1830
4, APRIL 2012
Problems of Startup and Phase Jumps
in PLL Systems
Masoud Karimi Ghartemani, Senior Member, IEEE, Sayed Ali Khajehoddin, Member, IEEE,
Praveen K. Jain, Fellow, IEEE, and Alireza Bakhshai, Senior Member, IEEE
Abstract—An adaptive phase-locked loop (PLL) structure is pro-
posed which offers fast and smooth tracking of phase-angle jumps.
Correlatively, it offers soft startup stage and avoids undesired fre-
quency swings caused by phase jumps. The adaptive mechanism
adjusts the gain of frequency estimation loop in order to mitigate
large transients of frequency during sudden phase angle varia-
tions. This reduces the coupling of phase and frequency variables
and allows tremendously faster and smoother estimation of both
variables. The proposed adaptive mechanism can be applied to
different PLL and adaptive notch-filter systems three of which
including the enhanced PLL (EPLL), the synchronous reference
frame PLL (SRF-PLL), and the second order generalized integra-
tor frequency-locked loop (SOGI-FLL) are studied in this paper.
Index Terms—EPLL, frequency estimation, phase estimation,
phase jumps, phase-locked loop, PLL startup, PLL transient re-
sponse, SOGI-FLL, SRF-PLL, synchronization.
I. INTRODUCTION
HASE-LOCKED loop (PLL) techniques and adaptive fil-
P tering methods have enjoyed continuously increasing inter-
est in various areas of power system. The synchronous reference
frame (SRF) PLL has widely been used for three-phase applica-
tions including grid synchronization and autonomous operation
of power electronic inverters [1], [2]. An improved version of the
SRF-PLL to prevent the double-frequency errors caused by the
negative sequence is presented in [3]. A more advanced structure
is introduced in [4] that takes full account of unbalanced situ-
ations and, in addition to synchronization signal(s), estimates
multiple number of signal parameters. Structural improvements
of different PLL systems in order to cope with harmonic distor-
tions are also reported in the literature [5]–[7]. The PLL used for
grid synchronization of distributed generation systems is also
modified to achieve islanding detection [8], [9].
On the single-phase level, the enhanced PLL (EPLL) has
found wide acceptance due to its simple structure, robust perfor-
mance, and its ability to estimate signal parameters directly [7],
Manuscript received March 23, 2011; revised July 18, 2011; accepted Au-
gust 31, 2011. Date of current version February 20, 2012. Recommended for
publication by Associate Editor J. A. Pomilio.
M. K. Ghartemani is with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engi-
neering, Mississippi State University, USA, (e-mail: karimi@ece.msstate.edu).
S. A. Khajehoddin, P. K. Jain, and A. Bakshai are with the Department of
Electrical and Computer Engineering, Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario,
Canada (e-mail: s.ali.khajehoddin@queensu.ca; praveen.jain@queensu.ca;
alireza.bakhshai@queensu.ca).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TPEL.2011.2169089
0885-8993/$26.00 © 2011 IEEE
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER ELECTRONICS, VOL. 27, NO.
[10]. The adaptive notch filter (ANF) and second-order gener-
alized integrator frequency-locked loop (SOGI-FLL) constitute
another breed of methods that have lately been developed for
applications similar to PLL [11]–[15]. These methods are based
on estimating the frequency and using it to adjust the center
frequency of a linear band-pass filter.
A particular advantage of the filter-based methods such as
ANF and SOGI-FLL is in avoiding sine and cosine calculations
if only a synchronizing signal is required.1 They, however, need
to compute square-root and inverse tangent operation in cases
where the amplitude and phase angle are required. One major
advantage of the EPLL (or generally all PLL systems which use
a VCO or sine–cosine calculation) over ANF and SOGI-FLL
type algorithms is, that it provides a stable synchronizing signal
(with unity magnitude) at the VCO output. The amplitude of this
signal is independent from the input signal variations and it can
supply a free-running stable oscillation by simply disconnecting
the frequency loop when the input signal is unavailable or is in
an abnormal situation [17].
