986.
He is currently a Professor in the Department of
Electrical Engineering, Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH), Pohang, Korea.
He served as Director of the POSTECH Information Research Laboratories
and Dean of the Graduate School of Information Technology from 1998 to
2000. His main interests are ac motor control, power converters, computer
networks, and nonlinear systems analysis.
Prof. Nam received a Best Paper Award from the IEEE Industrial Electronics
Society in 1998.