Control of Shunt Active Power Filter using

Multiresonant Controller


Smitha Krishnan
M.Tech Scholar
Department of Electrical Engineering
College of Engineering, Trivandrum, kerala, India
smitha_2486@yahoo.com
Lathika B.S
Assistant Professor
Department of Electrical Engineering
College of Engineering, Trivandrum, Kerala, India
bslathika@yahoo.com

Abstract Active power filters are used to eliminate current
harmonics near nonlinear loads. In this paper the control of
3-level shunt active power filter is proposed using frequency
selective proportional plus multiple resonant controllers.
The voltage source converter (VSC) is operated using ramp-
comparison current control method. The method provides
fixed switching frequency operation, and unipolar
modulation of a control function yields three levels PWM
output. The resonant controllers are tuned near the
harmonic frequencies to be compensated. The analysis of
THDs also done to realize the accuracy of this active filter.
The performance of the proposed shunt active power filter is
illustrated through the compensation of a distribution
system using PSCAD/EMTDC simulation package.
Keywords- Shunt Active Power Filter, resonant controller,
3-level modulation, synchronous reference frame, THD.
I. INTRODUCTION
The ac power system has always been susceptible to
problem regarding harmonics and reactive power from the
very beginning. It has worsened with the increased use of
power electronic converters as some of these converters
not only increase currents but also generate harmonics in
the source current. The increased reactive power,
harmonics and unbalances cause an increase in line losses,
instability and voltage distortion. A shunt active power
filter is a voltage source converter based device operated in
a current control mode. It improves the quality of power
by eliminating harmonic content of load [1]-[3].
The resonant controller means PI controller tuned near
fundamental frequencies to be compensated. The method
of ramp comparison used here gives two level controls of
VSCs. Here performance is decided by triangular carrier.
The use of multiresonant controller gives frequency
selective compensation. The three level control of shunt
active power filter is achieved by using frequency selective
proportional plus multiresonant controllers. Also
modulation of control function provides three- level PWM
output.
The performance of active power filter is dependent on
how the reference compensating signals are estimated.
Conventionally, either the instantaneous active and
reactive power p-q method or the instantaneous active and
reactive current component method is employed. Both
these methods require complexity in calculating the
reference control current. Here highly efficient
synchronous frame reference method is employed for
balanced harmonic systems. The new idea of controlling
power system quality is presented for non-linear
unbalanced system for getting the reference current. The
formulated technique is done by means of the closed-loop
control of source current. The reference current is
identified by the idea of energy balancing under the
controlled system [4], [5].
The resonant controllers are tuned near harmonic
frequencies to be compensated. This compensates the
selected frequencies and improves total harmonic
distortion (THD). Furthermore, a resonant action at
fundamental frequency provides near unity power factor
operation with balanced source currents. Here two
different situations are taken and solved using resonant
controllers tuned near fundamental frequency. The
performance of proposed shunt active power filter is
illustrated through PSCAD/EMTDC simulation package
and results are verified.
II. SHUNT ACTIVE POWER FILTER
Shunt active filters (Fig.1) have been recognized as a
solution of harmonic current and reactive power
compensation for non-linear loads. The principle of
operation of the shunt active filter is based on the
generation and injection of harmonic currents up to a
desired order to the system. Consequently, the
characteristics and efficiency of harmonic compensation
and its effectiveness depend on the control algorithm
applied to calculate the load current harmonics problems.

