IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 52, NO.

1, FEBRUARY 2005

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A DSP-Based Implementation of a New Nonlinear Control for a Three-Phase Neutral Point Clamped Boost Rectier Prototype
Loubna Yacoubi, Kamal Al-Haddad, Senior Member, IEEE, Farhat Fnaiech, Senior Member, IEEE, and Louis-A. Dessaint, Senior Member, IEEE

AbstractThis paper presents the design and implementation of a nonlinear control strategy for a three-phase three-level neutralpoint-clamped boost rectier. The adopted control consists of nonlinear feedback linearization technique. The nonlinear state-space 0 reference frame. model of the rectier was obtained in the The input/output feedback linearization is then applied and the linearizing control law is derived. Therefore, the resulting model is linearized and decoupled in three independent subsystems. Afterwards, the stabilizing controllers are designed based on linear techniques to control line currents, output, and neutral point voltages. The control law is designed using Simulink/Matlab and applied to the converter via a 1.8-kHz pulsewidth modulator (PWM). Both control law and PWM signals are executed in real time using the DS1104 DSP of dSPACE. A 1.2 kW laboratory prototype is built for validation purposes. The proposed control law robustness is validated for diverse severe load and system parameter variations. It shows robust performance in terms of high power factor, low total harmonic distortion and output voltage ripples, small overshoot, and short settling time. Index TermsDigital signal processor (DSP), input/output feedback linearization, neutral point clamped, nonlinear control, pulsewidth modulator (PWM), three-level rectier, three-phase rectier.

I. INTRODUCTION

HE three-level three-phase neutral point clamped (NPC) converter has attractive features mainly due to series power switches connection. Consequently, lower blocking voltage devices with better switching capabilities can be used. By producing three-level line voltages, this rectier reduces the input current harmonics distortion in order to meet the international standards such as IEEE 519 and IEC 61 000-3-2/4. Nevertheless, due to the irregular output capacitors charging and discharging, an additional control is therefore required in order to minimize the neutral point potential uctuations. In [1], the authors proposed a solution to overcome this problem by controlling the neutral branch current. In [2], the equivalent circuit of a three-level converter system is represented as two dc converters in the reference frame. In both references, the control design

method is based on proportional and integral (PI) controllers usually used for both current and voltage control loops. Although PI controllers can satisfy the performance requirements for a given set point at minimal cost, they may fail for other operating points [3]. In [4] and [5], an integral-type optimal regulator is used for the rectier control. This regulator controls the power factor, the neutral point potential (NPP), and the dc-link voltage. However, if the NPP controller fails, the voltage across the rectier power devices will exceed their limits. In addition, the current owing into the neutral point is limited, and then the NPP control dynamic response is sluggish. In [6], a feedback linearization method is applied to control a three-phase two-level rectier. In this topology only a balanced load is used and the rectier power switches suffer from excess voltage. In all these topologies except in [1], the load is connected to the output dc bus. Therefore, the possible next stage semiconductors must be designed for the total voltage. To obtain a good quality of line current with low harmonic distortion, the boost rectier dc bus should be at least 1.5 times the supply peak voltage value. Hence, the dc-bus voltage level is high. In this paper, to overcome the above-mentioned drawback, the use of neutral point connection is considered and bipolar regulated dc-bus voltages, at the acceptable level of 175 V, is created. The converter allows operation under unbalanced load conditions while maintaining both upper and lower dc voltages well regulated. The nonlinear control strategy is used to control simultaneously output and neutral point voltages while shaping utility line currents. The control loop performance shows the robustness of the designed controllers. This paper is organized as follows. In Section II, the converter nonlinear state-space model is derived. In Section III, the corresponding feedback linearization control law equations are developed. In Section IV, the control law is implemented and its performance is evaluated and tested using a DSP type DS1104 of dSPACE based on an MPC8240 microprocessor. The resulting closed-loop system performs well for a wide range of load and utility conditions. II. NONLINEAR STATE-SPACE MODELING OF THE RECTIFIER The topology under study is a three-phase three-level NPC boost rectier shown in Fig. 1. By comparison to the standard three-level topology, an additional reactive path is added between the capacitors midpoint and utility neutral point . Then, we can impose a nine-level input rectier voltage

