C O M P A R I S O N OF DIRECT CURRENT CONTROL T E C H N I Q U E S FOR A THREE-PHASE

SHUNT ACTIVE POWER FlLTER

M. L a b b e n - B e n Braiek"', F. Fnaiech'" Senior- Merrrher IEEE.'U. Al-HaddadZ', Senior-Member- IEEE,

and L. Yacoubi"'
" ' C E R E P (.Ce.ntr.e d e . r . e c h e r c . k e . e . n . . p r o d u c t i q u e ) ,E, . S . S . T . T . .
5 , AV.Tahd Hussein, 1008 Tunis, Tunisia
Tel: (216) 1 503 837, Fax: (216) 1 391 166 ;
Email : Farlint.Fnaicch!i~csstt.mu.tn, Monoia.BenBraiekTw,esstt.rnu.tn

( * ) E C O L ED E T E C H N O L O G I E S U P E K I E U R E
DCpartenient de genie electrique
1 100, rue Notre-Dame Ouest
Montreal (Quebec) H3C 1 K3
Tel: (514) 396-8874, Fax: (514) 396-8684 ;
Email : kaiii;ll(ii,elc.otsmtl.ca, Ivacoubi(iiele.etsiiitl.ca

Abstract: control design is carried on by the three following steps

T h i s p a p e r deals with a c o m p a r a t i v e s t u d y o f t h e
p e r f o r m a n c e o f t h r e e d i r e c t c u r r e n t c o n t r o l techniques
a p p l i e d to a three-phase s h u n t active p o w e r filter. T h e t h r e e
c o n s i d e r e d techniques are: i)d i r e c t c u r r e n t c o n t r o l (IICC)
based o n a PI r e g u l a t o r , ii)DCC based o n a s l i d i n g m o d e
c o n t r o l (SMC), iii)DCC based o n a SRlC c o m b i n e d w i t h a
o n e step a h e a d p r e d i c t i o n (SRIC-P). l h e s e t h r e e regulators
n a m e l y PI, SRIC, SMC-P a r c used to calculate t h e estimated
p e a k v a l u e o f t h e l i n e - c u r r e n t in t h e c o n t r o l loop. T h e
c r i t e r i o n established f o r c u r r e n t c o n t r o l l e r s c o m p a r i s o n i s
chosen to b e t h e t o t a l h a r m o n i c d i s t o r t i o n ('I'HD) o f t h e line-
c u r r e n t . I t i s expected t h a t t h e (SMC-P) technique i m p r o v e
t h e p e r f o r m a n c e , since i t a v o i d s unnecessary s w i t c h i n g of
t h e solid-state devices. Indeed, t h i s t e c h n i q u e m a k e s
q w i t c h i n g d e c i s i o n b a s e d o n t h e average b e t w e e n s a m p l e d
a n d one step a h e a d p r e d i c t e d d c voltage e r r o r s . S i m u l a t i o n
r e s u l t s a r e p r e s e n t e d u s i n g P o w e r system B l o k s e t (PSB) o f
Matlah.
K e y w o r d s : s h u n t active p o w e r f i l t e r (APF), d i r e c t c u r r e n t
c o n t r o l (IICC), s l i d i n g m o d e c o n t r o l (SMC), s l i d i n g m o d e
c o n t r o l w i t h p r e d i c t i o n (SRlC-P).
1. INTRODUCTION
During the past ten years, in practically all areas that deal
with power quality, a high interest concerning the
development of novel and robust control techniques to
shunt active power filter has been recorded. The
increased use of nonlinear loads causes harmonic and
reactive power injection in the network, leading to poor
power factor and low efficiency. Active power filters are
then used to reduce the harmonic content of line-currents
and to obtain a unity power factor. A comprehensive
review of power active filter (APF) configurations,
control strategies, selection of components and other
related issues is given [I]-[3]. A number of control
concepts and strategies of three-phase APF have been
reported in the literature [4]- [lo]. Usually, the APF
[ 11: i) Measuring the network voltage and current signals,
ii) compensating signals in terms of current or voltage
levels are derived, iii) Generating the gating signals for
the solid-state devices using PWM, Hysterisis, sliding
mode controllers, etc. I n [ 6 ] . the authors presented a
control scheme based on the estimation of the reference
peak source current 1.;. In [4], they compare two
different current control techniques namely DCC and
indirect current control (ICC). these two methods have
been implemented on DSP. In [ 5 ] , the authors
implemented a DSP based sliding mode control technique
used for the estimation of the reference peak source value
I:, . Whereas in [8], a different sliding mode control
technique based on the state space modeling of the
overall system is considered. The design and
implementation of the SMC for the three-phase APF is
presented in [9]. I n their approach the active filter is
controlled through two loops. The inner current
regulation loop is based on SMC while the outer loop is
concerned with the dc bus average voltage regulation.
Typically most of the control schemes require the APF
modeling and various transformations, which represent
additional difficulties. In [IO], an adaptive least mean
square (LMS) finite impulse response filter (FIR) has
been used to generate the current reference signal. In
[12]. [14], the authors consider that the controlled APF
may be divided into two loops namely an inner current
fast loop and an outer slow voltage loop. Whereas, in
[ 131, an input-state feedback linearization control to the
whole systeni is applied.
This paper presents a comparison study of three simple
algorithms achieving a three-phase APF control.
Different controllers are used to exhibit an estimate of the
line-current peak value. These techniques are: direct
current control DCC using a PI regulator, DCC using
sliding-mode controller SMC, and DCC based on the

