Comparison of Three Phase Shunt Active Power Filter Algorithms Under Non-Ideal Mains

Voltages
S.H.Salleh, M.Z.Omar, J.Syarif, A.G.Jaharah, S.Abdullah and M.J.Ghazali
Department of Mechanical and Material Engineering
National University of Malaysia, Malaysia.

ABSTRACT

The control of an active filter comprises two major parts: the reference current computation and the
current control. There are two fundamental methods of generating the reference current: (i)
frequency–domain methods, based on the Fourier analysis and (ii) time-domain analyze, based on the
theory of instantaneous imaginary power in the three-phase circuits, often called p-q theory. In this
work of p-q theory,(d-q) current method, modified p-q, synchronous detection methods , Synchronous
Reference Frame, Self-Tuned Vector Filter and Frequency Domain Control, are investigated for determining
the reference compensation currents of shunt APF with respect to balanced, unbalanced - distorted
source voltage conditions. The simulation is done on a three-phase system with a three-phase diode
rectifier(load1) and a thyristor converter controlled DC motor (load2)are taken as the nonlinear
loads.. simulations using Matlab/Simulink and the results are used for comparison

Key words : Active filters, current reference, compensation, harmonic,comparison

INTRODUCTION
Because of the use of more nonlinear loads, especially more power electronic equipments, a
large number of harmonic and reactive currents have been introduced into power grid, resulting in
some problems such as voltage flicker, frequency variation, imbalance of three-phase problem,
etc [1]. In order to suppress the harmonics, passive filters have been used in the past years [2],
while recently Active Power Filter (APF) has been developed rapidly.
This research discusses the performances of APF systems using p-q theory,(d-q) current method,
modified p-q, synchronous detection methods , Synchronous Reference Frame, Self-Tuned Vector Filter and
Frequency Domain Control method for the control of current harmonics.

CONTROL OF APF SYSTEM

Principle of operation: Basically an APF system[6] is used for current compensation. The
compensation currents are generated by properly controlling the voltage source inverter (VSI)
in the current control mode. It has been observed that for the successful operation of APF
system the capacitor voltage of the inverter system should be 1.5 times the maximum line-
to-line voltage[6]. A booster inductor could be used to convert the VSI in the current control
mode. In this research VSI is assumed to be instantaneous and infinitely fast to track the
compensation currents, hence it is modeled as a current amplifier with unity gain and the simulink
model of the inverter sub system used is shown in Fig. 1[7]. Seven different control
algorithms namely p-q, id - iq, modified p-q, synchronous detection methods , Synchronous
Reference Frame, Self-Tuned Vector Filter and Frequency Domain Control, are discussed to generate
the compensation currents.
Conventional p-q method
Fig1. shows the block diagram of a typical APF system. The instantaneous reactive-power (p-q)
theorem is proposed by Akagi et al. [57]. This theorem is based on α β 0 transformation which
transforms three-phase voltages and currents into the α β 0 stationary reference frame [14], [45], [58].
From this transformed quantities, the instantaneous active and reactive power of the nonlinear load is
calculated, which consists of a DC component and an AC component. The AC component is extracted
using HPF and taking inverse transformation to obtain the compensation reference signals in terms of
either currents or voltages. This theorem is suitable only for three-phase system and its operation
takes place under the assumption that three-phase system voltage waveforms are symmetrical and

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purely sinusoidal. If this technique is applied to contaminated supplies, the resulting performance is
proven to be poor [59]. In order to make the p-q theorem applicable for single-phase system, some
modifications in the original p-q theorem were proposed and implemented by Dobrucky et al. [27].
Assume that the source voltage (v ) and load current (iL ) of a single-phase system are defined as
v t = √2v sin( ωt) ; iL t = √2iL sin(ωt +θ )
After complementing by fictitious imaginary phase (shifted by 90°), the complemented source voltage
(v and load current (iL ) are defined as
v t = √2v sin(ω t − 90o ) ) ; iL t = √2iL sin(ωt +θ- 90°)
the α β orthogonal co-ordinate system is obtained, whereas
v = v t and v v t i iL t and i iL t
Thus, the instantaneous active power of the load can be derived as
p = v ⋅i + v ⋅i = p + p
The instantaneous reactive power of the load can be derived as
q = v ⋅i − v ⋅i = q + q
From the obtained instantaneous active and reactive power, the AC components (pand q) are
extracted using HPF. The extracted AC components are then used for compensation reference signal
estimation.

