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CHAPTER-2
LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 Power Quality Problems
2.2 Methods of Restoring Voltage Sag
2.3 PWM Inverters
2.4 Arduino Board









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2.1 Power Quality Problems
Power distribution systems have the responsibility to provide the electricity consumers the pure
sinusoidal voltages. It should be uninterruptible and at the required frequency [8]. In reality, the
power systems have many non-linear loads due to which the purity of waveform of voltages is lost.
Power quality may be lost due to transmission or distribution side also. The major abnormalities in the
power distribution system are load switching, motor starting, load variation and non-linear loads.
Some of the basic problems faced are listed and explained below.
Voltage sag: It is the reduction in nominal voltages ranges from 10-90% and it may last for half a
cycle to one minute [9].
Voltage dip: It is referred as the very short term reduction in voltage, may be for the half of a second
[10].
Voltage swell: It is defined as the increment in voltages from 110% to 180% for half a cycle to one
minute [11].
Voltage transients: These are the undesirable high voltage usually of magnitude up to 20KV that
appears on the line for very short time [10].
Flickers: It is the introduction many harmonics in the power supplied and the problems related to it
[10].
Voltage harmonics: The fundamental frequency of power distribution systems is fifty hertz. There is a
sinusoidal frequency which is the multiple of fundamental frequency and is known as the harmonic
frequency. It may be the odd or even multiples of fundamental frequency.
Voltage spikes or impulses: These are referred as the sudden increase in voltage magnitude. The
IEEE standards for voltage sags and swells are given in the following table [12].

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2.1.1 Causes of dips, sags and surges:
Switching of heavy loads
Unreliable power distribution systems
Equipment not suitable for local supply
Unbalanced load on a three phase system
Unbalanced load on a three phase system
Long distance from a distribution transformer with interposed loads
2.1.2 Causes of transients and spikes:
Arc welding
Electric grade switching
Lightening
Switching on heavy or reactive equipment such as motors, transformers, motor drives
2.2 Methods of Restoring Voltage Sag
There are numerous methods for the mitigation of sag and swell in the voltages. There are two
basic ways for the mitigation power quality problems. One is from the customer side and the other is
from the utility side. First one is called the load conditioning which means that the load is not
sensitive to the spikes, surges, voltage dips etc. The second way is the line conditioning that
minimizes the power system disturbances. Here are some FACTS devices available in the market and
how they mitigate the voltage sag in order to have the better quality of power.
2.2.1 Active Power filters:
They can easily compensate the current harmonics and voltage sags and swells in the three or four
wire distribution systems. They require small power rating which makes them less costly and the use
of pulse width modulation (PWM) voltage source inverters makes them suitable for high power non-
linear loads. However, the main disadvantage of this type of compensator is that it requires a special
protection scheme since it cannot be protected with normal circuit breakers or power fuses. When a
short circuit occurs in the power distribution system, larger currents flow through the primary of the
current transformers, generating dangerous voltages and currents in the secondary windings and
damaging the pulse width modulation voltage source inverters [13].
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2.2.2 Superconducting Magnetic Energy Storage (SMES) Devices:
This device is also used for voltage sags and interruptions. The energy storage in an SMES based
system is provided by the electric energy stored in the current flowing in a superconducting magnet.
Since the coil is lossless, the energy can be released almost instantaneously. Through voltage
regulator and inverter banks, this energy can be injected into the protected electrical system in less
than one cycle to compensate for the missing voltage during voltage sag condition. The inverter
subsystem module consists of six single phase inverter bridges, two IGBT inverter bridges rated 450
amperes (A) rms paralleled in phase to provide a total 900 amperes per phase [14].
2.2.3 Static Var Compensator:
The SVC is a solid-state reactive power compensation device based on high power thyristor
technology. Static Var Compensator (SVC) installed at suitable points in the network can increase
transfer capability and reduce losses and maintains a smooth voltage profile under different network
conditions. It provides benefits to both power transmission and power distribution sides [15, 16].
2.2.4 Solid State Current Limiter:
Solid state current limiter provides viable solution to the power transmission and power
distribution systems under the high fault currents. For the interruption of the current a SSCL
immediately introduces a resistor in the circuit to limit the fault current. It can limit the inrush currents
even for the capacitive loads. SSCL uses semiconductor devices such as IGBTs, GTOs, IGCTs for
switching purposes together with commutation circuit for limiting the fault currents [17].
2.2.5 Solid State Transfer Switches:
Solid state transfer switches (SSTS) provide a seamless transfer of electrical energy from a
primary supply to a secondary supply without service interruption to even the most critical and
sensitive loads. SSTS has a pair of thyristor and a high-speed mechanical parallel switch which has an
opening time capability of less than 1 millisecond. During normal operation, the line current is by-
passed by the parallel switch and the thyristor does not conduct the current. When an opening
operation is required, the parallel switch is opened and the thyristor is turned on, simultaneously.
Consequently, the current is commutated to the thyristor immediately and blocked by the thyristor at
the first zero crossing of the current. It takes time small fraction of time in transferring power using
transfer switches [18].

