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The 11th SEATUC Symposium
2. THE DC-AC MODULAR MULTILEVEL [6]. Hence, high di/dt which is dangerous for equipment
CONVERTER can be controlled and minimized by this inductor.
2.1 Structure Modular Multilevel Converter Although it is very useful during fault, it does not
Modular Multilevel Converter is an AC to DC contribute to the normal operation of MMC because the
converter topology that was first introduced in 2003 [9]. internal arm currents are flowing continuously. Voltage
It is very suitable for high power-high voltage, high - sharing between switches is important for high voltage
power applications especially applications for connect converters. Sometimes especially during the switching
renewable energy sources. In this section, a brief time, harmful high voltages may destroy the power
description of MMC topology and its operation switches or at least shorten their life time. The SMs’
principles will be presented. MMC topology will be capacitors have solved this problem by maintaining the
explained as well as its advantages and disadvantages voltage level across the switches to a certain value.
comparing it with high power Voltage Source Converters Moreover, MMC provides the advantage of scalability,
(VSC) shown in Fig. 1. modularity and high power quality. Another remarkable
Idc feature of using MMC in high power applications is that
SM1 there is no need of input transformer to adjust the voltage
S1 D1 in contrast with the conventional converters. As a result,
vupa C
the elimination of the transformer itself and its cooling
S2
equipment that are usually large in size and weight will
SMn D2
lead to saving money and space. Furthermore, the input
iupa filter installations, which are necessary for classical
l converters, are not needed when using MMC. When
r using VSC, a DC-line capacitor is needed to keep the
ia L R ea voltage constant and the stored energy in this capacitor
0 va
may result in extremely high surge currents during short
iz ilowa vb circuit occurrence [8]. There is no need for this capacitor
vc in MMC installations.
l MMC operates in lower switching frequency than
LOAD
r VSC. Therefore, switching power loss is less. This
feature makes MMC an appropriate converter for high
SMn+1 power applications. However, MMCs are more
expensive and complicated than VSCs and controlling
vlowa
them is more difficult. A big challenge regarding MMC
SM2n controlling is how to keep the capacitor voltages around
the initial value that is equal to 𝑉𝑑𝑐/𝑛
Fig 1. Topology of the (n+1) level MMC connected to a 2.2 Sub-Module operating principles
typical load In order to create the desired output voltage at the
A three-phase (n+1)-level MMC has three upper and MMC terminals, the controller command the switches in
three lower arms that are all identical (Fig. 1). Each arm SMs to be turned on or off. Regarding SM circuit in Fig.
has been made of a specific number (n) of units named 2, there are two complementary switching states: S1 is on
Sub-modules (SMs) and a small inductor (l) which is and S2 is off and S2 is on and S1 is off. It is not allowed
called arm inductor. Each SM has been made of a series to turn on both switches simultaneously, because the
capacitor voltage will be totally discharged and afterward
connected of two IGBT/diode parallel combinations and
it becomes useless. By considering the switching states,
a precharged capacitor in parallel with them (Fig. 2).
four different working states can be made based on the
current direction:
OFF ON OFF
ON
S1 D1 S1 S1 S1 S1
i S2 S2 S2
S2
C
ON OFF OFF ON
VSM S2 D2 1) 2) 3) 4)
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The 11th SEATUC Symposium
2) S1 is ON and S2 is OFF: In this case the current (i) the lower arm. However, it is better to increase and
will pass through D1 and capacitor will be charged and decrease the voltage one step at each switching time to
VSM = VC . The voltage of the arm, in which the SM is have a smooth voltage waveform. Charging or
placed, will increase one step. discharging of the capacitors depends on the current
3) S1 is ON and S2 is OFF: The controller will turn on direction as explained in section 2.1.
S1 in order to connect the capacitor to the circuit and 2.4. MMC control requirements
increase the arm voltage on step. In this state, the The following aspects from control point of view are
capacitor is discharged and VSM=VC. very important to transfer desired power with maximum
4) S1 is OFF and S2 is ON: In this state, D2 is turned on efficiency and minimum voltage and current harmonics:
and i will pass through it. The capacitor will be bypassed 1. Controlled variable reference tracking Depending on
and VSM = 0. the main controlled variable that can be output voltage or
In this report, the term “turned on” SM means that current, the control scheme should be able to create the
its capacitor is connected and the term “turned off” SM turning on and turning off signals to make the required
means a bypassed capacitor. Charging and discharging of output voltage and current with minimum error with their
capacitors depend on the currents direction. reference signals.
