Advanced control for PWM converter and

variable-speed induction generator

T. Ahmed, K. Nishida and M. Nakaoka
Abstract: The paper describes a simple control structure for a vector-controlled stand-alone induc-
tion generator (IG) used to operate under variable speeds. Deadbeat current control is developed for
a voltage source PWM converter and the three-phase variable speed squirrel-cage IG to regulate
DC-link and generator voltages with newly designed phase-locked-loop circuit. The required
reactive power for the variable-speed IG is supplied by means of the PWM converter and a capaci-
tor bank to build up the voltage of the IG without the need for a battery and to reduce the rating
of the PWM converter with the need for only three sensors. This proposed scheme can be used
efciently for variable speed wind or hydro energy conversion systems. The measurements of
the IG system at various speeds and loads are given and show that this proposed system is
capable of good AC and DC voltages regulation.
1 Introduction
The general consciousness of nite and limited sources
of energy on earth and international disputes over the
environment, global safety and the quality of life have
created an opportunity for new, more efcient, less polluting
wind and hydropower plants with advanced technologies
of control, robustness and modularity. The induction
generator(IG), with its lower maintenance demands and
simplied controls, appears to be a good solution for such
applications[1]. For its simplicity, robustness and small
size per generated kilowatt, the IG is favoured for small
hydro-and wind-power plants. It has a great economic
appeal. Standing alone, its maximum power does not go
much beyond 15 kW [24]. So, we need to think in terms
of a spectrum of power supplies from small (few watts)
to large (close to 100 kW or more). However, the major
drawbacks of the induction generators are reactive-power
consumption and poor voltage regulation under varying
load or speed, but the development of static power conver-
ters has facilitated the control of the output voltage of the IG
[59]. The regulated output voltage of the IG can be
directly connected to only AC load such as an electric
heater, which is nonsensitive to the variable frequency of
the IG. Recently, alternative means of using this stand-alone
system, whose frequency intrinsically varies over a modest
range, has been investigated in addition to the energy
storage opportunities created by storing energy in the
form of hydrogen. This can be produced through advanced
techniques involving the electrolysis of water. So, it is
necessary to think in many DC power applications of the
stand-alone IG with low cost and simplied controls.
An induction-machine-based stand-alone power-
generation scheme with a diode bridge rectier and a
PWM converter that uses the rotor eld orientation has
been proposed to control the output voltage of the diode--
bridge rectier[7]. The major drawbacks of this previously
proposed system are that there are serious voltage and
current harmonics problems, because the output voltage is
rectied by means of a diode-bridge rectier to charge a
battery and the rotor eld orientation is presented to regulate
the output voltage without ltering the generated current
harmonics. Moreover, the magnetisation curve of the IG
has not been included in the proposed control system for
improving the accuracy in calculating the rotor ux pos-
ition. This is due to the fact that stable grid voltages are
not available. Only the simulated performance results of a
4 kW, 42 V induction generator system at various speeds
and loads are presented. Based on the instantaneous reactive
power theory, the use of a capacitor bank and an inverter
simultaneously, without any mechanical speed sensor in
the induction machine rotor, has been proposed [8].
However, the proposed system is applied only for AC
load (resistive load) and there are seven voltage and
current sensors that have been used to achieve the wanted
result of the proposed strategy, but they also produce poor
AC voltage regulation especially with low speed.
In this paper, aspects are investigated related to voltage
regulation, with sensorless vector control strategies, for
a forced-commutated voltage-source PWM converter con-
nected to a stand-alone IG in wind, mini/micro-hydro
energy application. A deadbeat current control structure
for a PWM converter connected to a stand-alone IG,
working with variable speed and different types of loads
(three-phase load and DC load), is proposed. The reactive
power needed for the stand-alone IG is supplied by a
xed capacitor, while the PWM converter controls the reac-
tive power needed to regulate the IG output voltage at
variable speed. Hence, the capacitor bank reduces the
rating of the PWM converter, starts the IG operation and
lters the high-frequency harmonic currents or ripples.
Furthermore, there is no need for a battery, which acts as
a voltage source for the PWM converter to build up the
IG stator voltage, or for a mechanical speed sensor or
even for a voltage sensor, to achieve the stand-alone IG
voltage and DC-busbar voltage regulation as well. On the
other hand, the PWM converter of the proposed system
does not control the frequency of the IG, but works with
# The Institution of Engineering and Technology 2007
doi:10.1049/iet-epa:20050535
Paper rst received 5th January and in revised form 19th October 2006
T. Ahmed and M. Nakaoka are with the Power Electronics Laboratory,
Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Yamaguchi University,
Ube City, Yamaguchi, Japan
K. Nishida is with the Ube National College of Technology, Ube City,
Yamaguchi, Japan
E-mail: tarek@pe-news1.eee.yamaguchi-u.ac.jp
IET Electr. Power Appl., 2007, 1, (2), pp. 239247 239
the phase information of a novel designed phase-locked-
loop (PLL) circuit with a potential transformer to detect
zero-cross point of IG terminal voltage, and three sensors
are only needed to detect the DC-busbar voltage and the
two-phase input currents of the PWM converter. A 2.2
kW laboratory prototype has been built to conrm the feasi-
bility of the proposed control method and the experimental
results prove that high system reliability and low system
cost are achieved.
2 Sensorless vector controlled IG with PWM
converter and capacitor bank
The schematic diagram of the proposed IG system is shown
in Fig.1 This proposed IG system consists on a conventional
three-phase squirrel cage induction machine, driven by a
prime mover (PM). The stator of the induction machine is
connected to an AC load, to a capacitor bank and to a
current-controlled converter with a switchable DC load.
The DC load may be employed in applications such as
cogeneration, battery charging, heating or an association
of these options. The system shown in Fig.1 employs a
DC load for heating purposes. In which case, the DC load
comprises a resistor R
0
switched by S
w
. The AC load can
be further used in other applications, like pumping water
to reservoirs in irrigation systems. In that case, the
AC load comprises a resistor R
l
in series with an inductor
L
l
. The capacitor bank (C 90 mF) and the converter
provide the reactive current needed to excite the induction
machine. The capacitor bank acts as an uncontrolled
frequency-dependent reactive-current source that provides
the bulk excitation to minimise the controlled current of
the converter and its size.
The proposed control strategy is based on a particular
reference frame, which is useful to decouple and control
the active- and reactive-current components of the IG
system. This reference frame is the one that is in quadrature
with respect to the stator voltage of the IG. Using the Park
transformation with a scaling factor