Manuscript received July 11, 2003; revised April 23, 2004. Abstract published on the Internet September 10, 2004. An earlier version of this paper was presented at IEEE Industrial Electronics Society Annual Conference (IECON03), Roanoke, VA, Nov. 26, 2003. The authors are with the Dpartement de Gnie lectrique, cole de Technologie Suprieure, Montral, QC H3C 1K3, Canada (e-mail: lyacoubi@ele.etsmtl.ca; kamal@ele.etsmtl.ca; ffarhat@ele.etsmtl.ca; dessaint@ele.etsmtl.ca; kamal@ele.etsmtl.ca). Digital Object Identier 10.1109/TIE.2004.837913

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Fig. 1.

Three-level three-phase NPC rectier topology.

and improve signicantly line-current total harmonic distortion (THD), and power factor. The proposed connection permits one to reduce boost inductor size for the same line-current ripple. and are not equal, Furthermore, if output voltages then a homopolar current with dc offset will circulate in the added neutral branch in order to balance the corresponding output voltages, insuring either a bipolar regulated dc bus at low level 175 V or unipolar regulated dc bus at high level 350 V. A. Converter Modeling The system equations are rst elaborated in abc reference frame. The line inductors denoted by are considered identical; also dc output capacitors are equal and labeled . Thus, by introducing the switching and by using function of the converter Kirchhoffs voltage law, we can write

transformation [7], [8] to (1), the stateThen, by applying space partial model of the converter in synchronous reference frame is obtained in (3)

(3) where , , and , , are, respectively, active, reactive, and homopolar components of line-voltages and -currents, and is the angular frequency given by rad/s. Since the system order is ve, two additional state equations are required to describe the overall dynamic of the system. These last are obtained by applying Kirchhoffs current law (4) on the dc side and by considering the instantaneous active power balance (5) between both ac and dc sides [9]. By neglecting output voltages ripple, the following equations are therefore obtained:

(4) (1) clamped to clamped to clamped to (5) Substituting (4) in (5) leads to two additional states (6) and (7) that describe output voltages and dynamic (6) (7)

(2)

are the utility line-voltages, , , are the where , , is the total output voltage, and denotes the line-currents, and the converter leg one as shown in connection between Fig. 1.

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Fig. 2. Block-diagram of the state feedback controlled three level NPC rectier.

In order to reduce the system nonlinearity, we propose to use ( ) and ( ) as a new state variables instead and of using (8)

vector eld. Vectors and (13)

, ,

, , and

are dened in (12)

(9) Therefore, the nal state-space model of the converter given in (10) is obtained by using (3), (8), and (9)

(12)

(13) III. APPLICATION OF THE INPUT/OUTPUT FEEDBACK LINEARIZATION The main idea of the input/output feedback linearization approach is to design a nonlinear control, which transforms the nonlinear system dynamics into a fully or partially decoupled linear one so that linear control techniques can be easily applied [10], [11]. The block diagram of Fig. 2 shows the different steps used to apply this approach. A. Input/Output Feedback Linearization Design The theory of multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) input/output linearization [10][14] should be applied to a is equal square system where the number of control inputs to the number of controlled outputs . However, in this application, the system order is ve and the control inputs are three.

(10) The system model may be written in the following matrix form: (11) where is the state vector, is the control input vector, is the is a nonlinear input matrix, is an additional vector, and

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Fig. 3. Block diagram of the dSPACE controlled rectier.