In most power system applications, especially those involving
synchronization, the phase angle information is of critical sig-
nificance. This variable may experience smooth and also abrupt
changes due to system conditions, such as faults. The frequency
has a stable nature in the sense that it is more of a global vari-
able and its abrupt changes are not expected in a power system
with mass rotating machines. In PLL techniques, however, the
phase and frequency are both estimated within a single loop.
This causes spurious frequency transients during phase angle
changes. Such transients reflect back on the phase variable and
cause delay in the process of phase estimation and synchro-
nization. The same phenomenon can also happen at the startup
operation of the PLL if the initial phase angle of the signal (of-
ten unknown) happens to be distant from the initial value of
the PLL phase integrator. This is a well-known problem and is
mentioned in various references such as [1], [13], [18], [19].
In this paper, we present an adaptive strategy to address the
aforementioned problem. This method is based on adaptively
adjusting the gain of the frequency estimation loop in order
to minimize the false frequency transients during phase angle
jumps and also in the startup stage. Tremendous improvement
in decreasing the undesired frequency transients, the undesired
phase oscillations, and increasing the speed of the phase angle
estimation is obtained. The proposed adaptive structure has a
general form and is applicable to most PLL and adaptive filtering
methods similar in nature. We, however, primarily describe the
1 When large variations of frequency exist, an ANF or SOGI-FLL will require
calculation of trigonometric functions when they are implemented digitally [16].
KARIMI GHARTEMANI et al.: PROBLEMS OF STARTUP AND PHASE JUMPS IN PLL SYSTEMS
Fig. 1. EPLL structure.
method in the context of EPLL and then apply it to the SRF-PLL
and SOGI-FLL as well. Experimental results obtained from a
digital fixed-point implementation of the EPLL system on an
FPGA platform are also presented.
The paper is organized as follows. An overview of the EPLL
system is given in Section II. The problem of phase/frequency
coupling and the undesired effects that it may cause are de-
scribed in Section III. The proposed adaptive method is pre-
sented in Section IV, where its application to the EPLL system
is also studied. The proposed method is applied to SRF-PLL and
SOGI-FLL in Sections V and VI. Simulation results of each al-
gorithm are included in its corresponding section. Experimental
results of the EPLL system are presented in Section VII. Con-
clusions are stated in Section VIII.
II. OVERVIEW OF EPLL
In the EPLL block diagram, shown in Fig. 1, u is the input
signal, y is its estimated fundamental component, and the triplet
(A, ω, φ) is amplitude, frequency, and phase angle respectively,
of that component. The constant ωo is the signal nominal fre-
quency.
Mathematically, the EPLL is described by three differential
equations
⎧ timated together in the PLL systems including the EPLL. The
⎪ Ȧ = μ1 e sinφ
⎨ phase angle can locally experience abrupt changes in a power
Δ̇ω = μ2 e cosφ (1)
⎪
⎩ ever, is more of a global quantity and cannot change quickly
φ̇ = ωo + Δω + μ3 e cosφ
where e = u − y is called the error signal and the μi are
the EPLL gains and they are positive numbers. An approxi-
mate linear analysis of (1) reveals that the amplitude and the
phase/frequency estimation loops are governed by the transfer
functions
μ1 μ3 Ao μ2 Ao
2 2 s+ 2
GA (s) = μ1 , Gω φ (s) = (2)
s+ 2 s2 + μ 32A o s + μ 22A o
where Ao is the input signal amplitude. The dependence of
the transient response of the phase/frequency loop on the input
signal amplitude is not a major problem in most applications.
However, it may cause sluggish or oscillatory responses in cases
where the input signal amplitude becomes too small or too large,
1831
Fig. 2. EPLL startup performance for initial signal values of: Amp. = 1,
Freq. = 60 Hz, and Phase = 10 deg. Initial conditions of the EPLL are set to
nominal values, i.e., Amp. = 1, Freq. = 60 Hz, and Phase = 0.
respectively. To avoid this problem, the phase/frequency loop
equations may be modified as follows:

Δ̇ω = μ2 Ae cosφ
(3)
φ̇ = ωo + Δω + μ3 Ae cosφ.