2=3
p
, the direct and
quadrature voltage components of the stator line voltage
v
s
of the IG are v
ds
0, v
qs
jv
s
j in this reference frame.
Referring to Fig.1, the PLL circuit is used to determine
the electrical angle and the zero-cross detector is connected
across the IG line voltage v
bc
, which, in turns, feeds the PLL
circuit and aligns the stator voltage vector of the IG on
the rotating q-axis with the required electrical angle for
Park transformation. The Hall-effect-type current-sensor
devices measure the currents i
ai
and i
bi
, originating from
the AC-input side of the PWM converter. Then i
qc
and
i
dc
, the current components in the d-q frame, are obtained
directly from i
ai
and i
bi
with the Park transformation.
Moreover, the real part i

qc
of reference current i

c
results
from the DC voltage controller, while the imaginary part
i

dc
of reference current i

c
is for AC voltage loop control
of reactive power.
The fastest current controller called the deadbeat current
controller is used for the PWM converter for the purpose of
reactive-power compensation with the capacitor bank. On
the basis of controlling the reactive and active current
components of the reference current vector i

c
of the PWM
converter, the voltage of IG and voltage of the DC load
can be constant, even working under a variable load and
speed. Moreover, in the proposed system, the voltage
sensor for the IG output voltage is not needed.
2.1 Steady-state equivalent circuit of IG system
with deadbeat current controller
Areduced steady-state model of the squirrel-cage IGsystemis
proposed inorder todimension the capacitor bank anddevelop
the control strategy. This simplied model is obtained
by neglecting the squirrel-cage induction-machine leakage
inductances and the squirrel-cage-induction-machine stator
resistances from the complete IG model by assuming a unity
turns ratio between the stator and rotor of the squirrel-
cage induction machine [57]. The steady-state-induction-
machine voltage equations can be obtained by
v
ds
vl
qs
1
v
qs
vl
ds
2
0 r
r
i
dr
v v
r
l
qr
3
0 r
r
i
qr
v v
r
l
dr
4
The IG model using a reference frame in quadrature with
respect to the stator voltage can be obtained by substituting
v
ds
0 into (1), yielding the q-axis ux linkage l
qs
0,
while i
dr
is equal to zero by substituting l
qr
l
qs
0 into
(3). Moreover, the quadrature stator voltage v
qs
depends on
the stator reactive current i
ds
by substituting the d-axis ux
linkage l
ds
(l
ds
L
m
i
ds
) into (2) as stated in the following
equation
v
qs
vl
ds
vL
m
i
ds
5
where vv v
r
i
qs
=t
r
i
ds
is the synchronous d-q frame
angular speed, v
r
is the electrical-rotor speed and
t
r
t
r
L
m
=r
r
is the rotor time constant. The subscripts s
and r denote stator and rotor quantities, respectively; i
qs
, i
ds
,
v
qs
and v
ds
are the d-q axis induction machine stator currents
and voltages; i
qr
, i
dr
, v
qr
and v
dr
are the d-q axis induction
machine rotor currents and voltages; r
s
and r
r
are the stator
and rotor resistances, respectively.
The equivalent-circuit parameters of the induction
machine are obtained by experimental measurements on
a laboratory 2.2 kW, 220 V, 8.0 A, 60 Hz, 4-pole
squirrel-cage induction machine using stator resistance,
blocked rotor and synchronous-speed tests. The parameters
of the studied induction machine can be obtained as
L
ls
L
lr
3:57 mH, r
s
r
r
0:9 V. All these parameters
are assumed to be constant and independent of magnetic
saturation, except the magnetising inductance L
m
. The
relationship between the magnetising inductance
L
m
(magnetising reactance/120p) and the measured magne-
tising current i
m

3
p
i
m

p
i
qs
i
qr

2
i
ds
i
dr

2
is
obtained experimentally from the synchronous-speed test
and is depicted in Fig. 2. The value of the magnetising
inductance L
m
depends on the degree of the magnetic
Fig. 1 Schematic diagram of sensorless control of IG with PWM
converter equipped with deadbeat controller
IET Electr. Power Appl., Vol. 1, No. 2, March 2007 240
saturation and it is a nonlinear function of magnetising
phase current i
m
, which can be represented by the following
equation
L
m

1
120p
0:1175i
5
m
1:918i
4
m
11:074i
3
m
25:387i
2
m
19:662i

m
53:365
_
_
_
_
_
_
0 , i
m
6:0A
6
As the stator of the IG is connected to an isolated load, the
magnetising inductance L
m
and the stator magnetising
current i
m
cannot be considered constant. In fact, substitut-
ing i
m
i
ds
=

3
p
in the nonlinear equation (6) reects how
much the IG voltage, dened by (5), could be changed
with isolated loads and without reactive-current control.
The electrical angular frequency v of the IG and i
ds
will
change under any AC or DC load power variations, there-
fore the output voltage of the IG (the quadrature stator
voltage v
qs
) will change, even when the prime mover
speed is kept constant. So, there is a need for controlling
i
ds
to have a constant IG voltage. Moreover, i
ds
must
be limited to avoid the induction machine saturation. The
reason is to reduce the iron losses and improve the ef-
ciency of the IG system especially at low speed.
As stated in this Section, the use of a reference frame in
quadrature with respect to the stator voltage is useful to
develop a simplied steady-state equivalent circuit of the
squirrel-cage IG system. The steady-state equivalent
circuit of the simplied IG system can be deduced as
depicted in Fig.3, where the converter, three-phase load
and the capacitor are represented by current vectors (i
c