Figure. 1. The principle diagram of shunt active power filter
9
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National Conference on Technological Trends (NCTT 08), 21-22 Nov 2008 56
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III. COMPENSATING NON-LINEAR,UNBALANCED AND
REACTIVE COMPONENT OF LOAD

In this section shunt active power filter is used to
compensate for nonlinear and unbalanced load.
Compensator is also required to support the reactive
component of the load to mitigate the poor load power
factor.
A. Reference Current Circuit
The implemented method to generate current reference
is a basic criterion that determines the performance of
active power filter [4]. Firstly, the reference current is
identified by the idea of energy balancing under the
controlled system. This method ensures that
1. The sum of the three source currents is zero
(i.e.,
0 = + +
sc sb sa
i i i
).
2. The combined load and compensator system draws
unity power factor current (i.e., the phase angle
difference between the terminal voltage and source
current is zero).
3. The source supplies only the real power required by
the load (i.e., , where is
the average load power)..
Reference shunt currents for three phases i
sh

refk
,, k = a,b,c
are determined using the following equations, [7] as
) (
) (
) (
dc lav
o tc
lc shrefc
dc lav
o tb
lb shrefb
dc lav
o ta
la shrefa
P P
V V
i i
P P
V V
i i
P P
V V
i i
+

=
+

=
+

=

where ilk and vtk, are load currents and PCC terminal
voltages respectively for the three phases and

2
2
, ,
, ,
3
1
o
c b a
t
c b a
t o
V V
V V

=
=

=
=

Note that the PCC terminal voltages v
tk
, k = a,b,c,
used in (4), are the fundamental frequency components of
the terminal voltages that are extracted from the
measurement of the actual voltages.The objective of p
dc
in
(6) is to hold the average dc voltage V
dcav
constant and
equal to V
dcref
, by extracting the real power from ac
system, and hence the dc control loop is given by

+ = edt K e K P
idc pdc dc

where Kpdc and Kidc are the proportional and integral gains
respectively. The error e between the reference dc voltage
and the average dc voltage is given as
dcav dcref
V V e =
where Vdc av is the average dc voltage across the common
dc link capacitor , Cdc.


Figure 2. Block diagram of converter modulation
B. Converter modulation
Fig. 2 shows the block diagram of the complete
modulation process of a converter [5]. The current error
err is obtained from reference shunt current ish ref and the
actual shunt current ish as, err = (ish ref ish). The error
is then fed to the proportional plus multiple resonant
controllers. The output of the controller, i.e., the control
function Cerr is modulated by a three-level modulator to
produce a control signal u. This signal provides switching
commands to the switches of the H-bridge, to yield a
three-level output voltage vo.
C. Three-level Inverter
Three-level output is obtained using the H-bridge
inverter as shown in Fig. 3. The voltage Vdc is the dc link
voltage applied across the H-bridge. Each of the switches
Sw1 to Sw4 consists of a power semiconductor device,
i.e., IGBT and an anti-parallel diode [5].
The control function C
err
is compared with the carrier
V
tri
of frequency
c
and amplitude V
tri
. Three-level
output voltage v
o
. is obtained following the unipolar
PWM of the control function as follows. The condition
for firing of Inverter Bridge is given here.
For 1
st
leg of the H-bridge,

Condition 1 C
err
- V
tri
> 0 then Sw1 is on, leading to
uA = +1 and vAO = + Vdc/2
Condition 2 C
err
- V
tri
< 0 then Sw4 is on, leading to
uA = - 1 and vAO = - Vdc/2

Similarly for 2
nd
leg of the H-bridge

Condition 3 - C
err
- V
tri
> 0 then Sw3 is on, leading to
uB = +1 and vBO = + Vdc/2
Condition 4 - C
err
- V
tri
< 0 then Sw2 is on, leading to
uB = -1 and vBO = - Vdc/2

Figure 3. Three-level output using unipolar modulation

lc tc lb tb la ta lav
i v i V i V P + + =
lav
p
(1)

(2)

(3)
_
(4)


(5)
(6)
(7)
9
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National Conference on Technological Trends (NCTT 08), 21-22 Nov 2008 57
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If the input to the modulator, i.e., a control functions
Cerr is assumed sinusoidal, i.e., ) cos(
0
t V M
tri i
where
0
is the fundamental frequency and M
i
is the modulation
index under closed loop, then the analytical expression for
three-level inverter output voltage v
o
is given as,
( )
] ) 1 2 ( 2 cos[ ] ) 1 cos[(
) (
1 2
1
2
1
4
) cos(
t
o
k t
c
m k m
i
M m
k
J
m k
m
dc
V
t
o i
M
dc
V t
o
V

