A Current-Source Active Power Filter with a New DC Filter Structure

Mika Salo
Department of Electrical Engineering, Institute of Power Electronics Tampere University of Technology P.O.Box 692, FIN-33101 Tampere, Finland
Abstract- The main drawback of the current-source active power lter is the heavy and bulky dc side lter. The large dc lter is needed to store the energy of the compensated harmonic components. In this paper a new smaller dc lter structure is proposed for the current-source active power lter. In the presented dc lter structure the energy of the most important harmonics are stored in resonant circuit which makes it possible to decrease the overall size of the lter. The function of the proposed dc lter structure is examined with both simulations and experimental tests.

Load Rectifier bridge Lf Power i ldA supply i

tA T1 Supply filter i rA T3 T5

dc-filter

idc

isA

Ldc us Ls Cs

I. INTRODUCTION In recent years, active power filters have been widely investigated for the compensation of harmonic currents in electrical power systems. These active power filters are divided into two types: voltage-source active filter (VSAF) and current-source active filter (CSAF). CSAF has advantages of excellent current control capability, easy protection and high reliability over VSAF [1]. The main drawbacks of the CSAF has been so far the lag of proper switching devices and large dc side filter. The new IGBTs with reverse blocking capability are being launched on the markets which are suitable for CSAF [2]. However, the bulky and heavy dc side filter is still a problem. Fig. 1(a) shows the most common main circuit structure of the current-source active power filter (e.g. [3]-[5]). The line current characteristics are improved by injecting the current components opposite to the harmonics of the load current. The energy of the injected harmonic components is stored in and restored from the dc circuit which makes ripple in the dc current. In order to keep this ripple in an acceptable level relatively large dc filter inductor is needed. In this paper a new smaller dc lter structure is presented for the current-source active power lter. The proposed dc lter structure is shown in Fig. 1(b). In the presented dc lter the energy of the most important harmonics are stored in resonant circuit which makes it possible to decrease the overall size of the lter. II. PROPOSED DC FILTER STRUCTURE The most important harmonics in typical nonlinear loads are 5th and 7th harmonic components which produce 6th harmonic component in the dc circuit of the active power filter. Next important harmonic component in the dc circuit of the CSAF is the 12th harmonic which is caused by the compensation of 11th and

T2

T4

T6

(a)
Load Rectifier bridge Lf Power i ldA supply i
tA
T1 Supply filter i rA T3 T5

dc filter

idc
Ldc

isA

icr
us Ls Cs Lr
T2 T4 T6

Cr

(b)
Fig. 1. The current source active power lter (a) with conventional dc lter structure and (b) with modied dc lter structure.

13th load current harmonics. Other components in the dc circuit have order of 18, 24, 30 etc. However, the 6th harmonic components makes the biggest ripple in the dc current because of its large magnitude and low frequency. The proposed dc filter structure shown in Fig. 1(b) is designed to damp the 6th harmonic component effectively. The proposed dc filter structure uses a parallel resonant circuit which is tuned for 6th harmonic component. Other harmonics of the dc circuit are filtered with the inductor L dc connected in series with the resonant circuit. With the proposed modified dc filter structure the amount of the total filter inductance can be significantly reduced. Impedance of the conventional dc filter structure is Z(s)

= R dc + sL dc

(1)

where R dc is the resistance of the dc filter. For modified dc filter structure can be written as Z(s) Lr s + Rr = R dc + sL dc + --------------------------------------2 Lr Cr s + Rr Cr s + 1 (2)

