574
3, JUNE 2002
Compensated Synchronous PI Current Controller in
Overmodulation Range and Six-Step Operation
of Space-Vector-Modulation-Based
Vector-Controlled Drives
Ashwin M. Khambadkone, Member, IEEE, and Joachim Holtz, Fellow, IEEE
AbstractOvermodulation enhances the power utilization of
the installed capacity of a voltage-source inverter. A space-vector
strategy is used for constant-switching-frequency inverters.
In order to achieve the overmodulation, a modified reference
signal with nonuniform angular velocity is generated using a
preprocessor. Such a reference wave produces low-frequency har-
monics in currents. The presence of current harmonics restricts
the bandwidth of the synchronous proportional plus integral
current controller in the overmodulation range. A compensating
current control is presented to allow for high-bandwidth current
control in synchronous coordinates during overmodulation and
six-step. The proposed scheme allows for an easy upgrade of a
conventional vector control scheme to include overmodulation
and, thus, reduce the design-to-market time.
Index TermsCurrent control, feedback pulsewidth modula-
tion, overmodulation, space-vector modulation.
I. INTRODUCTION
V ECTOR CONTROL of an induction motor allows for a
fast torque control over a wide operating range. It is being
applied for a number of applications both in the low and high
power ranges. Fast current control is essential for the vector con-
trol in order to achieve decoupling and torque control. Usually,
a linear current controller of the proportional plus integral (PI)
type and a feedforward pulsewidth modulator are used for cur-
rent vector control. A large number of pulsewidth modulation
(PWM) schemes can be used to go along with a linear current
control. In so doing, the pulsewidth modulator can be designed
to address various performance criteria [1]. Of the various per-
formance criteria, overmodulation has received considerable at-
tention [2][5]. Its significance is that it allows the full utiliza-
tion of the installed voltage capacity of the inverter. In order
to achieve overmodulation, lower order harmonics other than
the third harmonic have to be added to the modulated output
voltage. The interaction of these harmonics with the PI-type
linear current controller is the focus of our paper.
Overmodulation refers to the operation of the pulsewidth
modulator beyond the linear range. In space-vector modulation,
Manuscript received December 14, 2000; revised November 16, 2001. Ab-
stract published on the Internet March 7, 2002.
A. M. Khambadkone is with the National University of Singapore, Singapore
119260 (e-mail: eleamk@nus.edu.sg).
J. Holtz is with Wuppertal University, 42097 Wuppertal, Germany (e-mail:
j.holtz@ieee.org).
Publisher Item Identifier S 0278-0046(02)04921-3.
0278-0046/02$17.00 2002 IEEE
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 49, NO.
the maximum modulation index is achieved.
However, the maximum possible voltage occurs during the
six-step operation and is equal to . We define this as
modulation index . The region between the modulation
indexes and is called overmodulation. A
process of obtaining a voltage in this region was described in
[6]. This technique uses a preprocessor that generates a suitable
reference voltage vector. The prepocessor alters the desired
reference voltage vector by adding lower order harmonics. It
causes change in magnitude and angle of the resultant reference
vector, producing either a uniform or nonuniform angular
velocity, depending on the region of operation. Adding lower
order harmonics to the reference voltage causes distorted motor
current, but it also achieves higher modulated output voltage.
In the normal range of operation, triplen frequency harmonics
do not affect the motor phase current, hence, the space-vector
modulation produces only the fundamental and the switching
frequency harmonics in the motor currents. However, in the
overmodulation range as proposed in [6] and [2], the motor
currents will have lower order harmonics other than the triplen
harmonics. A high-gain current controller tries to cancel out the
harmonics that have been introduced due to overmodulation.
This is because the current controller is primarily designed
to control the fundamental frequency current. In so doing, it
works against the overmodulation. Filters can be used to make
the current controller immune to the low-frequency harmonics,
but this reduces the bandwidth of the current control loop. This
results in poor dynamic performance of the current controllers.
In fact, during overmodulation, the best settings of the PI-type
current controllers in the linear range are no longer suitable.
They cause unsteady behavior which results in current and
torque transients (see Fig. 1). Here, a stable operation was
possible only after the bandwidth of the current controller was
reduced to around 100 Hz.
As fast current control is mandatory for a vector control
drive, the problem of current control in the overmodulation
range comes forth. How then do we deal with harmonic currents
that are present in the overmodulation range? This problem is
being addressed in our paper. The problem is different from
the problem in [3], which deals with the compensation of the
dynamic component of voltage during overmodulation. On
the other hand, we deal with the compensation of the effects
of harmonic voltage in the current control loop. This problem