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 sliding-mode controller with one step ahead prediction ac supply system ( v , ~I,J,, , and
~ v.,(,) with line
SMC-P. This later control algorithm combines SMC and
one-step-ahead prediction. This technique makes impedance (L,,,R , ) is feeding a three-phase diode
switching decision based on the average between sampled
rectifier and its load is R,,L, . The currents
and one-step ahead predicted dc voltage errors [ 1 I]. It is
aimed to avoid unnecessary switching and is expected to ic/,and i(.(.) are the actual compensating currents of
(i(,17,
achieve quite good results in tenns of THD as will be
shown in section IV. the APF. Currents (i/,,, ill, and i l , , )denote the three-
The paper is organized as follows. In section I I , the phase load currents. The APF dc bus voltage y/( is used
configuration of the controlled three-phase active power
filter under study is given. In section 111, the three control in the control design loop and should be regulated at a set
techniques principles to be compared are described. value y,(..
Finally, in section IV, the results of the comparison based Basically, the first block that estimates the peak line-
on the THD criteria and the corresponding simulation
results using Power System Blockset (PSB) of Matlab are current 1,1 ' , uses different techniques namely DCC based
discussed. The concluding remarks and the fiiturc work PI regulator, DCC based SMC regulator, and DCC based
are given in section V. SMC-P regulator. The instantaneous reference line-
* * -
currents ( i , c l i,,,],
, i,(,) are then evaluated using this peak
11. THE APF CONTROL TECHNIQUES
*
value 1,,'multiplied by a three unity current vectors:
Figure 1 shows the control block diagram used in the design
of the three considered control techniques to be compared s i n o r , sin(wt---),
27-t sin(wt+-),
21r in order to
[2]. The APF is made of a standard three-phase IGBT 3 3
based VSI converter with an ac inductor (L(.,R ( , )and a I *
reconstruct the three reference line-currents (i.,cl,i,,,, ir<,),
dc bus capacitor cc/[,
to provide a self-supporting dc bus Thc unity current vectors are derived from the supply
and an effective current control of the APF. A three-phase voltages ( v , ' ~ , and v , ~ .The
I),/, ) . instantaneous APF

I l l .............................................................................................................

AF'F
Lc

I
1
a
b ...c
I
CdcT
Vdc

......

1 ica icb icc

Fig.1 bloc diagram of the controlled active power filter

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 -.-

Fig.2 Control block diagram

Vdc;:: 7

Fig. 3 sliding mode with prediction based estimator

* ,*
current references (i:(l.iCh, lC( ) arc obtained by
In the DCC technique, both load (i/(,,i,,, and iIc ) and
subtracting load currcnta (i/<,,i,/, and i/[ ) from reference
* * ,* (i,.'!,ich a i d iL,c)
conipensator currents are sensed and
line-currellts (i,,,,'\/), 1. A Hysterisis based On the used directly i n the control design [4], The DCC based p1
signal differellcc between (j:(!, ii/, an(/ j : < ) and regulator block diagram is givell in figure2

l , and i[,() is then used to generate the gate signals

( i , , ci(./, b) Direct current control technique (DCC) based on
for voltage source inverter APF.
a sliding mode control
I n the DCC based on a sliding mode control, the PI
111. PRESENTATION OFTHE THREE controller estimating the peak value of the line-current
CONTROL TECHNIQUES
1 * is simply replaced by the SMC.
SP
In the sequcl, a brief description of each control technique
used in the "estimate peak current'' bloc diagram of figure1 Peak value of the current I* is estimated using
is given. SP

SMC over the average dc bus voltage k',,,. and its

a) Direct current control technique (DCC) based on a
PI regulator reference value v(/(
. The dc bus voltage error v,(n) at the
nth sampling instant is given by equation (I) and its
derivatc is defined by equation (2).

