J Control Autom Electr Syst
DOI 10.1007/s40313-016-0229-3
Super-Twisting Sliding Control Design of Three-Phase Inverter
for Stand-Alone Distributed Generation Systems
Dinh Hieu Phan1,2 · Shoudao Huang1
Received: 11 September 2015 / Revised: 29 November 2015 / Accepted: 18 January 2016
© Brazilian Society for Automatics–SBA 2016
Abstract This paper presents a super-twisting algorithm
control strategy for a three-phase voltage source inverter of
a distributed generation system in the stand-alone operation
mode to guarantee good performance of the load output volt-
age under a sudden load, unbalanced load, and nonlinear
load. The proposed control is established for an inner-loop
current controller and an outer-loop voltage controller in a
dual-control scheme. The proposed controller is very simple
and robust to the parameter uncertainties. The stability and
robustness of the proposed controller are proven based on
the Lyapunov theory. The simulation results are illustrated
by MATLAB/Simulink software and are compared to the
performance of the traditional sliding controller to validate
the effectiveness of the proposed controller.
Keywords Super-twisting algorithm · Distributed
generation systems · Inner-loop current controller ·
Outer-loop voltage controller · Parameter uncertainties ·
Total harmonic distortion
1 Introduction
Recently, the number of distributed generation systems
(DGSs) has been rapidly increasing because of their advan-
tages compared to the conventional central generation sys-
tems, such as decreasing systems and fuel cost, complying
with stricter environment regulations, and technological
B Dinh Hieu Phan
phandinhhieucdt@gmail.com
1 College of Electrical and Information Engineering, Hunan
University, Changsha, Hunan, People’s Republic of China
2 Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Hanoi University
of Industry, Hanoi City, Vietnam
advances in small generators, power electronics, and energy
storage devices (Strzelecki and Benysek 2008; Marwali et al.
2004, 2007; Ahn et al. 2010; He and Li 2012; Delghavi
and Yazdanli 2011). Among DGSs, those using renewable
energy sources are gaining more and more attention because
they are environment friendly and utilize unlimited poten-
tial energy sources (Liserre et al. 2010; Blaabjerg et al.
2006). The DGSs operate in grid-connected applications or
in stand-alone applications (Islanded mode). Generally, they
are connected to the utility grid to provide maximum electric
power to the grid. However, in some areas, such as remote
rural regions and remote islands, where the connection is
very expensive and impractical, the stand-alone connection
option is better. In the stand-alone operation mode, the DGSs
can operate in parallel by connecting the distributed gen-
eration (DG) units together, or each DG unit can operate
independently. The parallel operation of multiple DG units
must ensure a good load sharing (real power sharing, reac-
tive power sharing, harmonic power sharing) by regulating
real power and reactive power independently (Marwali et al.
2004; Ahn et al. 2010; Zhang et al. 2013). Meanwhile,
the independent operation of each DG unit must guarantee
the performances (fast transient response, small steady-state
error, low total harmonic distortion) of load voltage under
various load types (sudden load change, unbalanced load,
nonlinear load). This paper focuses on the independent oper-
ation of each DG unit in the stand-alone operation.
To improve the load voltage performance, many
researchers have been working on designing voltage con-
trollers for three-phase voltage inverters. First, conventional
proportion–integral (PI) controllers were proposed (Teodor-
escu and Blaabjerg 2004; Haque et al. 2008). In Teodorescu
and Blaabjerg (2004), a PI controller for a single voltage con-
trol loop was presented, but the performance of this controller
is not applicable to a nonlinear load. A dual-loop controller
123