In this paper, we use the following setting of parameters:
μ2
μ1 = μ3 = μ = Kωo , μ2 = (4)
8
that is achieved by selecting a damping ratio of unity for
the phase/frequency transfer function. Then the whole system
is controlled by a single gain K. Smaller K corresponds to
slower/smoother responses while larger K generates faster re-
sponses but with possibly larger oscillations. The recommended
√
range is 0.5 ≤ K ≤ 1.5, and we have selected K = 2 for the
simulations in this paper.
III. COUPLING OF PHASE AND FREQUENCY VARIABLES
The phase and frequency variables are combined and are es-
system due to system faults, for instance. The frequency, how-
due to the masses of rotating machines. A PLL, however, by
coupling the phase and frequency variables, translates abrupt
and sudden phase changes into fast and large transients of fre-
quency. Such a misleading behavior may also happen at the
startup operation of a PLL where the initial phase angle of the
input signal is unknown to the PLL.
To see this phenomenon, Figs. 2 and 3 show the startup EPLL
performance when the initial phase angle of the input signal is
10 deg and 130 deg, respectively. In the first case, the estimated
frequency exhibits a peak of about 61.5 Hz and in the second
case it goes up to about 80 Hz. The responses reach the steady
state within about two cycles of the signal in the first case while
it takes as long as approximately four cycles to reach the steady
state in the second case.
1832
Fig. 3. EPLL startup performance for initial signal values of: Amp. = 1,
Freq. = 60 Hz, and Phase = 130 deg. Initial conditions of the EPLL are set to
nominal values, i.e., Amp. = 1, Freq. = 60 Hz, and Phase = 0.
Fig. 4. (Top) Settling-time of EPLL responses versus the initial phase (or
phase jump). The error signal, the phase angle and the amplitude have settling
times of equal order while the the settling time of frequency is larger. (Bottom)
Maximum and minimum peak values of the estimated frequency (during the
transient interval) versus the phase jump.
In order to further characterize the EPLL responses against
phase jumps, the settling times of four variables are defined as
follows. For the error signal and for the amplitude, it is the time
after which the response remains within 2% of the signal’s actual
amplitude. For the phase angle and frequency, it is the time after
which the phase is within a 1 degree vicinity of the solution and
the frequency is within a 20 mHz distance of the 60 Hz. Now, the
settling times of all these variables, for all possible initial phase
angles of the input, are calculated and drawn in Fig. 4 (top). The
bottom portion of Fig. 4 shows the maximum and minimum peak
values that the estimated frequency reaches during the transient
time. The phase angle settling time, for example, can reach up to
70 ms in the worst case scenario. This number is about 100 ms
for the frequency. The frequency peaks can go down to about
20 Hz and up to about 80 Hz in the worst case. The error and
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER ELECTRONICS, VOL. 27, NO. 4, APRIL 2012
Fig. 5. ”Averaged” settling-time of the EPLL responses versus the EPLL
parameter μ. Average is taken over all possible phase jumps in the period of
−180 to 180 degrees.
the amplitude settling times are very much similar to that of the
phase angle.
In order to study the impact of K (or μ) on these numbers,
Fig. 5 shows the “averaged” settling time of these variables over
a 360 deg period of phase angle jump and for 200 ≤ μ ≤ 600.
Increasing μ speeds up the responses. For a value of μ = Kωo =
533, the averaged settling time of the phase angle is about 40 ms
and that of the frequency is about 70 ms. This is chiefly due to
the large oscillations of frequency when the phase angle jump
is big.