+ +

+ =

where J
2k -1
(.) represents the Bessels function of the first
kind of order k. It is clear from (8) that the sideband
harmonics for three-level output of the inverter exists at
the even multiples of the frequency of carrier
c
i.e., the
spectrum corresponding to inverter switching lies at and
above twice the switching frequency. Furthermore,
neglecting the switching components in (8), the inverter
output voltage is V
dc
M
i
cos(
0
t). Therefore the gain of the
inverter G may be obtain as
tri
dc
o i tri
o i dc
M
V
V
t M V
t M V
G = =
) cos(
) cos(

D. Current Control
Fig. 4 shows a three-phase four-wire distribution
system that is compensated by a shunt active power filter
[5]. The three phase load is supplied from a 3-phase
voltage source v
sk
through the feeder with the impedance
of (R
sk
, L
sk
), where k = a,b,c for three-phase respectively.
Active filter is represented by VSCs in the shunt path with
interfacing inductance L
shk
.The resistance R
shk
represents
the load dependent loss equivalent of a transformer. The
voltage at the point of common coupling (PCC) is denoted
by v
tk
. The currents flowing through the different branches
at the PCC are the source current i
sk
, the load current i
lk
,
and the current injected in shunt branch i
shk
. For a 3-phase,
4-wire configuration, the load neutral nl and the
compensator neutral nsh are connected to the source
neutral ns. For the purpose of modeling current control
loop, assume a constant dc link voltage Vdc across the
common dc link capacitor Cdc. The differential equation
for shunt active filter for phase-a is written as
ta oa sha sha
sha
sha
V V i R
dt
di
L + =


Figure 4. Shunt compensation of three phase system

Figure 5. Current control loop of the compensator
Taking Laplace transform on both the sides of (10)
following equation in the s-domain is obtained as
) (
1
) (
1
) ( s V
L R s
L
s V
L R s
L
s I
ta
sha sha
sha
oa
sha sha
sha
sha
+

+
=

Fig. 5 shows the block diagram of a current control
loop of the compensator. The reference shunt current for
phase-a is represented by i
sh refa
. The controller transfer
function is denoted by G
c
(s). The block GM represents the
modulator gain (9) and G(s) is the compensator transfer
function obtained from (4) as
sha sha
sha
L R S
L
S G
+
=
1
) (
E. P+Multiresonant Controller

The resonant controller was proposed by Pota e t d. in
[1]. The goal is to apply high gain feedback only at the
natural frequency. The controller can, therefore, push
down the resonant peaks of the vibrating system while
having only limited effect at others frequencies. The P+
Resonant controller transfer function, given by (13), is
already in the stationary frame and is independent between
phases. This transfer function has infinite gain at
fundamental frequency and therefore also eliminates
steady state error [8], while the phase independence means
that its transient performance can be readily analyzed
using classical control theory.
2 2
) (
o
i
p C
S
s K
K S G
+
+ =
Three-level modulation of a control function offers a gain
GM at the fundamental frequency
0
. Similarly at other
harmonic components, ex., 3rd, 5th etc. also, modulation
yields a finite gain. This leads to error in tracking
fundamental component and its harmonics in reference
shunt current.
It is proposed to pass the error through a proportional
plus multiple resonant controllers as shown in Fig. 6. The
controllers are tuned close to these frequencies to
minimize the component of error at fundamental frequency
and its harmonics [2], [9]. The 3rd harmonic component of
the load is compensated owing to the cancellation of
triplen harmonics in three-phase, 5th and 7th harmonic is
compensated using resonant controller tuned at these
frequencies. Balancing and unity power factor is achieved
using resonant controller tuned at the fundamental
frequency. The ideal structure of the controller in
frequency domain is written as
Vta
Gc(s) GM G(s)
Voa ishrefa
isha
erra Cerra
+