scheme consisting of PI outer-loop voltage controller and PI
inner-loop current controller was used in Haque et al. (2008).
It obtained a good performance with a balanced load, but
it was not satisfactory with a nonlinear load. To overcome
this drawback, the outer-loop voltage controller based on PI
control and resonant control was adopted in Nian and Zeng
(2011). It compensates for the low-order harmonic compo-
nents of load voltage and hence reduces the total harmonic of
load voltage. However, this method is not robust to parame-
ter uncertainties. Recently, various advance control methods
have been proposed for output voltage controllers. In Kim and
Lee (2010), a feedback linearization control for a three-phase
uninterruptible power supply (UPS) inverter was presented.
It showed a good performance of the load voltage under a
balanced load and nonlinear load, but it did not mention the
performance of the load voltage under an unbalanced load.
An extended Lyapunov function-based control strategy for
UPS single-phase inverter was proposed by Komurcugil et al.
(2015). This controller eliminates the steady-state error with-
out destroying the global stability of the system and obtains
good load voltage performance. However, this controller is
not designed for UPS three-phase inverter which is more
complex than UPS single-phase inverter. In Kim et al. (2015),
an observer-based optimal voltage control was adopted for
three-phase inverter. The optimal controller based on mini-
mizing the well-known linear quadratic regulator achieves
excellent performance of the load voltage under various
load operations. Nevertheless, the determination of weight-
ing matrices is difficult.
A repetitive control was also proposed to control the load
voltage of UPS inverter in Escobar et al. (2007a, b). Nev-
ertheless, the problems of this controller are slow response
and a lack of the systematic method to stabilize the error
dynamic. The good performance of the output voltage of
the three-phase UPS was obtained under an unbalanced load
and nonlinear load by using a dissipativity-based adaptive
controller in Valderrama et al. (2003). However, this con-
troller is too complicated to implement. In Jin et al. (2014), an
adaptive control strategy based on a proportional–derivative
controller was presented in a stand-alone DGS under para-
meter uncertainties and various loads. The good performance
was obtained, but the complex adaptive controller leads to the
high computational burden. To overcome the complex adap-
tive control methods above, traditional sliding mode control
methods have been proposed for UPS inverters (Tai and
Chen 2002; Kukrer et al. 2009; Komurcugil 2012). In Tai
and Chen (2002), the UPS inverter was designed by using
the discrete-time sliding mode control scheme. This method
proved robust on low-output voltage distortion, but the exper-
iment results pointed out the high total harmonic distortion
(THD) of the load voltage under a nonlinear load. Although
the good performance of the load voltage is obtained, the con-
trol design is only for the single-phase inverter. The drawback
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J Control Autom Electr Syst
of the traditional sliding mode control is the discontinuity
of control variables, resulting in the variable switch fre-
quency of the inverter, thus the high chattering phenomenon
(Martinez et al. 2012). To surmount this disadvantage, a
super-twist algorithm (STA) has been presented in many liter-
ature sources (Beltran et al. 2009; Moreno and Osorio 2008;
Benelghali et al. 2011; Valenciaga and Puleston 2008). This
algorithm allows the synthesis of a continuous control action
with discontinuous time derivative, and thus it significantly
reduces the chattering phenomenon.
In this paper, the STA is proposed for the dual controller
with a STA outer-loop voltage controller and a STA inner-
loop current controller to improve the performance of the load
voltage under various load types (sudden load change, unbal-
anced load, and nonlinear load). The proposed controller
inherits the well-known robustness of the sliding technique,
so it can satisfactorily deal with the effects caused by the
variation of the parameters and the sudden load disturbance.
The outstanding characteristic of the proposed controller is
the continuous voltage actions which reduce the load volt-
age chattering, so it improves the quality of load voltage.
Additionally, the STA controller is not complex, and thus
turning parameters of the controller is easy and the com-
putational burden of the controller is low. The stability of
the proposed controller will be proved by using the Lya-
punov functions. Finally, the simulation results are produced
by MATLAB/Simulink software will be presented.
The remainder of this paper is organized as follows:
Sect. 2 presents a brief description and mathematical mode
of a three-phase inverter. The proposed controller design are
described in Sect. 3. The results of simulations are reported
in Sect. 4. Finally, the conclusion is drawn in Sect. 5.
2 System Description and Mathematical Model
A general structure of the DGS-based renewable energy
source is shown in Fig. 1. As described in Fig. 1, the DGS
consists of three parts: input power, power conversion unit,
and local loads. The input power derived from renewable
energy sources, such as wind, fuel, and solar energy, is con-
verted into the primal electric power by using a generator, fuel
Input power Power conversion unit Local load
Wind energy Balanced load
AC
or Three
Solar energy DC phase
LC Unbalanced
load
filter
inverter
DC
Fuel cell Nonlinear load
Fig. 1 Block diagram of a stand-alone DGS
J Control Autom Electr Syst