where L r , C r and R r are the inductance, capacitance and resistance of the parallel resonant circuit respectively. Impedances of the conventional (--) and modified (-) dc filter structures are plotted in Fig. 2 as a function of the angular frequency. With conventional dc filter L dc =170 mH and R dc =8. The modified dc filter have parameter values: L dc =30 mH, R dc =3, L r =15 mH, Rr = 2 and Cr =18.7 F. The resistances are approximate values at 300 Hz. Fig. 2 shows also the impedance curve with 45 mH dc filter inductor (.-) which is the total inductance of the modified dc filter structure. These parameter values are used with the active power filter of which nominal power is 5 kW. Fig. 2 shows that impedance of the modified dc filter is increased rapidly at 1900 rad/s (300 Hz). This is caused by the parallel resonant circuit which is tuned for this frequency (6 th harmonic component). At this frequency the impedance of the modified dc filter is higher than the impedance of the conventional filter which indicates that the proposed filter structure can store effectively the energy of the filtered 5th and 7th load current harmonics without large ripple in dc current. Fig. 2 shows also that the impedance of the modified filter is very low at 2700 rad/s (420 Hz). This is caused by the series resonance of the proposed dc filter structure. The frequency of the series resonance is determined by Cr and the parallel connection of L dc and L r . When selecting the parameters for the modified dc filter structure it should be made sure that the frequency of the series resonance is not near to 12th harmonic component which is the next important harmonic component in the dc circuit of the active filter. Otherwise, the series resonance should neither be near 6th harmonic component. This can be avoided when the ratio of L r and Ldc is between 1/2-2. III. CONTROL OF CSAF The proposed dc lter topology can be used with any control system of CSAF. Fig. 3 shows a control system [6] which is practical for current-source topology. It is realized in the synchronously rotating reference frame where the active power of the active filter can be simply controlled with real axis component isx and the reactive power with imaginary axis component is y of the filter current. The superscript s in space vector variables and x/y in space vector components refers to a synchronously rotating coordinate system. The harmonic compensation is based on the feedforward control of the load currents. The active filter currents isxy are controlled in an open-loop manner. The reference values for active lter current vector are calculated as follows: i* sx
* = i* ffx + i dcx

80 Impedance[dB] 60 40 20 0 2 10
3 4

10

10

Angular frequency [rad/s] Fig. 2. Impedances of the convential dc filter when Ldc =170 mH (--) and L dc =45 mH (.-) and impedance of the modified dc filter (-) as function of the angular frequency.

and i* sy
dcx qy

= i* + i* qy ffy

(4)

* (both components combined in one expression), where iffxy * i and i * are outputs of the feedforward, dc current and

the reactive power controls respectively. These two components form the rectier current reference vector i rs * which is transformed to the stationary reference frame and fed to the modulator. Due to the open-loop control of the active lter currents the currents references are not realized accurately because the supply lter takes capacitive currents. Also, oscillations may occur in supply currents due to the LC-lter resonance if the active lter current references are rapidly changed. Detailed describtion of the control methods to solve both of these problems can be found in [6]. A. Dc current control The task of the active filter is to compensate the harmonics of the non-linear load. The magnitude of the dc current is changed as the energy of the harmonic components is stored in and restored from the dc circuit. This ripple in the dc current is the basic feature in the active power filter and for that reason the dc current control should not try to remove it. However, the dc current control should work effectively when the reference value of the dc current is changed. For that reason, a non-linear PID controller, where the input of the controller is the square of the error signal, is proposed for the control system shown in Fig. 3. With small error values the controller acts slowly and when the error value is increased faster control dynamics is achieved. Fig. 4 shows the block diagram of the non-linear PI controller where k+1 depends on the error valthe modified proportional gain P dc k+1 between 0 and ue. In practice, it is reasonable to limit P dc max P dc , which is done with Saturation block. To understand how i dcx is constructed in the dc-current control we can rst consider that 3 --u i 2 sx dcx

(3)

= u dcbr i dc

(5)

Load

Power supply

ildA itA

Lf

isA

CSAF irA

idc
udcbr Ldc Lr idc
* idc +

Cr

3->2

Ls Cs

ild e j s ild ildx

^ ildx HPF s

s
ildy
HPF ^ ildy

us

Modulator

s
Reactive power control

i* r e j s
s*

FG
PID(e2) * udcbr

ir
* iqy * iffy + +

is

s*

* isy

* isx

c1
*

-1
CDC

-1

CDC

* iffx

* idcx

Feedforward control

Dc current control

Fig. 3. Control system of CSAF with modied dc lter topology.