Thus, before applying the linearization we should reduce the number of output to three. Indeed, we note that by controlling ) we control indirectly the line-currents active ( ), we control incomponent . Also, by controlling ( directly homopolar current . Therefore, the system-controlled outputs will be reduced to three as shown in (14)

is a nonsingular matrix, the MIMO nonlinear control Since law is chosen as (18) Substituting (18) into (16), the nonlinearity is canceled and a and linear and decoupled relation between the outputs is obtained the new inputs (19)

(14) The control inputs are given by (15) (15) To generate an explicit relationship between the outputs and the inputs , each output (10) is differentiated repeatedly until at least one input appears explicitly in its expression. After some calculations, it follows: B. Linear Controllers Design

To design the different stabilizing controllers for variables, linear control techniques based on proportional P controllers are used. Their parameters are deduced from pole placebe the system set points and ment technique. Letting be the tracking errors, the closed-loop error equations are given as follows: (20) In order to determine the poles of the system, it is adequate to write Laplace transform of (20) as follows:

(16) where

(21) The solution of Laplace (21) is given in (22)

(17)

(22)

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Fig. 4.

Line-current i (Ch1 5 A/div), line-voltage e (Ch2), dc V (Ch4) under steady-state nominal power.

(Ch3),

Fig. 5. id and i components of line-currents (dSPACE animation) under steady-state nominal power.

This indirect-type control strategy where line-currents are controlled by controlling output voltages is clearly very sensitive to parameter uncertainty [15], in particular load variations. Therefore, we introduce an integral action and in the same manner impose the adequate poles to deduce PI controller parameters . is a constant reference then Since (23) The new closed-loop error equations with PI stabilizing controllers are then dened as follows: (24) Consequently, the state feedback controlled inputs may be nally computed as given in (25), shown at the bottom of the page, by substituting (14), (19), and (23) in (24). By means of input/output (I/O) linearization, the dynamics of a nonlinear system is decomposed into external and internal dynamic parts. In our application, it is interesting to note that the relative degree of the linearized system (which is the external dynamic part) is of order ve, while the original nonlinear system is of the same order. Thus, there is no internal dynamics associated with this input/output linearization. The overall control system bloc diagram including the power stage is given in Fig. 2. IV. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS The rectier power stage is based on the use of MTY30N50E MOSFET and HFA25TB60 diodes. The controllers and the pulsewidth-modulator (PWM) blocks are rst designed in

Fig. 6. Neutral-current i (Ch1 5 A/div), line-voltage e (Ch2), nine-level (Ch3), three-level voltage V (Ch4) under steady-state input voltage V nominal power.

Simulink/Matlab. Then, the Real-Time Workshop is used to automatically generate optimized C code for real time applications. Afterward, the interface between Simulink/Matlab [16] and the digital signal processor (DSP) (DS1104 of dSpace) [17] allows the control algorithm to be run on the hardware, which is an MPC8240 processor. The master bit I/O is used to generate the required 12 gate signals, and ve analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) are used for the sensed line-currents , , and output voltages and . An optoisolated interface board is also designed in order to isolate the entire DSP master bit I/O. The block diagram of the experimental plant is given

(25)

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Fig. 7.

Line-current i (Ch1 5 A/div), line-voltage e (Ch2), dc voltages V

(Ch3), V

(Ch4) under balanced dc load step.

in Fig. 3. Experimental results are presented to validate the theoretical analysis and to show the control law performance. A. Converter Parameters The experimental results are performed for the following ; THD ; system parameters: mH; F; V; kHz; kW. The feedback linearization control law applied to the 1.2 kW converter prototype has been tested for different set points, namely: steady-state operation, balanced load step, unbalanced load step, neutral point potential step, reactive power control, and utility line to ground fault. B. Steady-State Balanced Linear Load Operation The converter steady-state operation was rst tested at nomkW. Fig. 4 shows line-current , inal output power line-voltage , and output voltages and (stacked). is sinusoidal and reaches the As expected, the line-current and expected nominal value of 5.1 A. The output voltages reach the desired set value 175 V and their ripples are very small ( 2%). It is interesting to note that the current harmonics and those circulating in have opposite circulating in ripple is nearly zero, phases. Then, the total output voltage which makes the topology very attractive for telecommunication application. The line current THD is calculated using the power harmonics analyzer and, taking into account the harmonics at the switching frequency (up to 30th), is 3.7%. The measured power factor is 99%. The neutral current has a zero average value since the load is balanced. Fig. 5 indicates that the active component in the synchronous reference frame (SRF) reaches the line currents