IV. PROPOSED ADAPTIVE MECHANISM
The gains μ2 and μ3 control the behavior of phase/frequency
estimation loop where μ2 is more directly related to the band-
width of this loop. Fast responses desire large bandwidth and
require large μ2 . This, however, increases the level of coupling
between the phase and frequency variables. This coupling be-
comes a problem when phase jumps become large. In order
to overcome this problem, the signal that drives the frequency
integrator must be limited during the phase jumps. A solution
would be making the gain μ2 adaptive in the sense that it is
adjusted based on the level of phase deviations. The ideal so-
lution would be to reduce this gain for large phase jumps in
order to mitigate adverse effects on the frequency. But this idea
is not directly realizable due to the fact that the phase jump is
an unknown variable. The phase jump, however, manifests im-
mediately in the error signal e. Larger phase jumps cause larger
values of error signal. Thus, an adaptive mechanism is proposed
by replacing μ2 with μ̄2
μ2 μ2 A2
μ̄2 = e 2 = (5)
1 + λ( A ) A + λe2
2
where λ is a positive constant. In (5), the adaptive gain μ̄2
becomes small when the error signal is large and it approaches
μ2 when the error signal tends to zero. In other words, it limits
the frequency variations during the transient interval. The signal
KARIMI GHARTEMANI et al.: PROBLEMS OF STARTUP AND PHASE JUMPS IN PLL SYSTEMS
Fig. 6. Startup performance of the proposed adaptive EPLL for initial signal
values of: Amp. = 1, Freq. = 60 Hz, and Phase = 130 deg. Initial conditions of
the EPLL are set to nominal values, i.e., Amp. = 1, Freq. = 60 Hz, and Phase
= 0. (Compare to Fig. 3.)
Fig. 7. (Top) Settling-time of proposed adaptive EPLL responses versus the
initial phase (or phase jump). (Bottom) Maximum and minimum peak values of
the estimated frequency (during the transient interval) versus the phase jump.
(Compare to Fig. 4.)
e has been normalized by the amplitude A in order to arrive at
a gain λ that is not dependent on the input signal.
Fig. 6 shows the performance of the proposed adaptive EPLL
when a phase-jump of 130 deg has occurred. This scenario was
already simulated for conventional EPLL in Fig. 3 and very
large oscillations in the frequency and phase angle variables
were observed. The proposed adaptive mechanism has been
able to significantly mitigate the undesirable oscillations and
reduce the settling time of all variables.
For the proposed adaptive EPLL, the graph of settling times
of all four variables, i.e., the error signal, the phase angle, the fre-
quency and the amplitude, as well as the bands of frequency tran-
sients are depicted in Fig. 7 for all possible phase jumps. Com-
pared to Fig. 4, which shows similar graphs for conventional
EPLL, significant improvement is achieved. The transient fre-
quency bands, for instance, have been reduced from [30 80] Hz
1833
Fig. 8. “Averaged” settling-time of the proposed adaptive EPLL responses
versus the gain μ. Average is taken over all possible phase jumps in the period
of -180 to 1800 degrees. (Compare to Fig. 5.)
Fig. 9. (Top) Settling-time of conventional EPLL responses versus the per-
centage amplitude jump. (Bottom) Maximum and minimum peak values of the
estimated frequency (during the transient interval) versus the amplitude jump.
to [58.5 61.5] Hz. Fig. 8 shows the averaged settling times of
those variables over a 360 deg period of phase jumps for various
values of the EPLL parameter μ. Compared with Fig. 5, which
shows the same scenario for conventional EPLL, an improve-
ment of about 100% at low values of μ and about 30 to 50% for
higher values of μ is obtained in the phase angle settling time.
For example, for μ = 533, the average settling time is reduced
from the original value of about 40 ms to about 26 ms for the
phase angle dynamics.
Remark 1. Phase angle jumps are often accompanied with
amplitude jumps in power system signals, e.g., at postfault
intervals. The amplitude jumps in themselves do not make a
significant contribution to the long transient times in EPLL.
Therefore, we have focused our analysis exclusively on phase-
angle jumps. The proposed method offers improvements to the
system transient responses when amplitude jumps are present
as well. In order to illustrate this fact, Figs. 9 and 10 show
1834
Fig. 10. (Top) Settling-time of proposed adaptive EPLL responses versus the
percentage amplitude jump. (Bottom) Maximum and minimum peak values
of the estimated frequency (during the transient interval) versus the amplitude
jump. (Compare to Fig. 9.)