i
qc
ji
dc
), (i
l
i
ql
ji
dl
), and (i
ca
jv Cv
qs
), respectively.
Choosing the rotating q-axis as the angle of the voltage
vector v
s
of the IG simplies the control strategy and pro-
vides a decoupled current control between the reactive-
and active-current components as shown in Fig.4. Hence,
the stator reactive current i
ds
of the IG is dened as the
sum of the uncontrolled capacitor bank current, the three-
phase load reactive current i
dl
and the converter reactive
current i
dc
, while the stator active current i
qs
of the IG is
obtained as the sum of the three-phase load active current
i
ql
to the converter active current i
qc
:
2.2 Design of capacitor bank
From Fig.3, the stator reactive current of the IG, needed to
generate the rated voltage under the no-load and the rated
speed conditions, is given by
i
ds
vCv
qs
7
By substituting the stator voltage v
qs
of (7) to (5), the
capacitance of the capacitor bank is dened as follows:
C
1
v
2
L
m
8
From (8) and (6), the minimum capacitance C
min
required
for building up the stand-alone IG voltage at the
rated speed n 1800 rev/min, is estimated with
L
m
L
unsm
53.365/(120p) H where L
unsm
is the unsatu-
rated magnetising inductance. Hence, the minimum exci-
tation capacitance for the IG under the no-load and the
rated speed conditions is C
min
50 m F.
2.3 Current control of IG and PWM converter
From Fig.3, the stator reactive current i
ds
of the IG, dened
as the sum of the uncontrolled capacitor bank current, the
three-phase load reactive current i
dl
and the converter
reactive current i
dc
, is given by
i
ds
vC v
qs
i
dl
i
dc
9
For three-phase resistive load, i
dl
0, while the stator
active current i
qs
of the IG, obtained by adding the three-
phase load active current i
ql
to the converter active current
i
qc
, is written as follows:
i
qs
i
ql
i
qc
10
Fig. 3 Equivalent circuit of simplied IG system in stator-
voltage vector reference frame neglecting the induction machine
leakage inductances and stator resistances
Fig. 4 Current and voltage vectors of IG system in stator-voltage
vector reference frame
Fig. 2 Magnetising curve of 2.2 kW induction machine,
reactance against current
IET Electr. Power Appl., Vol. 1, No. 2, March 2007 241
therefore the AC voltage regulation of the IG system can be
implemented by a control loop that drives the converter
reactive current i
dc
, while the DC busbar voltage regulation
of the IG scheme can also be implemented by a control loop
that drives the converter active current i
qc
. Fig. 5 shows
the block diagram of the proposed deadbeat current control-
ler divided into three subsystems. Subsystem A is used to
estimate the reference current vector, subsystem B is to esti-
mate the stator voltage and subsystem C is used to estimate
the output voltage of the PWM converter at a sampling
point (k 1). In subsystem A, there are two PI regulators:
the AC stator voltage regulator and the DC link voltage reg-
ulator. The input of the DC link voltage regulator is the
difference between the DC link voltage reference and
the measured value, while its output has been dened as
the active current reference i

qc
of the PWM converter.
Also, the input of the AC stator voltage regulator is the
difference between the stator voltage reference and the
estimated stator voltage. Its output has been dened as
the stator reactive-current reference i

dc
. This reference
must be limited to avoid the induction machine saturation.
The reason is to reduce the iron losses and improve
the efciency of the IG system, especially at low speed.
The PI parameters for DC voltage regulation are set
at K
P
( proportional gain) 0.15 A/V and K
I
(integral
gain) 6.0 A/(Vs), respectively. By setting damping
factor j

2
p
=2 and natural frequency v
ni
40 rad s
21
,
the parameters of the PI controller of the AC voltage regu-
lation are k
Pi
0.2 AV
21
and k
ii
6.2 A(Vs)
21
, respect-
ively. The reference current space vector of the PWM
converter is then dened by
i

c
i

qc
j i

dc
11
In Fig.5, the stator voltage v
s
[v
s
v
qs
jv
ds
, where
v
ds
0] of the IG can be estimated by using only an
integrator, because v
s
is equal to a disturbance in the
current control system of the PWM converter. Hence, the
stator-voltage space vector v
s
of the IG is calculated using
the following equation
v
s
z K
I
z
z 1
fi
c
z i
c
zg 12
where K
I
is the integrating gain which is set at 1.25 V/A.
2.4 Deadbeat current control for voltage source
converter
Fig. 6 represents the power circuit of the three-phase
voltage-source converter using IGBT power modules. The
voltage balance across the AC side interface lters in the
a-b-c stationary frame is
v
a
v
b
v
c
_
_
_
_
R
c
L
c
d
dt
_ _
i
ai
i
bi
i
ci
_
_
_
_

v
ai
v
bi
v
ci
_
_
_
_
13
Using the transformation matrix

2=3
p
[1 e
j2p/3
e
2j2p/3
],
(13) is transformed into the stationary a-b reference frame
v 0,
v
ab
s
R
c