i.e. that the ac and dc active powers of the converter are equal in steady state if the converter losses are ignored. u dcbr is the dc-voltage of the rectier bridge. By solving (5) for i dcx and by using the reference values of i dcx and u dcbr we have i dcx
*

Delay

* idc

, k+1 k+1 idc

* abs P dc Saturation Pdc

k+1

2 * - u dcbr i dc = cu * = ---------dcbr i dc 3 u sx

Ts T dc

+ + Saturation +
u* dcbr
, k+1

(6)

which is used in Fig. 3 to transform the dc-voltage reference of the rectier bridge to vector variable. IV. SIMULATION RESULTS The proposed control methods are tested with the simulation model. The simulation model is built in discrete form to have close analogy with the microcontroller implementation. Simulation is based on the control system shown in Fig. 3. Sampling time of the feedforward and dc current controllers is 50 s and the modulation frequency 10 kHz. The supply filter is realized with parameters: L s =0.6 mH and C s =8 F. Figs. 5 and 6 show the simulation results of CSAF with modied and conventional dc lter structure respectively. As a nonlinear load a three-phase diode rectier with RL-load is used. The parameters of the modied dc lter are L dc =15 mH, L r =10 mH and Cr =28.1 F and conventional L dc =100 mH.

Delay + Ddc Ts

+ +

Saturation

Fig. 4. Non-linear PID controller for dc current control.

In both simulations the the ripple of the dc current is about 1 A. The total harmonic distortion (THD) of the load current in both simulations is 26.8%. THDs of the supply current with modied dc lter is 4.2% and with conventional lter 4.0%. Fig. 6(d) shows the current icr of the resonant circuit capacitor. Its amplitude is about 3A and frequency 300 Hz. This ac current is caused by the 300 Hz ac voltage component across the resonant circuit. This 300 Hz ac voltage component is caused by the compensation of the 5th and 7th load current harmonics as was explained earlier. Figs. 7 and 8 show the simulation results of CSAF with

15 10 5

15 10 5

ild[A]

(a)

it[A]

0 -5 -10 -15 0 0.02 0.04 0.06

(b)

0 -5 -10 -15 0 0.02 0.04 0.06

t[s]
15

t[s]
15 10

10

idc[A]

(c)

(d)
5

icr[A]

0 -5 -10

0 0

0.02

0.04

0.06

-15

0.02

0.04

0.06

t[s]

t[s]

Fig. 5. Simulation results of CSAF with modied dc lter structure when the current harmonics are produced using a three-phase diode rectier with RL-load. (a) Load current i ldA , (b) supply current itA , (c) dc current i dc and (d) current of the resonant circuit icr .

15 10 5

15 10 5

ild[A]

(a)

0 -5 -10 -15 0 0.02 0.04 0.06

it[A]

(b)

0 -5 -10 -15 0 0.02 0.04 0.06

t[s]
15

t[s]

10

(c)

idc[A]
5 0 0

0.02

0.04

0.06

t[s] Fig. 6. Simulation results of CSAF with conventional dc lter structure when the current harmonics are produced using a three-phase diode rectier with RL-load. (a) Load current i ldA , (b) supply current itA and (c) dc current i dc .

modied and conventional dc lter structure respectively when as a non-linear load a three-phase diode rectier with RC-load is used. In this case the parameters of the modied dc lter are L dc =30 mH, L r =15 mH and Cr =18.7 F and conventional L dc =170 mH. The size of L dc is increased in both modified and conventional dc filter solutions because RC-type diode load contains more harmonics than RL-type load. Also,

the size of L r is increased in order to keep the series resonance of the modified filter far enough from the parallel resonance. Furthermore, smaller Cr decreases the current of the resonant circuit capacitor. Anyway, Figs. 5(d) and 7(d) shows that icr is much larger with RC-type load than RL-type load due to the larger amount of harmonics included in RC-load which increases also the harmonics of the dc circuit. THD of i ldA is

15 10 5

15 10 5

ild[A]

(a)

0 -5 -10 -15 0 0.02 0.04 0.06

(b)

it[A]

0 -5 -10 -15 0 0.02 0.04 0.06

t[s]
15
15 10

t[s]

10

idc[A]

(c)

(d)
5

icr[A]

0 -5 -10

0 0

0.02

0.04

0.06

-15

0.02

0.04

0.06

t[s] t[s] Fig. 7. Simulation results of CSAF with modied dc lter structure when the current harmonics are produced using a three-phase diode rectier with RC-load. (a) Load current i ldA , (b) supply current itA , (c) dc current i dc and (d) current of the resonant circuit icr .