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and its derivate is defined as
tlx, 1
,y, = - = -( I><,( / I ) - V‘, ( i ? - 1))
- dt T IV.
Where T is the sampling interval and X I and
xr are the state variables.
In sliding mode control. the values of switching y~ and y2
are defined as follows [2]:
Where z is switching hyper plane function:
The output of the sliding mode controller ~ ( 1 1 )is taken
peak magnitude of supply current I * as:
,’ P
I‘
SP
Here, z is the sliding surface, c,,c2:c3and c, are
constant coefficients.
c ) Direct current control technique (DCC) based on a
sliding mode control with prediction (SMC-P)
Although sliding mode control has been suggested to
achieve robust perforniance under parameter variations
and load disturbances, its main drawback is the chattering
when the system operates in the sliding regime [ I 11. In
active power filter, chattering is destructive; since some
energy is lost each time a switch operates. Combining
SMC with prediction niay be a suitable solution to avoid
unnecessary switching. The controller makes switching
decision based on the average between sampled and one
step ahead predicted errors [ 1 I]. The SMC-P based
estimator scheme is given in figure 3 and its main
equations are as follow:
and its derivate is defined as:
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XI =31-),(n)-V , ( f ? - 1) (7)
2
.I-: =(- +1) I><,(n)-(-2 + 2 ) I)<,( n-1) +V‘ ( 17 -2) (8)
T T
SlMULATlON RESULTS
The system of Fig. 1 has been simulated using the Power
System Blockset (PSB) of Matlab. The previously
described three current control techniques have been
tested on the same active power filter. The corresponding
results are reported in figure 4.
Discrrssiori nrid cornnients
Among the many different simulations investigated on
the three control techniques applied to the A P F with
respect of their usefulness and perforniance in term of
THD. The following results should be highlighted: a )
Whatever the control technique used and whatever the
refinements of the parameters, the control loop is not so
much robust to regulate both the dc voltage and to
achieve good THD. b) Apparently, the SMC and SMC-P
control technique offers quite good results as pointed out
as in Figure4. The SMC-P control algorithm is slightly
complex in implementation than the others.
V. CONCLUSION
(4)
In this paper, it is presented and discussed a comparative
study of three current control techniques and their
usefulness for a three-phase active power filter. It has
been shown that SMC and SMC-P exhibit better
perfonnance in ternis of THD than DCC with PI
regulator. Furthermore, the SMC-P reduces unnecessary
switching at the cost of being slightly complex. The SMC
and SMC-P control strategies niay be improved if the
system’s state variables are considered. Since the (a: b, c)
model of the APF has been used, the control would be
calculated based on another type of modelling such as the
state space representation in the (d, q ) reference frame
[ 121. This allows the use of feedback linearization control
techniques [13], [15] and also the extension to the
development of an adaptive control law [16].
Acknowlegments
This work has been supported by “ Chaire de recherche
du Canada en conversion de I’energie electrique et de
1 ’klectronique de puissance”.(CRC-C3EP)
The first two authors acknowledge Pr0f.S Gherissi for
supporting their research.
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 Phase A reference DCC with PI DCC with SMC DCC with SMC-P
regulator regulator regulator

SUPPlY
Zurrent and supply
Voltage

r ~ ......... ..... ...-

~ ~ ....~ .,.". . . . . .

Compensating
Current

: I. I
.
., .................................................................
, ,. ,:. >;
). "8; ai; :

Voltage
Capacitor 1 :p.

.:....
:.A#
. ,.;...... 33, ;.:'
..
"..: ';?.

......." ....." ............." .....

Load Current

< ........"........"........."........"..^^.........................

Harmonics Spectra ',: .

of line-curre tit
( fu nda inent a 1
fre q ue tic y
discarded)

. . i . . . .

THD IO?" 3.7% 5 ?a'

Fig.4: Simulation results o he three different control techniques

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