d
dt
L
c
_ _
i
ab
c
v
ab
c
14
where R
c
and L
c
are the resistance and inductance of the AC
side lter of the PWM converter, v
s
ab
is the output voltage
vector of the IG, i
c
ab
is the current vector of the PWM
converter and v
c
ab
is the output voltage vector of the PWMcon-
verter. During sampling period T
s
, v
s
ab
and v
c
ab
in (14) are
assumed to be constant. In this case, (14) can be discretised
Fig. 5 Proposed deadbeat control scheme for AC and DC voltage regulation of IG with PWM converter
IET Electr. Power Appl., Vol. 1, No. 2, March 2007 242
and arranged as follows[9]
v
ab
c
k v
ab
s
k
R
c
q
e
fi
ab
c
k 1 p
e
i
ab
c
kg 15
where p
e
e
R
c
T
s
=L
c
; q
e
1 p
e
.
In the next sampling period (k 1), the output voltage of
the PWM converter v

c
(k 1) is calculated in the d-q syn-
chronous rotating frame as follows
v

c
k 1 v
s
k
R
c
q
e
fe
ju
0
i

c
k p
e
i
c
k 1g 16
where v
s
k is the estimated stator voltage v
s
using (12),
u
0
vT
s
and v is the angular frequency of the IG, i

c
(k) is
the instantaneous space vector of the converter reference
current at sampling point k, which can be tracked with
one sampling delay e
ju
0
i

c
k is the control target of the
reference current expressed by one dimensional settling
time response and represented by
i