_
+
_
(8)
(9)
(10)
(11)
(12)
(13)
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National Conference on Technological Trends (NCTT 08), 21-22 Nov 2008 58
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|
|
.
|

\
|
+
+
+
+
+
+ = =
2 2
7
2 2
5
2 2
1
49 25
1 ) (
) (
) (
r r r
p C
RR
ERR
S
s K
S
s K
S
s K
K S G
s E
s C


Where k
p
is the proportional gain and k
1
, k
5
and k
7
, are
the resonant controller gains at fundamental, 5th and 7th
harmonic respectively,
r
is the fundamental resonant
frequency. However, the controller (14) is highly selective
with respect to the particular frequency, to be compensated
and requires accurate estimate of the frequencies. Any
deviation of resonant frequency from the frequency to be
compensated looses the resonant property. Therefore in
order to avoid this problem a band resonant controller may
be used as follows,
|
|
|
|
|
.
|

\
|
+ +

+
+ +

+
+ +
+
=
2 2
7
2 2
5
2 2
1
49 7 2
7 2
25 5 2
5 2
2
2
1
) (
r d
d
r d
d
r d
d
p C
s S
s K
s S
s K
s S
s K
K S G

where,
d
represents the damping frequency for the
ideal resonant controllers. Positive value of the damping
frequency introduces high gain for the band of
frequencies around the resonant frequency
r
and its
harmonics. Fig. 7 shows the frequency response of the
proportional plus multiple resonant controllers (15) for k
p

= 2.0, k
1
= 10, k
5
= 5.0 k
7
= 3.0,
d
=3 rad/s and
r
= 314
rad/sec (for the fundamental frequency of 50 Hz). The
controller provides high gain at the resonant frequencies
to compensate the error component at the corresponding
frequency.
The fundamental resonant frequency
r
should be
continuously updated using the current estimates of the
fundamental frequency
0
. A band of high gain around
the resonant frequency may be seen in Fig. 6, showing
that the controller is effective even if there is a small
variation in the tuning of controller due the frequency
estimation error. Consider a delay of half the switching
period. Then the switching delay is represented by a first
order lag transfer function G
d
(s) = 1/(1+s/2fc), where f
c
is
the switching frequency in hertz.

Figure. 6. Frequency response of multiple resonant controller.

The loop transfer function of the system shown in Fig.
5 may be obtained using (9), (12) and (15) as
) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( s G s G s G G S L
d c M
=
The transfer function G(s) and G
d
(s) may be calculated
using data given in Table I, G
c
(s) is considered same as
obtained above and GM is obtained using (9). The
equivalent dc link voltage appearing in the secondary side
of the transformer is obtained by multiplying V
dc
with
transformer voltage ratio. Therefore gain GM is calculated
as (11*40)/3=146.667. Fig. 7 shows the Bode plot of the
loop transfer function (16). High gains are observed at
resonant frequencies from Fig.7. The gain and phase
margins are -14.8 dB and 7.61
0
respectively. This implies
the stability of closed loop system for tracking the
reference.
The P+multiresonant controller are tuned near
fundamental frequencies to eliminate harmonics at that
component. The values of proportional and integral time
constants are selected depend on its tuning capacity. The
Fig .8 shows such a p+multiresonant controller. For
compensating non-linear unbalanced linear reactive
component of load, values of gains chosen as k
pdc
=2,
K
idc
=0.75 sec
-1.
F. Example
The parameters of the system are given in Table I. The
PI parameters of dc voltage control loop are chosen as
Kpdc = 2 and Kidc = 0.75 sec-1. The simulation is performed
in PSCAD/EMTDC simulation package .The
complimentary switches of the same arm of the H-bridges
are gated through the dead time delay of 5.0 sec.