2.3 Working principles of MMC 2. Keeping the capacitor voltages balanced
In normal operation of MMC, all of the capacitors are As mentioned earlier, if SM is going to be turned on
charged up to its nominal value 𝑉𝑑𝑐/𝑛. In order to reach or off, depending on the current direction, its capacitor
this value, [9] has proposed to turn on one SM of a leg will be charged or discharged; so, it will be more or less
and turn off the rest of SMs in that leg that are 2n-1 SMs. than 𝑉𝑑𝑐/n. The value of voltage variation obviously
When the capacitor is charged up, it should be turned off depends on the capacitance value and the on-time
by the controller command and the next SM should be duration of SM. In high switching frequency, on-time
turned on. All of the capacitors will be energized duration of Sub-𝑛. Modules is short; therefore, voltage
individually one after another. This process has been balancing is not critical. By the way, the control scheme
shown in Fig. 3. However, it is not possible to charge should consider it carefully to stabilize the voltage of
them by the main voltage source, because applying a capacitors in its limitations especially in low switching
high step voltage to the capacitors will lead to extremely frequencies.
high currents. As a consequence, an external voltage 3. Circulating current minimization During the operation
source with lower DC voltage level is needed [12]. As a of MMC, in addition to the AC side and DC side currents
better charging method, adding a resistor to the arms has there are three pure AC high frequency circulating
been proposed by [11]. By using this method, there will currents [13].The main reason behind these currents is
be no need for any external voltage source and there is the voltage variation (ripple) of capacitors during
no loss due to the resistors in the normal operation. The charging and discharging period [13]. These circulating
controller should only provide the connection and currents have no effect on the DC or AC side of MMC
disconnection of the resistors when needed. When all of and no power transfer occurs due to them. However, they
the capacitors have been charged, the controller sends have a significant impact on the rating values of the
turning on and off signals to SMs to create an AC MMC components, SMs capacitor ripples and converter
voltage from a DC source or vice versa. At each loss [13]. Hence, the circulating current should be
sampling time, only half of the total number of SMs in minimized by the controller as much as possible.
each phase is on (n SMs).Therefore, the total number of In the next chapter, FSC-MPC will be applied to
the connected capacitors from upper arm and lower arm MMC and it will be proved that it can handle all of the
together is equal to n at any instant. For example, if all of above control challenges.
the n upper SMs are on, all of the lower arm SMs should 3. MATHEMATICAL MODEL OF MMC
be off. So, the AC-line voltage level will be minimum: The circuit model of a three-phase DC-AC MMC
V V V has been demonstrated in Fig. 4. It is connected to the
vac n. dc dc dc (1) utility grid or motor as a load. In this study, the loss in
n 2 2 Sub Modules and arm inductors has been modeled with a
And reversely, if all of the lower arm SMs are on, small resistor (r) connected in series with them [3,13].
the AC-line voltage level will be maximum: The resistivity of DC source and DC line has been
V V V neglected. The load is three sets of series-connected
vac 0. dc dc dc (2) inductor (L), resistor (R) and voltage source (e) in star
n 2 2 shape. The voltage source has 50 Hz frequency. Each
Therefore, AC-bus voltage can vary between -𝑉 𝑑𝑐/2 arm of MMC represents a controllable voltage source
and +𝑉 𝑑𝑐 /2 with the steps of +𝑉𝑑𝑐/𝑛. Each arm of called 𝑣𝑢𝑝𝑗 and 𝑣𝑙𝑜𝑤𝑗 [9], which are the sum of SMs
MMC represents a controllable voltage source. AC-line output voltages (VSM) of upper arm and lower arm in
voltage increases by turning off upper arm SMs and phase j (a, b or c).
simultaneously turning on the same number of SMs in
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The 11th SEATUC Symposium
As shown in Fig. 1, 𝑣𝑡𝑗 is the representation of pole In order to predict the second controlled variable, i.e.
voltages with respect to 𝑉𝑑𝑐/𝑛 point O. By assuming the circulating current, Eq.7 and Eq.8 should be added.