c
k 1 i

c
e
ju
0
17
The control variable of one sampling period ahead of
current space vector i
c
k 1 of the PWM converter is
needed with a high-accuracy estimation to cancel the calcu-
lation time delay in the DSP. As given in Fig.5, the predic-
tion of i
c
k 1 can be made easily by using the following
equation in the d-q synchronous rotating frame [9]:
i
c
k 1 p
e
i
c
k
q
e
R
c
fv
s
k v
c
kg
_ _
e
ju
0
18
2.5 Experimental set-up of IG and PWM converter
Fig. 7 shows a photograph of the whole experimental set-up,
while the implementation system for the AC and DC
voltage regulation of the stand-alone IG and the PWM
converter is carried out in Fig. 8. All calculations are
accomplished digitally, based on the deadbeat current
control algorithm for controlling the AC-side currents of
the PWM converter by determining the AC-side space
voltage vector of the PWM converter. The control circuit
consists of A/D converters, DSP, PLL circuit, PWM
board and zero crossing detector circuit. Among these,
three A/D converters (AD7572A) are used to convert
analogue signals to digital ones. A/D converters are used
to sample the PWM converter AC-side currents i
ai
and i
bi
and the voltage V
dc
across the DC busbar capacitor of the
PWM converter. AD7572A is a complete analogue to
digital converter that offers high-speed performance of a
conversion time of 3 ms combined with low CMOS power
levels. The 16-bit xed decimal point 40-MIPS DSP,
TMS320C542, which has separate program and data
spaces, allow simultaneous access to program instructions
Fig. 6 Power circuit of three-phase voltage-source converter using IGBT modules
Fig. 7 Photograph of whole experimental set-up
IET Electr. Power Appl., Vol. 1, No. 2, March 2007 243
and data, and provide the high degree of parallelism. A xed
point DSP is chosen over oating point DSP, to reduce the
overall IG system cost.
The line voltage signal of IG output voltage is detected
through the potential transformer (PT) to detect its zero
crossing point. Then, the zero-crossing signal is sent to
interruption terminal of DSP (Int-0) and the phase compara-
tor as the reference in the PLL circuit. However, this
zero-crossing signal is used for determining the direction
of q-axis on a-b stationary co-ordinate frame in synchroni-
sation with the IG line voltage.
In Fig.9, the newly designed PLL circuit consists of a
phase comparator, loop lter, voltage-controlled oscillator
(VCO) and synchronous counters. Fig. 10 shows the
measured step responses of the PLL circuit with a DC
load stepped from 330 W to 770 W, while the three-phase
load is constant at 250 W. Figure 10 indicates that the
overshoot of loop lter output of Channel (4), which is
proportional to the output frequency f of the stand-alone
IG, is effectively reduced and the damping performance is
sufciently good. Moreover, the ripple components of the
frequency are observed in Channel (4). These ripple com-
ponents can be reduced by setting both time constants
of loop lter (R
1
C
1
) and (R
3
C
3
) at higher values. During
the experimental works, increasing these time constants
brings poor responsiveness of the IG system operation.
3 Voltage regulation with DC load
Several tests have been carried out to study the perform-
ances in both transient and steady-state conditions for DC
load only. Fig. 11a shows the measured instantaneous
waveforms of the AC side current of the PWM converter,
IG current, IG line voltage and DC busbar voltage of the
PWM converter in the case of a DC load power stepped
from 410 W to 890 W, while the three-phase load power
is 250 W and the prime mover speed is 1760 rev/min.
The observed frequency has been changed from 57.5 to
54.8 Hz with the step change of the DC load power.
Voltage regulation can be achieved for the output voltage
of the IG and DC busbar voltage of the PWM converter.
The IG terminal voltage and DC busbar voltage can be
kept almost constant at 140 V and 240 V, respectively.
Fig. 11b shows the transient responses of the active and
reactive current components of the PWM converter. The
current control accuracy is extremely high although there