Modified p-q method

Under non-ideal supply conditions, the mains voltage Vs can be unbalanced and/or distorted by
harmonics. As shown in [3], the fundamental load current now can combine with the fundamental
negative sequence and harmonics in the voltage to produce extra ac-values in PL and CiL' Further, the
harmonic currents and voltages which have the same order can produce extra de-power in PL and qL'
Thus the instantaneous active and reactive load powers calculated in (2) will be distorted and the APF
cannot compensate successfully the harmonic and/or reactive currents from the load.
To improve the performance of p-q method, Ozdemir et al. [6] proposed the use of fundamental
positive sequence of voltage vs (hereinafter denoted as v;) in (2) and (5) to calculate PL, qL and then
iF. The key point of this modified p-q method is to extract instantaneously v; from the three-phase
mains voltage. Different from the method used in [6] which requires a rotating d-q frame, this paper
proposes a new algorithm to detect v; in the stationary frame. Therefore, a PLL will not be required
for this algorithm.

3-Self-Tuned Vector Filter

A. Time-domain expressions
The Self-Tuned Vector Filter (STVF) is, basically, a sequence filter that extracts one particular
component, of a given frequency, from a vector signal. The filter frequency may also be adjusted,
or self- tuned. In Fig. 1, the structure of the filter is shown. As it can be seen, the filter is a first-
order, two inputs, two outputs, coupled system. In the figure, (Ya, Yb) are the components of the
vector to be filtered, and Yfa, Yfb the components of the filtered vector.The equations of this
filter are, in time domain, as shown in (1)
iα iα . k ω. iβ ; iβ iβ . k ω. iα

where i, and ip represents the components of the filtered vector, i, and ip are the components of

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the input vector, kf is the filter constant, and ois the center frequency for the lilter.
B. Frequency-domain expressions
Equation 1 could be represented in a vectorial form, in the frequency domain (2)

Also, the central frequency could be self-tuned, using an iterative process, being o proportional to
the modulus of vectorial product of the vector filtered and the input vector, as shown in (3). That
feature gives its name to this filter (self-tuned), although is not used in the present application, as
the frequency is a known constant (50Hz).
.  .

4- Synchronous-Reference-Frame Theorem
This theorem relies on the Park’s Transformations to transform the three phase system voltage and
current variables into a synchronous rotating frame [13], [15],[17], [18], [40], [43], [44], [50]. The
active and reactive components of the three-phase system are represented by the direct and quadrature
components respectively. In this theorem, the fundamental components are transformed into DC
quantities which can be separated easily through filtering. This theorem is applicable only to three-
phase system. The system is very stable since the controller deals mainly with DC quantities. The
computation is instantaneous but incurs time delays in filtering the DC quantities [54].

5-Control of APF system using SDM:

Synchronous-detection theorem [59], [61] is very similar to p-q theorem. This technique is suitable
only for three phase system and its operation relies in the fact that the three-phase currents are
balanced. It is based on the idea that the APF forces the source current to be sinusoidal and in phase
with the source voltage despite the load variations. The average power is calculated and divided
equally between the three-phases. The reference signal is then synchronised relative to the source
voltage for each phase. Although this technique is easy to implement, it suffers from the fact that it
depends to a great extent on the harmonics in the source voltage [10]. 