that each capacitor voltage is ideally equal to and d iupj ilowj
neglecting the voltage drop across arm inductor and Vdc vupj vlowj l r. iupj ilowj (13)
dt
resistor, 𝑣𝑡𝑗 can be calculated by:
nlowj nupj And Eq.10 should be replaced into the above
vtj Vdc (3) equation:
2n
dizj 1 2
Where 𝑛𝑢𝑝𝑗 and 𝑛𝑙𝑜𝑤𝑗 are the number of upper and Vdc vupj vlowj 2rizj rI dc (14)
dt 2l 3
lower SMs that have been turned on. Total number of on
For simplification, the DC line current is assumed to
SMs in each phase of MMC is:
be constant (𝑑𝐼𝑑𝑐/𝑑𝑡 = 0).
n nupj nlowj (4)
The third and last controlled variable is the capacitor
According to [7, 11 and 13], the upper and lower voltages that can be calculated by
arm currents (𝑖𝑢𝑝𝑗 and 𝑖𝑙𝑜𝑤𝑗) can be calculated by: dvcij imj
(15)
I i dt C
iupj dc j izj (5)
3 2 Where i = 1,2,..,2n is the SM number and 𝑖𝑚𝑗 can be
zero if SM is off, or 𝑖𝑢𝑝𝑗 if SM is located in the upper
I dc i j arm or 𝑖𝑙𝑜𝑤𝑗 if SM is located in the lower arm.
ilowj izj (6)
3 2 4. PROPOSED MPC STRATEGY BASED ON THE
MATHEMATICAL MODEL OF THE MMC
Where 𝐼𝑑𝑐 is the dc component of the dc line 4.1. Introduction of Model Predictive Control
current, 𝑖𝑗 is the output phase current and 𝑖𝑧𝑗 is the The operating principle of MPC is based on the cost
circulating current flowing through phase j. These function can contain different linear function and depend
equations mean that the arm currents consist of three on the characteristics of each system [8].
main components with different frequencies: 1. zero
frequency current (Idc) that is its dc offset 2. 50 Hz xref(k+1) S
Cost function
current (ij) that is transferring power to the load 3. 100 minimization
Converter Load
Vdc di di
vupj l upj riupj Ri j L j e j (7) MPC controller
2 dt dt Fig 4. The control lock diagram of MMC
Vdc di di Where x(k) is the controlled variables. Based on the
vlowj l lowj rilowj Ri j L j e j (8) discrete model of system (load and converter), the
2 dt dt current values of the controlled variables x(k) are used to
Phase currents 𝑖𝑗 can be calculated by subtracting predict their future values x(k+1) for all N possible
Eq.6 from Eq.5 and the circulating currents 𝑖𝑧𝑗 can be switching states. All the predicted values of the
found by adding Eq.5 and Eq.6. controlled variables x(k+1) are compared with their
reference values xref(k+1) in the cost function
i j iupj ilowj (9)
minimization block. Finally, the switching state (S) that
minimizes the cost function will be selected as the next
1 2I
izj iupj ilowj dc (10) switching state and it will be applied to the converter.
2 3 The procedure of switching state selection has been
shown in Fig 5; tk is presenting the current state, t k+1 and
By subtracting Eq.8 from Eq.7 and replacing Eq.9,
tk+2 are the next time steps. The sampling time is T s.
the main first order differential equation (Eq.12) that can
Assume that the MPC is applied to a converter with
be used to predict the phase currents will appear:
three possible switching states (x1, x2 and x3) and the
d iupj ilowj
r iupj ilowj 2 Ri j 2 L
di j reference is constant in a short period of time. The cost
vupj vlowj l 2e j 0
dt dt function is defined as the distance between the controlled
(11) variable and its reference value that should be minimized
di j in order to track the reference. The controlled variable at
1
v v r 2 R i j 2e j (12) the next step time is predicted for all the switching states,
dt l 2L upj lowj but choosing x3 provides the least distance to the
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The 11th SEATUC Symposium
reference value xref ; as a result, it will be applied to the Consequently, for a three-phase one it will be equal
converter at time tk+1. Subsequently, all the process will to 𝑁3. For example, a 3-level MMC has totally 63= 216
be shifted one step forward. By repeating the procedure switching states. This number is important because the
once again for tk+2 will be selected due to its minimum controller speed depends directly to it. Cost function
distance with xref . Thus, the whole procedure will be calculation process repeats for all the switching states
repeated again. and then, the one that minimizes the cost function will be
x selected to be applied at the next switching instant.