Fig. 11. Average settling-time of the proposed adaptive EPLL responses ver-
sus λ.
the settling times and the frequency deviations for the conven-
tional EPLL and the adaptive EPLL when an amplitude jump
within the range of ±80% occurs. The adaptive EPLL slightly
improves the settling times for large amplitude jumps; that is
because those jumps can cause large frequency deviations and
push the system toward nonlinear domain. It is observed that
the adaptive EPLL limits the large frequency deviations.
A. Selection of λ
The constant λ signifies the strength of adaptive law in pre-
venting undesired frequency transients during large phase vari-
ations. The larger the parameter selected, the less the frequency
moves by the phase jumps. However, excessive increase of this
parameter will decrease the speed of frequency loop itself. A
graph of average settling times (over a 360-degree interval of
phase jumps) of all variables versus λ is shown in Fig. 11. The
major improvement is achieved when λ is as large as 50 and
beyond this value the improvement becomes marginal so much
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER ELECTRONICS, VOL. 27, NO. 4, APRIL 2012
Fig. 12. Variance of the error signal versus the variance of input noise for the
conventional EPLL and the proposed adaptive EPLL with λ = 100.
Fig. 13. Adaptive SRF-PLL structure.
so that it can be said there is practically no improvement be-
yond λ = 100. Therefore, a recommended value is in the range
50 ≤ λ ≤ 100. A value of λ = 100 is selected for all the simula-
tions in this paper. The average settling times of variables at this
point are equal to 26 ms for the phase angle, 20 ms for the error
signal, 16 ms for the amplitude, and 58 ms for the frequency.
It is necessary to make sure that the proposed adaptive mech-
anism does not cause any adverse effect on the steady state
performance of the PLL. To verify this point, the responses of
both EPLL and the adaptive EPLL when a white Gaussian noise
is added to the input signal are compared. Fig. 12 shows, by way
of example, the variance of the error signal versus the variance
of the input noise for both systems in the steady state. No visible
difference is observed.
Remark 2. In a practical situation where the input signal car-
ries harmonic distortions, the adaptive gain μ̄2 is on average
smaller than μ2 . This means that the systems bandwidth tends
to become smaller and the steady state responses tend to be
more accurate. Therefore, it can be concluded that the proposed
adaptive rule slightly improves the steady state responses of the
system.
V. APPLICATION OF THE PROPOSED METHOD TO SRF-PLL
The structure of the SRF-PLL is shown in Fig. 13 where
the highlighted blocks indicate the adaptive mechanism applied
to this system. In this three-phase PLL, the abc signals are
KARIMI GHARTEMANI et al.: PROBLEMS OF STARTUP AND PHASE JUMPS IN PLL SYSTEMS 1835

Fig. 14. Performance of the conventional SRF-PLL (blue) and adaptive SRF-
PLL (green) against a phase jump of 60 degrees. (Top) Phase angle error. Fig. 15. Settling times of the conventional SRF-PLL (blue) and adaptive
(Bottom) Estimated frequency. SRF-PLL (green) versus the input phase jump. (Top) Phase angle settling time.
(Bottom) Frequency settling time.

converted to dq components using the estimated angle φ. The

integrating gain kI plays the same role that μ2 plays in the
EPLL system and the gain kp corresponds to μ3 . The amplitude
is not directly
 estimated in this PLL but it can be estimated
using A = vd2 + vq2 , or A = vd . The signal vq plays the role
of error signal in the EPLL. Therefore, the adaptive mechanism
multiplies the integrating gain kI with

1 vd2 + vq2
v = . (6)
1 + λ( Aq )2 vd2 + vq2 + λvq2

It is worth mentioning here that the SRF-PLL gains are also

dependent on the input signal magnitude. As a matter of fact, the
characteristic equation of the linearized system is given by s2 +
kp Ao s + kI Ao = 0 where Ao is the input signal magnitude. It
is possible to remove such a dependence by dividing the gains
Fig. 16. (Top) Overshoot of phase angle responses for conventional (blue)
by the estimated magnitude similar to what was done before for and proposed (green) SRF-PLL. (Middle and Bottom) Upper and lower limits
EPLL. of reached frequency during transients (or frequency deviations from the exact
Performance of the conventional SRF-PLL and the adaptive value) for the conventional SRF-PLL and the proposed adaptive SRF-PLL,
respectively.