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2.3 PWM Inverters
2.3.1 What is PWM:
Pulse width modulation (PWM) is a powerful technique for controlling analog circuits with the
digital outputs. PWM has variety of applications, which range from measurements and
communications to power control and conversion. A Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) Signal is a
method for generating an analog signal using a digital source [19]. PWM signal consists of two main
components that define its behaviour, a duty cycle and a frequency. The duty cycle exhibits the
amount of time the signal is in a high (on) state as a percentage of the total time of it takes to complete
one cycle. The frequency determines how fast the PWM completes a cycle (i.e. 1000 Hz would be
1000 cycles per second), and it tells that how fast it switches between high and low states.
Duty Cycle:
A duty cycle is the percentage of one period in which a signal is active. A period is the time that it
takes for a signal to complete its an on and off cycle [20]. It formula is





where D is the duty cycle, T is the time the signal is active, and P is the total period of the signal.
Hence, a 60% duty cycle means the signal is on 60% of the time but off 40% of the time. Some
samples of duty cycles are shown below [ 20 ].












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2.3.1 figure shows different duty cycles

2.3.2 PWM Inverters:
Electrical power is transmitted through two ways. Direct current (DC) comes from a source of
constant voltage and is suitable for short range transmission. An alternating current (AC) comes from
a source of continuously changing polarity voltage and is suitable for high range transmission. Three
types of DC to AC inverters are available in the market. The classification is done on the basis of their
output type: square wave, modified sine-wave and pure sine-wave. Mostly available inverters are
square wave and modified sine-wave. Pure sine wave DC/AC conversion gives the least amount of
harmonics into an electrical device, but is the most expensive method [ 21 ]. As the AC sine wave
comes from a DC source, so switching must take place.
For the switching purposes, semiconductor devices such as MOSFETs, IGBTs and FETs are
used. These switches are used in H-bridge configuration to get the pure sine wave. The inverted signal
is composed of pulse width modulated (PWM) signals which produces the sine wave.




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H-Bridge
An h-bridge is a circuit through which the voltage can be applied across a load in both directions.
Mostly h-bridges are often used in robotics and other applications to allow DC motors to run forward
and backward directions [ 21 ]. A simple diagram shows the h-bridge configuration below.


2.3.2 H-Bridge

2.4 Arduino Board
It is a single board which has an Atmel microcontroller. Atmel microcontroller is of 8-bits. It
supports C and C++ languages. Users write programs in these languages and can create a hex file
using the arduino software. Official Arduinos have used the mega AVR series of chips, specifically
the ATmega8, ATmega168, ATmega328, ATmega1280, and ATmega2560 [ 22 ]. An atmega328
microcontroller based arduino board is shown in the figure below.







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Figure 2.3.3 arduino Board
It gives out the microcontrollers pins for use with other circuits in the projects. It has some
characteristics listed below. Current models of arduino which are in use have six analog inputs and
fourteen digital pins which can be made inputs or outputs. In these 14 digital pins six pins can produce
pulse width modulated signals. This board also has a 16 Mhz ceramic resonator and a reset button. It
can also provide 5 and 3.3 DC voltages. Some of its characteristics are given below.
Microcontroller ATmega328
Operating Voltage 5V
Input Voltage (recommended) 7-12V
Input Voltage (limits) 6-20V
Digital I/O Pins 14 (of which 6 provide PWM output)
Analog Input Pins 6
DC Current per I/O Pin 40 mA
DC Current for 3.3V Pin 50 mA
Flash Memory 32 KB (ATmega328) of which 0.5 KB used by bootloader
SRAM 2 KB (ATmega328)
EEPROM 1 KB (ATmega328)
Clock Speed 16 MHz



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The arduino board can be powered up using USB cable or AC to DC adapter. Its software has
many libraries i.e wifi, wire, robot_motor, SD, servo, software serial, liquid crystal, GSM, Ethernet,
etc. The libraries can be added manually [ 23 ].