Abstract—This paper deals with design of a synchronous sinusoidal AC reference, it is very difficult to achieve zero
frame control strategy for single-phase inverter-based islanded steady-state error.
distributed generation (DG) systems. Although, implementation To overcome this problem, a SRFPI controller for single-
of these regulators requires a minimum of two independent
phases in the system, the required orthogonal phase is generated phase inverters is proposed in this paper [8]. Although the
through the use of a first order all pass filter (APF). The essence implementation of DQ regulators requires a minimum of
of the proposed control strategy is to use a synchronous reference two independent phases in the system, a second phase for
frame PI (SRFPI) controller to regulate output voltage, together implementation is constructed by applying a 90◦ phase shift
with a simple inner capacitor current regulating loop to stabilize with respect to the fundamental frequency of single-phase
the system and a voltage-feedforward loop to improve the system
robustness. A detailed design criterion for the proposed control signal. The essence of the proposed control strategy is to use a
strategy is presented base on a frequency-response approach. SRFPI controller to regulate the output voltage, together with
Finally, simulation results are presented to validate the proposed a simple inner capacitor current regulating loop to stabilize the
method. system and a voltage-feedforward loop to improve the system
robustness. A detailed design criterion for the proposed control
I. I NTRODUCTION strategy is presented based on a frequency-response approach.
Most types of DG units utilize power electronic converters Simulation results are reported, confirming the validity of this
as the interface media with the utility grid [1]. These convert- control technique.
ers are commonly based on a Voltage Source Inverter (VSI),
which can operate either in grid-connected mode or in island
mode. II. S YSTEM M ODELING
Grid-connected operation consists in delivering power to
the local loads and to the utility grid. In such a case, the Fig. 1 shows the converter system considered in this in-
output voltage reference is often taken from the grid voltage vestigation, which includes an insulated-gate bipolar transistor
sensing, by using a phase-locked-loop (PLL) circuit, while (IGBT) bridge configuration driven from constant voltage DC
control system ensures that the inverter acts as a current source bus and an LC filter. Note that the assumption of a constant
[2]. Currently, when the grid is not present, the inverters are DC voltage is reasonable if the DC capacitance is large or
normally disconnected from the grid in order to avoid islanding if DC bus voltage ripple compensation is included within the
operation. In the coming years, inverters should be able to PWM control algorithm [9]. Salient parameters for the system
operate in island mode due to the high penetration of DG [3]. are shown in Table I.
In addition, in certain zones where a stiff grid is not accessible,
e.g., some physical islands, rural or remote areas, islanding
operation mode is necessary.
Various researches on the control of the single-phase invert-
ers in island mode have been presented in literature [4]-[7].
As low-cost, high-performance digital signal processors (DSP)
have been available in recent years, applications of advanced
control techniques have been reported such as the dead beat
control [4], repetitive control [5], capacitor current feedback
Fig. 1. Power stage of the single-phase inverter
[6] and sliding-mode control [7]. The reported results have
clearly shown performance improvement. However, since the
control of the single-phase PWM inverter is not a regulation The bilinear differential equations that describe the large-
problem for a DC reference but a tracking problem for a signal dynamic behavior of this converter are presented as
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Fig. 4. Equivalent αβ frame representation of a SRFPI regulator
Laplace transforms, as shown in (9). Combining (9) and its real reference current i∗C,α can be expressed as
counterparts together, and rearranging the results back into
matrix form, results in (10). Note that the double frequency a3 s3 + a2 s2 + a1 s + a0
i∗C,α = Eα
components shown in (9) cancel out with the other three s3 + ωs2 + ω 2 s + ω 3 (12)
outer terms in (7) and (8). By substituting the PI compensator
= H(s)Eα
transfer function, GP I (s) = KP + Ki /s, (10) can be further
expressed as (11). where a3 = KP , a2 = KP ω +Ki , a1 = KP ω 2 +2ωKi , a0 =
KP ω 3 − Ki ω 2 , and H(s) is the single-phase equivalent of the
ω−s SRFPI regulator, which has a frequency response characteristic
Finally, by substituting Eβ = Eα into (11), the as shown in Fig. 5.
ω+s
transfer function between the real voltage error Eα and the Notice, the transfer function H(s) has very high gain at
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Fig. 5. Bode plot of transfer function H(s) Fig. 7. Bode plots of iC /i∗C and iC /io
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Fig. 8. Single-phase equivalent of the control system,
vo K(a3 s3 + a2 s2 + a1 s + a0 )
Gol (s) = = (14)
vo∗ − vo LCs + bs4 + bωs3 + bω 2 s2 + (r + K)Cω 3 s
5
———————————————————————————————————————————————————–
(a) (b)
(c) (d)
Fig. 9. Variation of closed loop poles of the system with respect to Kp . (a) and (b): 0 < KP < 2, Ki = 80, K = 15. (c) and (d): 0 < KP < 2, Ki =
80, K = 80.
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VI. C ONCLUSION
A synchronous reference frame PI (SRFPI) controller has
been presented to regulate the instantaneous output voltage of
the single phase inverter with superior dynamic response as
well as zero steady-state error at the fundamental frequency.
The essence of the proposed controller is to use a SRFPI
controller to regulate the output voltage, together with a
simple inner capacitor current regulating loop to stabilize the
system and a voltage-feedforward loop to improve the system
robustness. Because of the use of the SRFPI controller in
the voltage loop, the classical control techniques can not be
applied to evaluate the stability of the closed loop system.
Thus, the single-phase equivalent of the SRFPI regulator
was provided, which, significantly simplifies controller design
Fig. 10. Variation of the harmonic impedance with respect to Kp . (arrow and stability analysis. A detailed design procedure with con-
direction indicates increasing value of Kp )
sideration of the practical implementation aspects has been
presented and applied to the current and voltage control
loops. The performance of the proposed control strategy has
required to achieve a desired steady-state phase and amplitude been investigated using MATLAB/SIMULINK simulations.
error is found in this way to be Ki = 80. The simulation results exhibit satisfactory steady state and
transient performance, particularly under nonlinear loads.
V. S IMULATION R ESULTS
R EFERENCES
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(a) (b)
Fig. 11. Simulation results for the proposed controller under a resistive load. (a): output voltage vo (solid line) together with output voltage reference vo∗
(dashed line), (b): tracking error E(t).
(a) (b)
Fig. 12. Simulation results for the multiloop PI controller under a resistive load. (a): output voltage vo (solid line) together with output voltage reference
vo∗ (dashed line), (b): tracking error E(t).
(a) (b)
Fig. 13. Simulation results for the proposed controller under a triac controlled load. (a): output voltage vo and load current io , (b): tracking error E(t)
harmonics spectrum.
(a) (b)
Fig. 14. Simulation results for the proposed controller under a rectifier load. (a): output voltage vo and load current io , (b): tracking error E(t) harmonics
spectrum
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