Figure. 7. Frequency response of loop transfer function

Figure. 8. P+multiresonant controller.


kpdc
kidc
ishref
ish
+
-
(15)
(14)
(16)
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National Conference on Technological Trends (NCTT 08), 21-22 Nov 2008 59
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Table 1
Parameters Numerical Value
System Voltage and
frequency
440 V,50 HZ
Feeder impedence 1.0,10.0 mH
System MVA

100 KVA
Transformer 100 KVA,11V/440V
Rectifier bridge load

100 ,200F
Unbalanced load

Ra=200 ,La=200mH,Ca=1.0F
Rb=250 Lb=300mH,Cb=2.0F
Rc=100 ,Lc=400mHCc=5.0F

DC link capacitor and voltage
11 V,500F
Carrier amplitude and
frequency
3 V,3000HZ


Figure. 9. Three-phase load current that is unbalanced and carrying
nonlinear and reactive components
Three-phase load currents are shown in Fig. 9, that is
having a THD of 22.2%.The source current can be
compensated with proposed shunt active power filter
tuned near corresponding resonant frequencies. The
resonant controllers tuned near fundamental frequency
leads to near unity power factor operations as shown in
figure. Transient characteristics for tracking shunt current
for phase-a is shown in Fig. 10. Sluggish tracking
performance is due to the use of multiple resonant
controllers. The 3-level inverter output voltage for the
phase-a is shown in Fig. 11.
The other two-phases have similar characteristics as
those for phase-a shown in Fig 9 to 11. The balanced
source current after compensation is shown in fig. 12,
which is free from harmonics and unbalances. The THD
analysis is done for this current and it is 1.2% only. The
controllers are tuned near to the corresponding resonant
frequencies with 2.0% error in frequency estimates.
Improvement in THD varies between 1.2% and 2.0%,
depending upon the closeness of the frequency estimates
to the exact value.

Figure. 10. Transient characteristics for tracking reference shunt current
for phase-a


Figure. 11. Inverter output voltage for phase-a.


Figure. 12. Three-phase compensated source current that is balanced,
free from nonlinear and reactive components

Similarly the individual 5th and 7th harmonics is
compensated between 0% and 1%.The FFT spectrum
analysis is done prior to THD analysis. From THD
analysis, it is realized that the content of the fundamental
component is increased after compensation. The FFT
spectrum for source current is shown in fig.13.From these
it is realized that THD is improved to far better values for
three phases than its previous value. This method can be
applied to the combination of loads like RL, RC loads etc
also.
IV. COMPENSATING HARMONIC COMPONENT OF LOAD
A. Synchronous Reference Frame Method
In this section shunt active power filter is used to
compensate harmonic components of load only. Reference
shunt currents are generated as shown in Fig. 14, [6]. The
3-phase load currents are transformed using abc-dq0
transformation, synchronized at the fundamental
frequency. The transformed dc quantities are passed
through the high pass 2nd order Butterworth filter (HPF)
to eliminate the component at fundamental frequency. The
leftover harmonic components are recovered using dq0-
abc transformation. Resulting reference shunt currents are
derived by adding loss components of dc-control loop,
obtained by substituting plav only in (1)-(3).


Figure 13. FFT analysis of source and load current after compensation

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National Conference on Technological Trends (NCTT 08), 21-22 Nov 2008 60
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Fig. 14. Reference generation using dq-transformation

Figure. 15. Three-phase load current with harmonics

Figure. 16. Three-phase compensated source current, free from harmonics
B. Example
The parameters of the system considered in this
example is same as that used in Example 1. However
transformer kVA rating is reduced to 40 kVA with same
voltage ratio and percent leakage impedance. The linear
load is balanced and given by Rl = 50.0 and Ll = 200.0
mH, for each phase. Nonlinear load is also same as
considered in Example 1. Multiresonant controller is
tuned near 5th and 7th harmonics only. The three-phase
load currents are having a THD of 31.0%.Fig. 15 shows
the tracking performance of shunt current. After
compensation, source current is balanced and free from
harmonics with THD of 1.8% with exact estimation of
fundamental frequency. This is shown in fig. 16.
Table II
THD analysis