peak value. Furthermore, the reactive component has a zero average value, conrming that line currents and voltages are in phase. and are shown in Fig. 6. It shows The voltages as expected that contains the three levels 0; 2 and contains the nine levels 0, 6, 3, 2, 2 3. Therefore nearly sinusoidal voltages , , and should impose sinusoidal line-currents , , and in phase with their related utility line-voltages , , and . C. Balanced DC Load Step The experimental results shown in Fig. 7 involve the converter behavior for balanced dc load. The rst steady-state regime is s and during 28 s, a balanced load obtained for 380 W. At is applied. Consequently, step of 68% of the nominal power the converter power rises at the expected nominal value 1.2 kW. The output voltages are maintained at the desired value with an error of 0.5%, which is a very interesting result. A zoom near the load step is also shown in Fig. 7, which reveals that the settling time is very short (8 ms) considering the importance of load variation. In addition, line current and dc output voltage overshoots are almost negligible. D. Unbalanced DC Load Step The obtained experimental results under unbalanced dc load s and during 28 s, an unstep are shown in Fig. 8. At 2 balanced lower dc load step of 68% of its nominal power is applied. The upper dc load is maintained at 192 W while the lower dc load rises at the desired value of 600 W. The output voltages are maintained at the desired value with and error of 0.28%, which is also a good result. Fig. 8 shows that during the rst steady-state regime the line-current has zero average

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Fig. 8. Line-current

(Ch1 5 A/div), line-voltage

(Ch2), dc

(Ch3),

(Ch4) under unbalanced dc load step.

value while it becomes negative during the second steady-state regime indicating that the loads are unbalanced. This negative value contributes to the balancing of the upper and the lower and at the expected levels 175 V. dc-link voltages Note that the settling times in this test is also very short (8 ms) taking into account the disturbance importance. Furthermore, the current and voltage overshoots are extremely small. Indeed, the nonlinear control law presents very good performance and the obtained results prove the controller robustness. E. Neutral Point Voltage Step The neutral point voltage step is carried out by setting , during 20 s. Thus a voltage imbalance of 17% is generated. The controllers compensate well by increasing and and decreasing, respectively, each of the output voltages by 15 V as shown in Fig. 9. The line current contains as expected a negligible positive dc component indicating that the output voltages are unbalanced. F. Reactive Power Control The reactive power control test is accomplished by imposing as shown in a nonzero line-current reactive component Fig. 10. The line current is lagging the line voltage as expected. However, we have observed some limitation on the phase shift and a small steady-state error of about 1.7% remains in output voltages. G. Utility Line to Ground Fault The line to ground fault is tested by decreasing the line-voltage value to 66% of its nominal value. Fig. 11 and , line-current , and output presents line-voltages

Fig. 9.

Line-current (Ch4) and

i (Ch1 5 A/div), line-voltage e (Ch2), dc V V 0 V (M) under neutral point voltage step.

(Ch3),

voltages and . The results show the controllers capability to maintain the output voltages near their expected values during disturbance. In order to guarantee the power balance between ac input and dc output sides, line-currents , , and increase but not in equal proportion (5.87%, 13.95%, and 8.29%). V. CONCLUSION In this paper, an input/output feedback linearization control law is implemented to control a three-phase three-level NPC boost rectier prototype delivering up to 1.2 kW and operating at 1.8 kHz. The proposed control strategy results in a linearized

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Fig. 10.

Line-current i (Ch1 5 A/div), line-voltage e (Ch2), output voltages V

(Ch3), V

(Ch4) under reactive component control.