15 10 5

15 10 5

ild[A]

(a)

it[A]

0 -5 -10 -15 0 0.02 0.04 0.06

(b)

0 -5 -10 -15 0 0.02 0.04 0.06

t[s]
15

t[s]

10

idc[A]
5 0 0

(c)

0.02

0.04

0.06

t[s] Fig. 8. Simulation results of CSAF with conventionald dc lter structure when the current harmonics are produced using a three-phase diode rectier with RC-load. (a) Load current i ldA , (b) supply current itA and (c) dc current i dc .

87.9% and THDs of itA with modied and conventional dc lter 7.3% and 7.6% respectively. V. EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION The prototype of CSAF is built using 1200 V, 50 A IGBTs. The control system realization is based on the Motorola

MPC555 32-bit single-chip microcontroller. The supply filter parameters and the sampling times of the control system are the same as used in simulation model. Figs. 9 and 10 show the experimental results of CSAF with modied and conventional dc lter structure respectively. As a non-linear load a three-phase diode rectier with RL-load is used. The dc lter parameters are same as used in simulations.

15 10 5

15 10 5

ild[A]

it[A]

(a)

0 -5 -10 -15 0 0.02 0.04 0.06

(b)

0 -5 -10 -15 0 0.02 0.04 0.06

t[s]
15

t[s]
15 10

10

idc[A]

(c)

(d)
5

icr[A]

0 -5 -10

0 0

0.02

0.04

0.06

-15

0.02

0.04

0.06

t[s] t[s] Fig. 9. Experimental results of CSAF with modied dc lter structure when the current harmonics are produced using a three-phase diode rectier with RL-load. (a) Load current i ldA , (b) supply current itA , (c) dc current i dc and (d) current of the resonant circuit icr .

15 10 5

15 10 5

ild[A]

(a)

0 -5 -10 -15 0 0.02 0.04 0.06

(b)

it[A]

0 -5 -10 -15 0 0.02 0.04 0.06

t[s]
15

t[s]

10

(c)

idc[A]
5 0 0

0.02

0.04

0.06

t[s] Fig. 10. Experimental results of CSAF with conventional dc lter structure when the current harmonics are produced using a three-phase diode rectier with RL-load. (a) Load current i ldA , (b) supply current itA and (c) dc current i dc .

By comparing Figs. 5, 6, 9 and 10 it can be seen that the simulation and experimental results are in good agreement. THD of i ldA in Figs. 9(a) and 10(a) is 27.1% and THDs of itA with modified and conventional dc filter 3.3% and 3.2% respectively. Figs. 11 and 12 show the experimental results of CSAF with modied dc lter in two cases when RC-type diode rec-

tier load is used. In the rst case shown in Fig. 11 the load current contains only 1.3% of 3rd harmonic current. In the case of Fig. 12 the amount of 3rd harmonic is 7.1%. The 3rd harmonic component in load currents causes 2nd harmonic voltage component in the dc circuit. However, the impedance of the modied dc lter for 2nd harmonic component is very low as can be seen in Fig. 2. As a result, the ripple in dc cur-

15 10 5

15 10 5

ild[A]

(a)

0 -5 -10 -15 0 0.02 0.04 0.06

(b)

it[A]

0 -5 -10 -15 0 0.02 0.04 0.06

t[s]
15
15 10

t[s]

10

idc[A]

(c)

(d)
5

icr[A]

0 -5 -10

0 0

0.02

0.04

0.06

-15

0.02

0.04

0.06

t[s] t[s] Fig. 11. Experimental results of CSAF with modied dc lter structure when the current harmonics are produced using a three-phase diode rectier with RC-load. Load current contains only small amount of 3rd harmonic component. (a) Load current i ldA , (b) supply current itA , (c) dc current i dc and (d) current of the resonant circuit icr .