Method
used
System
Condition
Phase a Phase b
Phase
c
Before
Compensation
25.1 25.4 25
Instantaneous
power theory
method
After
Compensation
18 18.1

18

Before
Compensation

25.1 25.4 25
Resonant
controller
method

After
Compensation
1.2 1.19 1.19

V. COMPARISON WITH EXSTING METHOD
Here this new method is compared against existing
method like instantaneous power theory. By doing the
same procedure and system conditions with instaneous
power theory gives a worst result than this newly adopted
method. The spectrum analysis gives this in detail. From
this study it knows that old method is used in the situation
where loads are present with lower ratings and also with
less complicated load situations. Table II give comparison
result between resonant methods with old method. The
resonant method gives better result than old method.
VI. CONCLUSIONS
In this paper, ramp comparison control method
with unipolar PWM of active power filter is presented
which gives 3-level inverter output voltage. Here two
different situations are taken and which is solved using
resonant controllers. Use of proportional plus multiple
resonant controllers tuned near fundamental frequency
mitigate the poor power factor and tuned near harmonic
frequencies balances the source currents with
improvement in THD. All simulations are verified though
PSCAD/EMTDC simulation package. Working efficiency
of this method is determined by comparing it against old
method like Instaneous power theory method.

VII. REFERENCES

[1] Rajesh Gupta, Arindam Ghosh and Avinash Joshi, Control
of 3-level Shunt Active Power Filter using Harmonic
Selective controller Proceedings of IEEE Power India
Conference, April 2006, pp. 10-15.
[2] E.Twinning and D.G. Holmes, Grid Current Regulation of a
three-phase voltage source inverter with an LCL input filter,
IEEE Trans. on Power Electronics, vol.18 ,no.3, pp.888-895
May/June 2003.
[3] A.Ghosh and G. Ledwich, Load compensating
DTSTATCOM in weak AC systems, IEEE Trans. on Power
Delivery, vol.18, no.4, pp.1302-1309 October 2003.
[4] J.M.M Ortega,M.P Esteeve,M.B Poyan,A.G Exposito and
L.G Franquelo, Reference current computation methods for
active filter: Accuracy assessment in the frequency domain,
IEEE Trans. on Power Electronics, vol.20 ,no.2, pp.446-456
March 2005.
[5] S.Buso,L.Malesani and P.Mattavelli, Comparison of Current
Control Technique for Active Power Filter, IEEE
Transactions on Industrial Electronics, vol.18, no.4,
pp.1302-1309 October 2003.
[6] D. N. Zmood and D. G. Holmes, Stationary frame current
regulation of PWM Inverters with zero-steady-state error,
IEEE Trans. on power Electronics, Vol.18, no.3, pp 814-822,
may 2003.
[7] Green, T.C., and Marks, J.H.: Control techniques for active
power filters, IEE Proc. Electr. Power Appl., Vol. 152,
No. 2, March 2005, pp. 369381.
[8] D. Zmood, D. Holmes, and G. Bode, Frequency-domain
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[9] E. Lavers, P.W. Lehn, "A benchmark system for digital time
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[10] P. Verdelho, G. D. Marques, Active Power Filter Control
Circuit with Phase Locked Loop Phase Angle Determination
PEMC98, Sep. 8-10, 1998.
loss
iaf
abc
-
dqo
HPF
-
HPF
dqo
-
abc
ila
ilb
ilc
loss
lossc
Ishb ref
Isha ref
Ishc ref
ibf
icf
9
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National Conference on Technological Trends (NCTT 08), 21-22 Nov 2008 61
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