6-frequency domain based on Fourier analysis

for the control of shunt active power filter. It compensates harmonics and reactive power requirement
of nonlinear loads, and maintains similar distortion in the compensated current as present in the mains
voltage.Therefore, load behaves as a linear/resistive load, and the resultant source current will have
the same waveform as that of the supply voltage.The non-sinusoidal utility voltage and current signal
can be expressed as a sum of sinusoidal signal of various frequencies as :

sin   1 ,   sin   2

Where, and , are the phase difference of order voltage and current waveform. The reference
current drawn from the source is the portion of the current, which retains the same level of distortion
as of the voltage, while at the same time accounts for the entire fundamental frequency component.
The reference current has the same graphical pattern of variation as the voltage. It might have a time
leg or lead or may be in phase with the voltage, depending on the harmonic or harmonic and reactive
power compensation capability. Thus the fundamental frequency component of the reference current
will equal to the fundamental frequency component of load current (plus loss component) for
harmonic compensation, and cos (plus loss component) [12] for both harmonic and reactive
power compensation respectively. All other frequency components will be in the same proportion as
their counterparts in the voltage, which can be mathematically expressed as:

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For Harmonic Compensation:

, ∑ sin      1         3

For both Harmonic and Reactive Power Compensation: 

, ∑ sin ,  cos      1         4

Based on this principle it is possible to estimate the reference current, which customer should draw
from the utility.The reference current component can be estimated by measuring the supply voltage
harmonics, fundamental load current and their respective angles, as in eq. (3) and (4).

COMPARISON

The performance of the algorithms is compared by simulating the compensation of a nonlinear

current according to these algorithms. The simulations are performed in Matlab/Simulink. A
three-phase diode rectifier(LOAD1) and a thyristor converter controlled DC motor (LOAD2)are
taken as the nonlinear loads. All theories are simulated under normal and unbalanced - distorted
voltage conditions.

SIMULATION RESULTS
The purpose of the simulation is to show the effectiveness of p-q, id - iq, modified p-q, synchronous detection
methods , Synchronous. Reference Frame, Self-Tuned Vector Filter and Frequency Domain Control, for
maintaining sinusoidal source currents when the source supplying a nonlinear load.
In simulation, a butter-worth type of filter was chosen since its magnitude response is maximally flat in the
pass-band and is monotonic in both pass-band and stop-bands. To minimize the influence of the phase responses
of the high-pass filter, an alternative high-pass filter is used by means of a low-pass filter as shown in Figure

Figure 2. Schematic diagram of high-pass filter

For all of the methods, the choice of the cut-off frequency and the order of the filters have a direct
effect on the performance of the detection algorithm. In this work, the performances of the seven
calculation methods are evaluated and no dynamic voltage source inverter is considered. Simulation
waveforms obtained with Matlab-Simulink/Power System Blockset related to the previously
mentioned seven methods under unbalanced - distorted mains voltage conditions are presented in
Figure. The results obtained from the balanced source case are not shown due to the lack of space but
all of the methods work well in this situation. The case is with unbalanced - distorted source voltages,
which are:

v sa t   311sin t  31sin t  18sin 5t

v sb t   311sin(t  120)  31sin(t  120)  18sin(5t  120)
v sc t   311sin(t  120)  31(sin t  120)  18sin(5t  120)

Figure 3. unbalanced - distorted source voltages

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 Load1

a) p-q theory

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b) id-iq method

c) modified pq theory

d) sdm method

e) srf method

f) stvf method

j) fdc method

Load2

a) p-q theory

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 b) id-iq method

c) modified pq theory

d) sdm method

e) srf method

f) stvf method

j) fdc method

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CONCLUSION
The paper presents a comparative study of seven compensation methods for three phase shunt active
filters under balanced, unbalanced - distorted mains voltage conditions. In the simulation study, it is
shown that the p-q method has poorer performance than the id-iq method under unbalanced and
distorted mains voltage conditions. However the solution based on using a PLL circuit for better
performance of the p-q theory works well under unbalanced and distorted mains voltage but it has the
disadvantage of its fairly complex algorithm and requirement of a PLL circuit. The synchronous
detection method’s performance is poor in respect to the voltage distortion but good at unbalanced
condition and demands less calculations due to the needlessness of reference frame transformation.
Another disadvantage of this method is that it assumes equal currents in every phase which meaning
balanced load conditions.

Although the historically important p-q theory is limited to balanced voltage conditions, the
modified version of it is the most effective method for all voltage conditions.

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 REFERENCES

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