variations have demonstrated the capability of the controllers to maintain very good performances. REFERENCES
[1] S. K. Lim, J. H. Kim, and K. Nam, A DC-link voltage balancing algorithm for three-level converter using the zero sequence current, in Proc. 30th Annu. IEEE Power Electronics Specialists Conf. (PESC99), 1999, pp. 10831088. [2] L. Wei, F. Li, and C. Li, A direct power feedback method of a dual PWM three level voltage source converter system, in Proc. 30th Annu. IEEE Power Electronics Specialists Conf. (PESC99), 1999, pp. 10891094. [3] J. F. Silva, Sliding mode control of voltage sourced boost-Type reversible rectiers, in Proc. IEEE Int. Symp. Industrial Electronics (ISIE97), vol. 2, 1997, pp. 329334. [4] S. Fukuda and Y. Matsumoto, Neutral point potential and unity power factor control of NPC boost converters, in Proc. Power Conversion Conf. (PCC-Nagaoka), vol. 1, 1997, pp. 231236. [5] S. Fukuda, Y. Matsumoto, and A. Sagawa, Optimal-regulator-based control of NPC boost rectiers for unity power factor and reduced neutral point potential variations, IEEE Trans. Ind. Electron., vol. 46, no. 3, pp. 527534, Jun. 1999. [6] D. C. Lee, G. M. Lee, and K. D. Lee, DC-bus voltage control of three-phase AC/DC PWM converters using feedback linearization, IEEE Trans. Ind. Appl., vol. 36, no. 3, pp. 826833, May/Jun. 2000. [7] V. Blasko and V. Kaura, A new mathematical model and control of a 3-phase ac/dc voltage source converter, IEEE Trans. Power Electron., vol. 12, no. 1, pp. 116123, Jan. 1997. [8] P. C. Krause, O. Wasynczuc, and S. D. Sudhoff, Analysis of Electric Machinery. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1986. [9] L. Yacoubi, F. Fnaiech, K. Al-Haddad, and L. A. Dessaint, Input/output feedback linearization control of a three-phase three-level neutral point clamped boost rectier, in Conf. Rec. IEEE-IAS Annu. Meeting, vol. 1, 2001, pp. 626631. [10] J-J E. Slotine and W. Li, Applied Nonlinear Control. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1991.

Fig. 11. Line-current i (Ch1 5 A/div), line-voltage e (Ch2), dc voltage V (Ch3), and line-voltage e (Ch4) under utility line to ground fault.

and decoupled system. The experimental results for nominal load power show the superiority of the proposed technique in comparison with linear PI controllers. It is to be highlighted that in the case of load and voltage steps, the controllers perform well by guaranteeing very short settling times, extremely small overshoots, and an excellent output voltages tracking while maintaining a good power factor and acceptable THD. Finally, in the case of utility line to ground fault, a quite good output voltages tracking is observed. Other tests on network parameter

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[11] A. Isidori, Nonlinear Control Systems, 2nd ed. Berlin/Heidelberg, Germany: Springer-Verlag, 1989. [12] O. Akhrif, F. Okou, L. A. Dessaint, and R. Champagne, Application of a multivariable feedback linearization scheme for rotor angle stability and voltage regulation of power systems, IEEE Trans. Power Syst., vol. 14, no. 2, pp. 620628, May 1999. [13] S. R. Kaprielian, K. A. Clements, and J. Turi, Applications of exact linearization techniques for steady-state stability enhancement in a weak AC/DC system, IEEE Trans. Power Syst., vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 536543, May 1992. [14] S. Sastry and M. Bodson, Adaptive Control Stability, Convergence and Robustness. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1991, Advanced Reference Series Engineering. [15] G. Escobar, R. Ortega, H. Sira-Ramirez, J-P. Vilain, and I. Zein, An experimental comparison of several nonlinear controllers for power converters, IEEE Control Syst. Mag., vol. 19, no. 1, pp. 6682, Feb. 1999. [16] The MathWorks Users Guide, Power System Blockset for Use with Simulink, 1 ed., The MathWorks Inc., Natick, MA, 1999. [17] dsPACE Users Guide, Digital Signal Processing and Control Engineering, dsPACE, Paderborn, Germany, 2003.