Ts Ts
As mentioned earlier, there are three controlled
variables regarding MMC; output AC currents, capacitor
voltages and circulating currents. In order to predict the
x2(k+1)
one-step ahead value of the controlled variables, Eq.11,
x(k) x2(k+2)
x3(k+1) 14 and 15 should be discretized by one of the Euler
xref(k) methods. As the system model accuracy is very
x1(k+2) important for the controller performance, midpoint Euler
x1(k+1) method is selected. However, the system model based on
x3(k+2) both backward and forward Euler methods will be
t calculated and used for a single phase 3-level MMC.
tk tk+1 tk+2 AC-Side Current Control: The objective of current
Fig 5. MPC operating principle control is to regulate the MMC ac-side currents at their
Mô hình MPC áp dụng cho bộ biến đổi điện tử công reference values, i.e., reference current tracking. Based
on Eq.11 and assuming a sampling period of Ts, the
suất được bắt đầu bằng các biến rời rạc như dòng điện,
discrete-time model of the MMC ac-side current, with an
điện áp… hàm mục tiêu phải được xác định theo hành vi
Euler approximation of the current derivative, is deduced
mong muốn của BBĐ. Tại mỗi thời điểm lấy mẫu, hàm as:
mục tiêu sẽ tính tất cả các trạng thái chuyển mạch có thể
2 v t Ts vupj t Ts
cho chu kỳ trích mẫu tiếp theo dựa trên các trạng thái i j t Ts ( lowj
Ts l 2 L 2 R.i j t Ts 2
hiện tại. Sau đó, các trạng thái tối ưu sẽ được lựa chọn để
áp dụng cho bộ chuyển đổi. Để thiết kế bộ điều khiển l 2L
e j t Ts i j (t )) (17)
MPC cho bộ biến đổi điện tử công suất ta thực hiện ba 2Ts
giai đoạn: Lấy mô hình rời rạc của hệ thống theo các dẫn Predicted current, ij(t) is the measured ac-side
xuất biến điều khiển để có thể dự đoán trong tương lai; current, and esj(t + Ts) is the estimated grid voltage at the
Xác định tất cả các trạng thái chuyển mạch có thể cho low-voltage side of the transformer which is
chuyển đổi và mối quan hệ của chúng với các biến khác; approximated by the measured value of esj(t). vupa(t+Ts)
Xác định hàm mục tiêu để tính các giá trị tối ưu đại diện and vlowa(t+Ts) are the predicted arm voltages which can
be calculated based on adding up the one-step forward
cho hành vi mong muốn của hệ thống.
predicted capacitor voltages, or directly the sampled
4.2. MPC strategy of the MMC capacitor voltages of the predicted switched-on SMs in
This Section proposes a MPC strategy to control the upper and lower arms, respectively.
ac-side currents, regulate the SMs capacitor voltages, and In the next step of designing FCS-MPC, a cost
eliminate/minimize circulating currents. The proposed function should be defined in order to force the output
MPC strategy is based on the following steps: AC currents to track their references, keep the capacitor
• Development of a discrete-time model of the system
voltages balanced (i.e. around the nominal value 𝑉𝑑𝑐/𝑛)
for one-step forward prediction of an MMC variables.
and minimize the circulating currents. It should be
• Definition of a cost function associated with control
]
3
mentioned that the total switching states [ N C2 n
n
objectives.
• Evaluation of the defined cost function for all
of a three-phase MMC are three identical sets. Therefore,
possible switching states of the converter and selection of
it is better and simpler to design three identical
the best switching state that minimizes the cost function.
controller’ codes to work in parallel instead of writing
FCS-MPC can fulfill all the MMC control requirements
one code for considering all of them; therefore, each
simultaneously and very well. By defining a proper cost
phase is controlled by their own cost function separately
function, it can make the output currents to follow their
and at the same time with the other two phases.
references, keep the capacitor voltages in a balanced
position around 𝑉𝑑𝑐/n and minimize the circulating Jj i jref t Ts i j t Ts (18)
currents as much as possible. In a single-phase (n+1)- Where ijref is the reference current and ij(t+Ts)
level MMC, the total possible switching states are: obtained from Eq.17 is the next-step predicted current.
2n ! Ideally, the cost function Jj reaches its minimum value at
n C2nn (16)
n ! 2n n ! zero if the ac-side currents track their reference values.
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The 11th SEATUC Symposium
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The 11th SEATUC Symposium
REFERENCES
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