SRF-PLL against a phase jump of 60 deg is shown in Fig. 14.
The phase error is shown on the top portion and the estimated
frequency on the bottom portion. The phase error in the adaptive
PLLs. The adaptive mechanism has reduced the range about ten
SRF-PLL approaches zero faster than that in the conventional
times.
SRF-PLL. Moreover, the frequency oscillations have signifi-
cantly been reduced.
Fig. 15 shows how the settling time changes when the phase VI. APPLICATION OF THE PROPOSED METHOD TO SOGI-FLL
jump is a number between −180 and 180 deg. The adaptive The adaptive notch filter (ANF) and SOGI-FLL have been
mechanism has been able to reduce the phase settling time for discussed in several references as alternative structures for syn-
an average of about 50%. The frequency settling time is also chronization and signal estimation. In this section, the pro-
slightly improved in the order of 10 to 15%. Fig. 16 (top) shows posed adaptive mechanism is applied to the SOGI-FLL structure
the response overshoot of the phase angle for both conventional of [13]. This adaptive filter is described by the following differ-
and adaptive SRF-PLL structures. While the conventional struc- ential equations:
ture has an overshoot of about 13% for the entire range of phase
⎧
angle jumps, the adaptive mechanism reduces that to about 1%
⎪ ẋ1 = ω(ke − wx2 )
for most of the range. The middle and bottom portions of Fig. 16 ⎨
ẋ2 = x1 (7)
show the upper and lower limits of frequency that are reached ⎪
⎩
during the transient time for the conventional and the proposed ω̇ = −γωex2
1836 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER ELECTRONICS, VOL. 27, NO. 4, APRIL 2012

Fig. 17. Performance of the conventional SOGI-FLL (blue) and modified

adaptive SOGI-FLL (green) against a phase jump of 60 degree. (Top) Phase
angle error. (Bottom) Estimated frequency. Fig. 18. Settling times of the conventional SOGI-FLL (blue) and modified
adaptive SOGI-FLL (green) versus the input phase jump. (Top) Phase angle
settling time. (Bottom) Frequency settling time.
where e = u − x1 and u is the single-phase input signal. The
controlling gain k plays the same
√ role that K plays in the EPLL
and its recommended value is 2 [13]. Moreover, γ corresponds
to the constant μ2 in the EPLL (with the difference of opposite
sign). It is possible to make the frequency estimation loop in-
dependent from the input signal magnitude by normalizing its
gain using ω̇ = − Aγ2 ωex2 [13] where A = x21 + ω 2 x22 is the
estimated amplitude of the input signal.
Applying the adaptive mechanism to the amplitude-
independent equations of the SOGI-FLL results in the following
frequency update law:
γωex2
ω̇ = − 2 (8)
x1 + ω 2 x22 + λe2
and the two equations for x1 and x2 remain unchanged.
Fig. 17 shows performances of the SOGI-FLL and the adap-
tive SOGI-FLL in tracking a phase jump of 60 deg. The upper
portion of the figure shows the phase tracking error and the bot-
tom portion shows the estimated frequency. It is observed that
the adaptive SOGI-FLL exhibits much smoother and at the same
Fig. 19. Deviations of the frequency from exact value during the transient
time faster tracking of the phase angle without introducing large stage. (Top) Conventional SOGI-FLL. (Bottom) Modified SOGI-FLL.
frequency transients.
Fig. 18 shows the settling times of both systems against all
possible phase angle jumps between −360 and 360 degrees. for the conventional SOGI-FLL and the adaptive SOGI-FLL.
