Current Control Of Grid-connected Converters Research Articles

Model reference adaptive controllers with improved performance for applications in LCL-filtered grid-connected converters

This work presents a control strategy combining a direct Model Reference Adaptive Control (MRAC) with a robust state feedback for current control of grid-connected converters with LCL filters operating under grid impedance variations. The MRAC is based on a gradient law, providing properly current reference tracking and voltage disturbance rejection. The inclusion of a state feedback inner loop provides robust active damping of the filter resonance for an entire range of grid impedances. A systematic control design procedure is proposed, and the combination of both control actions in a multi-loop approach does not add significant computational complexity. The proposal allows to increase the MRAC gains adaptation dynamics, providing suitable responses under grid current reference variations and under typical grid voltage disturbances, including grid faults. Performance indexes as the grid-currents total harmonic distortion and the mean squared error are also improved. In addition, robust stability analysis based on Lyapunov functions are carried out for the inner control loop and for the outer control loop, considering the grid impedance uncertain and with unmodeled dynamics. The strategy is implemented in a commercial digital signal processor, and the compliance of the grid currents with the IEEE 1547 Std. is verified with controller hardware-in-the-loop and experimental results in a 5.4 kW prototype.

A New Model Predictive Current Controller for Grid-Connected Converters in Unbalanced Grids

Distributed energy resources are often connected to low-voltage distribution networks where the grid voltages may be unbalanced. This leads to an unwanted ripple in the output active power at twice the fundamental grid frequency. In this article, a new model predictive current controller is proposed for unbalanced grids. The variable switching frequency of existing model predictive controllers is fixed and the power quality is improved. A Kalman filter estimator is used to extract the positive and negative sequence components. A new calculation time compensation technique is proposed, which offers superior accuracy to existing approaches. A grid voltage discretization compensation strategy is outlined, and its effectiveness is demonstrated. Finally, the system stability is verified theoretically. Simulation and laboratory results are included to prove the robustness of the proposed controller and support the theoretical analysis.

Analysis and Design of Multiple Resonant Current Control for Grid-Connected Converters

Including “generalized integrators” for sinusoidal signals, multiple resonant control (MRSC) scheme which can accurately compensate selected sinusoidal signals, is widely used as a high-performance current control method for grid-connected converters. In this article, the plug-in digital plug-in MRSC scheme is proposed to provide a general framework for housing various MRSC schemes, which plugs the MRSC controller into a stable feedback control loop. It can take advantages of both controllers—the feedback controller provides fast response and good robustness, and the MRSC controller offers accurate compensation of the periodic signals. More critically, based on a new type of sinusoidal signal model, the sufficient stability criteria and the gain tuning rules are developed to offer a simple universal approach to the design of the digital plug-in MRSC schemes. An application case study on the digital plug-in MRSC of a 5-kVA three-phase four-wire grid-connected inverter with <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">LCL</i> filter is provided. Experimental results demonstrated that the proposed MRSC scheme can force the inverter to produce high-quality currents with high accuracy, fast transient response, and good robustness.

Tuning of Discrete Complex Proportional Integral Current Controller for Grid-Connected Converters Based on Critical Damping

Current control is of utmost importance for grid-connected converters to achieve a high level of performance. The complex proportional integral controller is usually employed for its excellent performance in terms of cross-coupling decoupling and stability. The pole/zero cancellation characteristic of the complex proportional integral controller, which is always valid in the continues-time domain, fails in the discrete-time domain, resulting in an oscillatory or even unstable response. The discrete complex proportional integral controller has thus been addressed in this work, which cancels the complex plant pole with a matching zero provided by the controller in the discrete-time domain. It has been proved that pole/zero cancellation of the discrete complex proportional integral controller is always valid, regardless of the variation of the excitation frequency. An important feature of performance independence from the pulse ratio is thus achieved. Also, to achieve the possible highest performance, a tuning method based on critical damping is developed in the discrete-time domain, which addresses the one-sample delay directly in the tuning process. In this manner, the minimum settling time and negligible overshoot for transient response can be achieved, along with the most enhanced stability and avoidance of closed-loop anomalous peaks. Experimental results have verified the effectiveness of the developed method.