are observed ripple components in the reactive current
response during the transient period. These ripple com-
ponents do not affect the IG system stability. However,
these ripple components are generated because of ripple
components that occurred in the loop lter output as
illustrated in Fig.10.
For very low speed, 1350 rev/min, and the same DC load
power step change of Fig.11, Fig.12 shows the overall oper-
ational waveforms of the IG and the PWM converter
equipped with deadbeat current controller. From all these
measurements, the IG system can work at low speed, 74%
of the rated speed and high speed, 96% of the rated speed
as well. Hence, the proposed control system has provided
good voltage regulation for speeds less than 0.9 per unit,
where the IG could show good advantages in wind or hydro-
power applications.
4 Voltage regulation with AC load disturbance
For three-phase resistive load as a heater which is not sen-
sitive to the changes in the frequency of the IG, the PWM
converter with the xed excitation capacitor works to
control the reactive power and needs a very small amount
of active power to keep the DC-link voltage of the PWM
converter constant. Fig. 13 indicates the measured wave-
forms of AC load current, AC-side current of converter,
IG current and IG line-to-line voltage in the case of a
Fig. 8 DSP-based experimental set-up for proposed IG and
PWM converter
Fig. 9 Phase-locked-loop circuit with newly designed loop lter
Fig. 10 Measured transient response of proposed PLL circuit
(1) MSBof upper 8 bit counter: 5V/div; (2) current of IGstator: 10A/div;
(3)loop lter input (#13): 2V/div; (4) loop lter output(#9): 0.5V/div
IET Electr. Power Appl., Vol. 1, No. 2, March 2007 244
three-phase load power stepped from 16% to 50% of
2.2 kW rated power of IG, while the prime mover speed
is kept constant at 1543 rev/min. In this case, the reactive
component of the PWM converter is controlled to cancel
the voltage drop caused by step increasing of the active
current, while the output frequency has been changed
slightly from 49.8 Hz to 49.1 Hz.
5 IG terminal voltage estimation by deadbeat
controller
Fig. 14 shows the transient responses of the d-q axis com-
ponents of the stator-voltage space vector v
s
, under the
same condition of DC load step change from 16% to 50%
of 2.2 kW rated power of the IG. The proposed designed
integrator, as described in (12), gives considerably high
estimation accuracy, while also eliminating the variation
in the measured voltage.
6 IG voltage regulation with speed variation
In the steady state, several measurements have been carried
out to study the operating performance of the IG system
with the PWM converter and the capacitor bank at variable
speed and DC load power change. Fig. 15 shows the IG
frequency, reactive current of the IG, reactive current of
the PWM converter and reactive current of the capacitor
bank against the rotor speed with DC load changes from
12% to 50% of the 2.2 kW full-load conditions within a
per-unit speed range from 0.7 to 1.0. AC voltage regulation
can be achieved to wide-speed-variation-range by the PI
controller which passes the function of adjusting converter
reactive current appropriately. The IG frequency is not con-
stant and changes with DC load variations. The per-phase
reactive current of the capacitor bank depends on the
output frequency of the IG. Hence, any voltage drop due
to the active current has to be compensated by the PWM
converter reactive current. At half of the full load and
lower per-unit speeds than 0.8, the reactive current supplied
from the capacitor bank with C 90 m F is not enough for
the IG to reach the reference voltage, then an additional
reactive current is required from the PWM converter
(i
dc
. 0). On the other hand, at higher per-unit speeds
than 0.8, the capacitor supplies more reactive current than
that needed to reach the reference voltage, then the conver-
ter has to supply inductive current (i
dc
, 0). As a conse-
quence, for the operating speed range, a smaller converter
size can be used. For example, if the per-unit speed range
is between 0.7 and 0.95, the maximal reactive current of