The adaptive mechanism has improved the settling time about The adaptive mechanism succeeds in confining the frequency
an average of 50% for the entire range of phase angle jumps. transients within a range that is almost ten times smaller that
Averaged settling time is about 1.5 cycles of the system fre- that of the conventional SOGI-FLL.
quency and this is equivalent to what is offered by the adaptive
EPLL.2 The bottom portion of Fig. 18 shows that the settling VII. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
time of the frequency estimation is also improved by the adap- A digital implementation of the conventional EPLL and the
tive mechanism. The upper and lower limits of frequency that proposed adaptive EPLL structures is performed using fixed
are reached during the transient interval are shown in Fig. 19 point calculations in an Altera FPGA development board of
series Stratix II. The voltage signal is sensed and converted to
2 As a matter of fact, it is possible to prove that the EPLL’s and the SOGI- digital using ten bits serial A/D connected to the FPGA board.
FLL’s responses are “mathematically” equivalent and thus they generate equal The sampling frequency is chosen at Fs = 20 kHz.
settling times. Those two systems are different from an “engineering” point of
view meaning that they have different properties in terms of robustness, noise Assume that the samples of the input signal u(t) are shown by
immunity, digital implementations, etc. u[n] = u(nTs ) where the integer n denotes the current instant
KARIMI GHARTEMANI et al.: PROBLEMS OF STARTUP AND PHASE JUMPS IN PLL SYSTEMS 1837

Fig. 20. Digital realization of the EPLL.

of time and Ts = 1/Fs is the sampling period. Assume also Fig. 21. Experimental results of the conventional EPLL showing its startup
that A[n − 1], Δω[n − 1] and φ[n − 1] are the EPLL variables operation at an initial phase angle of 2.3 rad.
computed at the previous time instant. The current values for
these variables can be computed using the incoming value of
input sample u[n] as follows:
y[n] = A[n − 1] sin(φ[n − 1]) (9)
e[n] = u[n] − y[n]. (10)
A[n] = A[n − 1] + μ1 Ts e[n] sin(φ[n − 1]) (11)
Δω[n] = Δω[n − 1] + μ2 Ts e[n] cos(φ[n − 1]) (12)
φ[n] = φ[n − 1] + ωo Ts + Δω[n]Ts
+ μ3 Ts e[n] cos(φ[n − 1]). (13)
If the amplitude-independent equations of (2) are used, the dis-
crete time versions are
e[n] Fig. 22. Experimental results of the proposed EPLL showing its startup oper-
Δω[n] = Δω[n − 1] + μ2 Ts cos(φ[n − 1]) (14) ation at an initial phase angle of 2.3 rad.
A[n]
φ[n] = φ[n − 1] + ωo Ts + Δω[n]Ts
loop (PLL) and adaptive filter structures against abrupt phase
e[n]
+ μ3 Ts cos(φ[n − 1]). (15) angle jumps. This also covers the start-up transient of those
A[n]
systems where the initial phase angle of the input signal is un-
The block diagram representation of digital EPLL equations known. The proposed adaptive mechanism improves the speed
is shown in Fig. 20 where the operator z −1 shows one sample of the system responses and increases the smoothness of the es-
delay. The adaptive rule (5) is also implemented for the proposed timated variables during transients. In particularly, excessively
EPLL. large oscillations of the estimated frequency during frequency
Both the conventional EPLL and the proposed EPLL start at jumps are significantly mitigated. The proposed adaptive mech-
a time corresponding to an identical phase angle of the input anism has a general structure and is applicable to a wide range
signal. This phase angle is about 2.3 rad. The initial values of all of different single-phase and three-phase PLL and adaptive fil-
integrators in the conventional and proposed EPLLs are set to ter structures. Three of those structures are studied in this paper
zero. Responses of the conventional EPLL and those of the pro- including the EPLL, the SRF-PLL, and the SOGI-FLL. The pro-
posed EPLL are shown in Figs. 21 and 22, respectively. Traces of posed adaptive mechanism involves a division operation within
input signal u, the error signal e, the estimated amplitude A, and the frequency loop. This adds to the numerical complexity of
the estimated frequency Δω are shown. It is observed that the the structure but the improvement achieved is well worth the
conventional EPLL exhibits long transient time with large devi- additional computations.
ations in the estimated frequency. The proposed EPLL succeeds
in providing a much faster response with no visible deviation in REFERENCES
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Masoud Karimi Ghartemani (M’01–SM’09) re-
ceived the B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in electrical engi-
neering in 1993 and 1995, respectively, from Isfahan
University of Technology, Iran, and the Ph.D. degree
in electrical engineering from University of Toronto,
Canada, in 2004.