Farhat Fnaiech (M85SM00) received the Bachelor of Sciences degree, the D.E.A. degree, the Doctorat 3eme Cycle, and the Doctorat dtat es-Sciences Physiques degree from the cole Nationale Suprieure dElectricite de Tunis and the Facult des Sciences University, Tunis, Tunisia, in 1978, 1980, 1983, and 1999, respectively. In 1978, he became an Assistant in Control Engineering at ENSET, where from 1983 to 1999, he was an Associate Professor. Since 1999, he has been a Professor in electrical engineering at the cole Suprieure des Sciences et Techniques de Tunis, Tunis, Tunisia. In 1984, he participated in a USA transfer technology project at several American universities (including The Ohio State University, Columbus, and Navy Postgraduate School, Monterey, CA). In 1985, he was a Visiting Scholar in the Department of Electrical Engineering, Automatic Control Division, Linkoping University, Sweden. From 1990 to 2000, he was an active Researcher with Equipe Signal Image ENSEIRB, Bordeaux, France. Since 2000, he has been a Visiting Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering, cole de Technologie Suprieure (TS), Montreal, QC, Canada. His main research interests are nonlinear system identication, adaptive control, neural networks, adaptive signal processing, polynomial lters, and nonlinear process control.

Loubna Yacoubi was born in Rabat, Morocco, in 1973. She received the B.Ing. degree from cole Nationale dIngnieurs de Tunis, Tunis, Tunisia, in 1995, the B.Ing. degree in advanced power electronics and the D.E.A degree from the Institut National Polytechnique de Toulouse, Toulouse, France, in 1996, and the Ph.D. degree from the cole de Technologie Suprieure, Montreal, QC, Canada, in 2004. Since January 2004 she has been working in the eld of power electronics, specically unity-power-factor rectiers, as a postdoctoral student in the Groupe de Recherche en lectronique de Puissance et Commande Industrielle, cole de Technologie Suprieure.

Kamal Al-Haddad (S82M88SM92) was born in Beirut, Lebanon, in 1954. He received the B.Sc.A. and M.Sc.A. degrees from the University of Qubec Trois-Rivires, Trois-Rivires, QC, Canada, in 1982 and 1984, respectively, and the Ph.D. degree from the Institut National Polythechnique, Toulouse, France, in 1988. From 1987 to 1990, he was a Professor at the Engineering Department, Universit du Qubec TroisRivires. In 1990, he joined the Teaching Staff as a Professor in the Electrical Engineering Department, cole de Technologie Suprieure (TS), Montreal, QC, Canada. Since 2002, he has been the holder of Canada Research Chair in Electric Energy Conversion and Power Electronics. He has supervised more than 40 Ph.D. and M.Sc.A. students working in the eld of power electronics and was Director of graduate study programs at TS from 1992 to 2003. His elds of interest are highly efcient static power converters, harmonics and reactive power control using hybrid lters, switch-mode and resonant converters including the modeling, control, and development of prototypes for various industrial applications in electric traction, power supply for drives, and telecommunications. He is a coauthor of the Power System blockset software of Matlab. He is a Consultant and has established very solid links with many Canadian industries working in the eld of power electronics, electric transportation, aeronautics, and telecommunications. He is Chief of the TS-Bombardier Transportation North America division, a joint industrial research laboratory on electric traction system and power electronics. He is an Associate Editor of the Canadian Journal of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Dr. Al-Haddad received the Outstanding Engineer Award from IEEE Canada in 1997 and the Outstanding Researcher Award from TS in 2000. He is active in the IEEE Industrial Electronics and IEEE Power Electronics Societies, where he has authored more than 150 TRANSACTIONS and conference papers.

Louis-A. Dessaint (M88SM91) was born in Paris, France, in 1953. He received the B.Ing, M.Sc.A, and Ph.D. degrees from the cole Polytechnique de Montral, Montral, QC, Canada, in 1978, 1980, and 1985, respectively, all in electrical engineering. He was a Research Assistant at the Hydro-Qubec Research Institute (IREQ) from 1980 to 1985, where he worked on the simulation and control of a wind energy conversion system. He is currently a Professor of electrical engineering at the cole de Technologie Suprieure, Montreal, QC, Canada. Since 1992, he has also been Director of the Groupe de Recherche en lectronique de Puissance et Commande Industrielle, a research group on power electronics and digital control. His main research interest is the adaptive and nonlinear control of electric drives and power systems. He is an author of the MathWorks Power System blockset. Dr. Dessaint received the Outstanding Engineer Award from IEEE Canada in 1997.