Generalized Multifrequency Current Controller for Grid-Connected Converters With LCL Filter

This paper presents a grid-side current controller for grid-tied inverters with LCL filter, including harmonic current elimination. The proposed controller only measures the grid current and voltage and it combines excellent dynamic characteristics with good robustness. Contrarily to previously proposed harmonic-current controllers, the presented solution offers a generalized method that gives a consistent (with minimal variation in the reference-tracking dynamics) and stable performance irrespectively of the number of current harmonics to be canceled and of the resonant frequency of the LCL filter (provided that it is lower than the Nyquist frequency). The response to reference commands is completely damped and fast. The response speed is set in accordance with the low-pass characteristic of the LCL filter so as to limit the control effort. Concerning the disturbance rejection, the controller offers an infinite impedance to any disturbances (such as grid voltage harmonics) at a set of arbitrarily specified frequencies. This allows the designer to eliminate all the undesired current harmonics with a simple design process. In addition, the performance of the presented controller is evaluated in terms of a fundamental tradeoff that exists between robustness to variations in the grid impedance and the number of frequency components rejected. Finally, simulation and experimental results that validate the proposal are presented.

Enhanced Resonant Current Controller for Grid-Connected Converters With LCL Filter

Conventional resonant controllers (RCs) are commonly used in the current control of grid-tied converters with LCL filter due to their advantages, such as zero steady-state error at both fundamental sequences, easy design process, and straightforward implementation. Nevertheless, these traditional solutions do not permit to place the closed-loop poles of the system in convenient locations when dealing with a fourth-order plant model such as the LCL filter plus the computation delay. Therefore, the reference tracking and the disturbance rejection are deficient in terms of transient behavior and depend on the LCL filter. Furthermore, an additional active damping method usually has to be designed in order to ensure stability. This paper presents an enhanced current RC with stable and fast response, negligible overshoot, good disturbance rejection, and low controller effort for grid-tied converters with LCL filter. The developed solution uses a direct discrete-time pole-placement strategy from the classical control theory (using transfer functions), involving two extra filters, to enhance the performance of the RC. In this manner, the complexity of state-space methods from modern control theory is avoided. Simulation and experimental results are provided to verify the effectiveness of the proposed control scheme.

Design of LCL Filters With LCL Resonance Frequencies Beyond the Nyquist Frequency for Grid-Connected Converters

This paper proposes a novel LCL filter design method and its current control for grid-connected converters. With the proposed design method, it is possible to set the resonance frequency of the LCL filter to be higher than the Nyquist frequency, i.e., half of the system sampling frequency, and this observation is so far not discussed in the literature. In this case, a very cost-effective LCL filter design can be achieved for the grid-connected converters, whose dominant switching harmonics may appear at double the switching frequency, e.g., in unipolar-modulated three-level full-bridge converters and 12-switch-based three-phase pulsewidth-modulated converters. Moreover, a single-loop current control strategy is proposed for the designed LCL filter, and the control system is inherently stable without introducing any passive or active damping. Based on the new stability region, two LCL filter design examples are given, with one of them optimizing the utilization of passive filter inductors, and another one being robust against grid impedance variation. Comprehensive experimental results, showing the high-quality output current and excellent resonance attenuation, are presented in this paper, which are also in very good agreement with those of the simulated ones. These results successfully verify the feasibility of the proposed LCL filter design and its current control.

Iterative Learning Control With Variable Sampling Frequency for Current Control of Grid-Connected Converters in Aircraft Power Systems

This paper investigates the feasibility of an iterative learning control (ILC) with variable sampling frequency for current control of power converters in frequency-wild power systems. The proposed solution is explained and demonstrated for the case of a shunt active filter in new-generation aircraft, where a variable-speed variable-frequency power system, typically between 360 and 900 Hz, is nowadays used. Due to the high supply frequency, such application is particularly demanding for both power and control devices, requiring control capabilities even for frequencies up to several kilohertz. Furthermore, variable supply frequency leads to variable frequency harmonics in the aircraft grid that are challenging to track and compensate. An original and effective solution based on an ILC approach, where both the number of samples per period and the sampling frequency are changed, is studied and implemented. Experimental results confirm the validity of the proposed strategy.

Adaptive Current Control for Grid-Connected Converters With LCL Filter

This paper presents a discrete-time adaptive current controller for grid-connected pulse width modulation voltage source converters with LCL filter. The main attribute of the proposed current controller is that, in steady state, the damping of the LCL resonance does not depend on the grid characteristic since the adaptive feedback gains ensure a predefined behavior for the closed-loop current control. An overview of model reference adaptive state feedback theory is presented aiming to give the reader the required background for the adaptive current control design. The digital implementation delay is included in the model, and the stability concerning the variation of the grid parameters is analyzed in detail. Furthermore, current distortions due to the grid background voltage are rejected without using the conventional stationary resonant controllers or the synchronous proportional-plus-integral controllers. Simulation and experimental results are presented to validate the analysis and to demonstrate the good performance of the proposed controller for grid-connected converters subjected to large grid impedance variation and grid voltage disturbances.