He was a faculty member at Sharif University of
Technology, Iran, from 2005 to 2008, and a postdoc-
toral and visiting researcher at Queens University,
Canada, from 2008 to 2011. He is currently an As-
sociate Professor with the Department of Electrical
and Computer Engineering at Mississippi State University, USA. His research
interests include power system stability and control, grid-integration of renew-
able energy systems, and power quality.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER ELECTRONICS, VOL. 27, NO. 4, APRIL 2012
Sayed Ali Khajehoddin (S’04–M’10) received
the B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in electrical engineer-
ing from Isfahan University of Technology, Iran, in
Sept. 1997 and June 2000, respectively, and the Ph.D.
degree in power electronics from Queens University,
Kingston, ON, Canada, in April 2010.
After completing his Masters, he established a
company where he developed and produced digital
meters and high-tech power system analyzers for five
years. For his doctoral research at Queens Univer-
sity, he worked on the design and implementation
of compact and durable microinverters for photovoltaic (PV) grid connected
systems. Since 2010, he has been at SPARQ systems Inc. working toward
mass-production and commercialization of microinverters. He has filed four
patents and was awarded several scholarships, including the MITACS Industrial
Postdoctoral Fellowship and the Ontario Graduate Scholarship. His research in-
terests include power electronics, control systems, power quality, and renewable
energy systems—mainly PV systems.
Praveen K. Jain (S’86–M’88–SM’91–F’02) re-
ceived the B.E. degree (with honors) from the Univer-
sity of Allahabad, India, and the M.A.Sc. and Ph.D.
degrees from the University of Toronto, Canada. in
1980, 1984. and 1987 respectively, all in electrical
engineering.
Currently he is a Professor and Canada Research
Chair at the Department of Electrical and Computer
Engineering, Queen’s University, Kingston, Canada,
and the Director of the Queen’s Centre for Energy
and Power Electronics Research (ePOWER). He has
received external research funding to conduct research in the field of power
electronics. He has supervised more than 75 graduate students, postdoctoral
fellows, and research engineers. He has published more than 350 technical pa-
pers (including more than 90 IEEE Transactions papers) and has more than 50
patents (granted and pending). He is also a Founder of CHiL Semiconductor
in Tewksbury, MA, USA (recently acquired by IR), and SPARQ System in
Kingston, Ontario, Canada. Prior to joining Queen’s, he worked as a Professor
at Concordia University (1994-2000), Technical Advisor at Nortel (1990-1994),
Senior Space Power Electronics Engineer at Canadian Astronautics Ltd. (1987-
1990), Design Engineer at ABB (1981), and as Production Engineer at Crompton
Greaves (1980). In addition, he has been a Consultant with Astec, Ballard Power,
Freescale, General Electric, Intel, and Nortel.
Dr. Jain is an Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Power Electron-
ics and an Editor of the International Journal of Power Electronics. He is also a
Distinguished Lecturer of the IEEE Industry Applications Society. He is a Fel-
low of the Engineering Institute of Canada (EIC) and the Canadian Academy of
Engineering (CAE). He is also the recipient of the 2011 IEEE Newell Award—
the highest field award in Power Electronics.
Alireza Bakhshai (M’03–SM’09) received the B.Sc.
and M.Sc. degrees from the Isfahan University of
Technology, Isfahan, Iran, in 1984 and 1986, respec-
tively, and the Ph.D. degree from Concordia Univer-
sity, Montreal, QC, Canada, in 1997.
From 1986 to 1993 and from 1998 to 2004, he was
on the faculty of the Department of Electrical and
Computer Engineering, Isfahan University of Tech-
nology. He was a Postdoctoral Fellow from 1997 to
1998 at Concordia University. Currently, he is with
the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineer-
ing, Queens University, Kingston, ON, Canada. His research interests include
high-power electronics, distributed generation, wind energy, smart grid, control
systems, and flexible ac transmission systems.