15 10 5

15 10 5

ild[A]

(a)

0 -5 -10 -15 0 0.02 0.04 0.06

it[A]

(b)

0 -5 -10 -15 0 0.02 0.04 0.06

t[s]
15
15 10

t[s]

10

idc[A]

(d)
icr[A]

5 0 -5 -10

(c)

0 0

0.02

0.04

0.06

-15

0.02

0.04

0.06

t[s] Fig. 12. Experimental results of CSAF with modied dc lter structure when the current harmonics are produced using a three-phase diode rectier with RC-load. Load current contains large amount of 3rd harmonic component. (a) Load current i ldA , (b) supply current itA , (c) dc current i dc and (d) current of the resonant circuit icr .

t[s]

rent is much larger in Fig. 11(c) than in 12(c) due to the signicant 100 Hz component (2nd harmonic). In principle, symmetric three-phase load should not contain 3rd harmonic component which was also conrmed with simulations. The 3rd harmonic components seen in measured load current is caused propably by the distorted supply voltages.

The experimental results of the conventional dc lter are shown in Fig. 13. In Figs. 11-13 the THD of i ldA is around 82%. The THDs of itA shown in Figs. 11(b), 12(b) and 13(b) are 5.7%, 7.5% and 6.0%. According to simulations and experimental investigation it can be concluded that the proposed dc lter structure works well if the load currents are symmetrical and do not contain

15 10 5

15 10 5

ild[A]

(a)

0 -5 -10 -15 0 0.02 0.04 0.06

(b)

it[A]

0 -5 -10 -15 0 0.02 0.04 0.06

t[s]
15

t[s]

10

(c)

idc[A]
5 0 0

0.02

0.04

0.06

t[s] Fig. 13. Experimental results of CSAF with conventional dc lter structure when the current harmonics are produced using a three-phase diode rectier with RC-load. (a) Load current i ldA , (b) supply current itA and (c) dc current i dc .

3rd harmonic component. It seems that in practice threephase diode rectier with RC-type load generates 3rd harmonic in load currents and is not practical for proposed lter structure. However, the modied lter can be used if the 3rd harmonic component is not compensated. In the case of RLtype diode rectier load the amount of 3rd harmonic is minimal and the proposed lter structure can be used. In this case the amount of total inductance needed in the modied dc lter is decreased to 1/4 compared to the conventional dc lter. VI. CONCLUSIONS In this paper a new smaller dc lter structure is proposed for the current-source active power lter. In the presented dc lter structure the energy of the most important harmonics are stored in resonant circuit which makes it possible to decrease the overall size of the lter. After simulations and experimental tests it was found that the proposed lter structure works well with symmetrical

loads if the load current doesnt contain 3rd harmonic component. REFERENCES
[1] Y. Hayashi, N. Sato and K. Takahashi, A novel control of a currentsource active filter for ac power system harmonic compensation, IEEE Trans. Ind. App., Vol. 27, No. 2, pp. 380-385, March/April 1997. A. Lindemann, Characteristics and applications of a reverse blocking IGBT, PCIM Europe, pp.12-16, January-February 2001. S. Fukuda and T. Endoh, Control method and characteristics of active power filters, 5th European Conference on Power Electronics and Applications, Vol 8, pp. 139-144, 1993. S. Fukuda and T. Endoh, Control method for a combined active filter system employing a current source converter and a high pass filter, IEEE Trans. Ind. App., Vol. 31, No. 3, pp. 590-597, 1995. M.-X W ang and H. Pouliquen, Performance of an active filter using PWM current source inverter, 5th European Conference on Power Electronics and Applications, Vol. 8, pp. 218-223, 1993. M. Salo and H. Tuusa, H., A novel open-loop control method for a current-source active power filter, IEEE Trans. Ind. Electr., Vol. 50, No. 2, pp. 313-321, 2003.

[2] [3]

[4]

[5]

[6]