the converter will be only 10% of the IG rated current.
Approximately, the rating of the converter with a capacitor
bank becomes half of its rating without the capacitor bank.
-256 0 256 512 768 1024 1280 1536
0
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
0.6 Rated Current = 8*sqrt(3) A
Sampling Point
T
Load Step
i
q
c
-256
0
256 512 768 1024 1280
-0.3
-0.2
-0.1
0
0.1
Sampling Point
Load Step
T
i
d
c
1536
a
b
Fig. 11 Measured operating waveforms of IG system at n 1760 rev/min
a In transistent state (1) Converter AC-side current-5A/div; (2) IG current -5A/div; (3) IG voltage -250V/div; (4) DC link voltage -250V/div
b d-q axis currents of PWM converter (T represents the voltage source period)
IET Electr. Power Appl., Vol. 1, No. 2, March 2007 245
7 Conclusions
In this paper, a deadbeat current controller has been pro-
posed for the stand-alone IG working with variable speed
and supplying a DC load and/or three-phase load with
-256 0 256 512 768 1024 1280 1536
0
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
0.6
Sampling Point
T
Load Step
Rated Current = 8*sqrt(3) A
i
q
c
0
256 512 768 1024 1280 1536 1792
-0.1
0
0.1
0.2
Sampling Point
T
Load Step
i
d
c
a
b
Fig. 12 Measured operating waveforms of IG system at n 1350 rev/min
a In transistent state (1) Converter AC-side current-5A/div; (2) IG current -5A/div; (3) IG voltage -250V/div; (4) DC link voltage -250V/div
b d-q axis currents of PWM converter (T represents the voltage source period)
-128 0 128 256 384 512 640 768
-40
-20
0
20
40
60
80
100
Estimated q-axis Component
Measured q-axis Component
Estimated d-axis Component
Measured d-axis Component
[%]
Sampling
Point
Step Load
Change
T
s
Rated Voltage
Fig. 14 IG terminal voltage estimation by deadbeat controller
time (sec.); 25m sec/div
Fig. 13 Measured waveforms of IG and PWM converter under
three-phase load power stepped from 16% to 50% of full-load
power, frequency variation from 49.8 Hz to 49.1 Hz and speed
1543rev/min
(1) AC load current -5A/div; (2) Converter current -5A/div; (3) IG
current 5 A/div; (4) IG voltage -250V/div
IET Electr. Power Appl., Vol. 1, No. 2, March 2007 246
voltage regulation. The signicant features of this controller
are using a newly designed PLL circuit and three sensors,
one for detecting DC busbar voltage and two for measuring
the two phase input currents of the PWM converter. The
implementation of the controller neither needs a mechanical
position nor a speed-sensing system. The signicant effects
of the capacitor bank on the IG system, such as supplying
reactive power and starting the stand-alone IG without the
need for a battery are demonstrated. Hence, high system
reliability and low system cost are achieved.
A 2.2 kw laboratory prototype for the IG system has been
implemented to validate the proposed method. All measured
operating characteristics of the IG system and control prove
that the proposed control system is able to regulate the
generated voltage for a DC load and three-phase AC load.
Moreover, several measurements in steady-state and transi-
ent conrm that the control system for the stand-alone IG
can operate within a wide speed and load range and a sig-
nicantly high voltage regulation performance. The main
advantage of the AC-load control over the DC one is that
the former avoids the ow of active-power current
through the PWM converter. Consequently, the PWM con-
verter rated power can be decreased. The size of the PWM
converter can be drastically reduced, as well as the system
cost, by disconnecting the DC load from the DC-link side
of the PWM converter and connecting it through a diode
rectier for DC application.
8 References
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0.7 0.8 0.9 1
0
0.5
1
Frequency
Fixed Capacitor Current
IG Reactive Current
Converter Reactive Current
rpm/1800
Rated Value
12% Load
50% Load
Fig. 15 Steady-state operating performance of IG system and
hybrid excitation system (PWM converter and capacitor bank)
with speed variation
12% load is for three-phase resistive load, 260W, and 50% load is
260W three-phase resistive load and 800W DC Load
IET Electr. Power Appl., Vol. 1, No. 2, March 2007 247