KHAMBADKONE AND HOLTZ: COMPENSATED SYNCHRONOUS PI CURRENT CONTROLLER
have the least frequency of 428.4 Hz. This implies that, if the
Fig. 4. Phase current spectrum in overmodulation I. All magnitudes expressed
in per unit.
Fig. 5. Phase current spectrum in overmodulation II. All magnitudes expressed
in per unit.
Fig. 6. Motor currents during overmodulation II without current control. All
magnitudes expressed in per unit.
where is the fundamental component of the voltage and is
the ratio of the harmonic voltage. Figs. 4 and 5 show the spec-
trum of the phase current due to the distorted voltage in over-
modulation I and II, respectively. The linear current control is
carried out in field coordinates, where the current space vector
is measured and transformed into the field coordinates. In order
to determine the harmonic current in field coordinates, we need
to transform the voltage into field coordinates
(13)
(14)
(15)
The above harmonic voltage will produce respective har-
monic currents. Hence, in field coordinates the fundamental
current, which appears as dc, is contaminated by the 6
harmonic currents, where , in the region of concern, can vary
between 0.93 times the rated frequency. The currents during
overmodulation II are shown in Fig. 6, where the operating
frequency is roughly 71.4 Hz. The harmonics will, therefore,
577
controller has a high bandwidth of around 500 Hz, it will be
excited by the harmonic currents. Fig. 1 shows the problem at
hand. The presence of the 6 harmonics during overmodu-
lation results in unstable operation of a high bandwidth of the
current controller, even during steady-state operation. This puts
restrictions on the current controller bandwidth. However, the
high bandwidth is required in most vector-controlled induction
motor drives; it helps reduce the torque pulsation in the motor
and improves the torque response during dynamic operation.
Most important of all, the current controllers are required to
maintain the desired fundamental component of current, so how
do we tackle the low-order harmonics in the overmodulation
range without substantially changing the structure of the current
controller or the vector control structure? In so doing, are we
able to upgrade a conventional vector control scheme to include
the overmodulation range? In order to answer these questions,
we need to look at the current control loop.
A. Current Control in Field Coordinates
Current control is preferably carried out in the field coordi-
nates because the PI controller operates on the dc quantities,
whereas a phase error is present while applying current control
in stator coordinates. The current control loop forms the inner
loop of the cascade control structure. The reference current is
obtained by forcing the required control variable with the help
of an inverter.
The primary job of the current controller is to track the re-
quired fundamental value of current, which will be a dc value in
the field coordinates. In overmodulation, we are interested that
the current controller does not act on the harmonics which we
have knowingly introduced, nor does it make any sense to re-
duce the bandwidth of the controller. Thus, the only alternative
we are left with is to compensate for the harmonic disturbance
before the feedback current signal is fed to the controller. By not
changing the conventional current controller or the structure of
the vector control drive, we can easily upgrade an existing vector
control drive to include overmodulation and six-step operation.
IV. HARMONIC ESTIMATION
In order to compensate the current harmonics introduced due
to the nature of the modulator output in the overmodulation
range, we need to estimate the current harmonics. The harmonic
currents are present by virtue of the harmonic voltage com-
ponents introduced by the preprocessor. The input to the pre-
processor is the fundamental value of the desired voltage, (2).
The harmonic voltage component is, hence, given by
(16)
where the superscript stands for stator coordinates. This har-
monic voltage component excites the motor system to produce
harmonic current. Since the current control is carried out in the
field coordinates, we need the current harmonic component in
that coordinate system. As the current controller itself generates
the voltage reference in the field coordinates, we need to trans-
form the voltage vector generated by the preprocessor into the