Lf dVLd 1 1
Via iia VLa = wVLq − I Ld + Iid
Lf
dt Cf Cf
Vib iib VLb iLb
Vdc LOAD dVLq 1 1
Lf = −wVLd − I Lq + Iiq
Vic iic VLc iLc dt Cf Cf
Cf Cf Cf dIid 1 1
=− VLd + w Iiq + Vid
dt Lf Lf
dIiq 1 1
Balanced resistive load =− VLq − w Iid + Viq (2)
RL dt Lf Lf
A
B
C
where w is the angular frequency, VLd , VLq is the load d − q
Nonlinear load axis voltage, and I Ld , I Lq is the load d − q axis currents,
respectively.
D1 D3 D5
A Let us introduce the parameters of filter L f = k1 , C f =
B Cload
C Rload k2 . It is difficult to exactly determine those parameters, and
D2 D4 D6 thus they may be considered as variable parameters. It means
that k1 = k1n + k1 , k2 = k2n + k2 with k1n , k2n are
Fig. 2 Schematic diagram of three-phase inverter of stand-alone DGS
nominal parameters, while k1 andk2 are parameter uncer-
with LC filter tainties.
The Eq. (2) can be rewritten as
cells, and solar cells. The power conversion unit includes an dIid
AC–DC converter (wind turbines) or a DC–DC boost con- (k1n + k1 ) = −VLd + (k1n + k1 )w Iiq + Vid
dt
verter (fuel cells, solar cells), a three-phase DC–AC inverter, dIiq
and a LC output filter or a transformer. The output voltage (k1n + k1 ) = −VLq + (k1n + k1 )w Iid + Viq
dt
and the electric power delivered to the local loads through dVLd
the power converter unit can be regulated by the controllers (k2n + k2 ) = w(k2n + k2 )VLq − I Ld + Iid
dt
which improve the quality and reliability of renewable energy dVLq
sources. The local load consumes the electric power gener- (k2n + k2 ) = −w(k2n + k2 )VLd − I Lq + Iiq
dt
ated from generation sources. In this paper, the renewable (3)
resources, the AC–DC converter, or the DC–DC boost con-
verter can be replaced by a stiff DC voltage source. Moreover, From the Eq. (3), the mathematical model of inverter side
the transformer is ignored due to its high price and big size, can be expressed as
and the low load voltage required is without the help of the
transformer. dIid VLd Vid k1 dIid
Figure 2 describes a schematic diagram of a three-phase =− + w Iiq + + (w Iiq − )
dt k k1n k dt
DC–AC inverter with a LC filter in the stand-alone mode.  1n     1n  
f1 u1  f1
From Fig. 2, the mathematical mode of the inverter with the
dIiq VLq Viq k1 dIiq
LC filter can be expressed as =− + w Iid + − (w Iid + )
dt k k1n k dt
 1n     1n  
dVL 1 1 f2 u2  f2
= Ii − IL
dt Cf Cf dVLd Iid k2 dVLd I Ld
= −wVLq + + (wVLq − )−
dIi
=
1
Vi −
1 dt    k2n k2n dt k2n
VL (1) f
   
dt Lf Lf 3
u3  f3
dVLq Iiq k2 dVLq I Lq
where Vi is a vector output voltage of the inverter Vi = = −wVLd + − (wVLd + )−
dt    k2n k2n dt k2n
[via , vib , vic ]T , Ii is a vector current of the inverter Ii = f4    
[i ia , i ib , i ic ]T , VL denotes a vector load voltage VL = u4  f4
[v La , v Lb , v Lc ]T , I L denotes a vector load current I L = (4)
[i La , i Lb , i Lc ]T , L f , C f is the inductance and capacitor of
the filter, respectively. where functions f 1 , f 2 , f 3 , and f 4 represent the nomi-
The Eq. (1) placed in the stationary abc can be transformed nal model. Meanwhile, functions  f 1 ,  f 2 ,  f 3 , and  f 4
into the following equation in the synchronously rotating denote the uncertain model, and signals u 1 , u 2 , u 3 , and u 4
d − q reference frame are the control input variables.

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 J Control Autom Electr Syst

Lf
3 STA Controller Design
Lf
Vdc LOAD
The effects of the voltage controller play a major role. Gen- Lf
erally, load-side inverter of DG systems is used to regulate
the load voltage by keeping the constant voltage and constant Cf Cf Cf
frequency (CVCF) in the stand-alone operation, even under
sudden load, unbalanced load, and nonlinear load. Under the S1-S6 iiabc iLabc, VLabc
effect of the nonlinear load, the non-sinusoidal load current
with low-order harmonics components would be generated. a,b,c
SVPWM θ d,q
Moreover, unbalanced load would generate the negative VLdq
sequence components of load current. Due to the conse- Viαβ
I idq
quence of the harmonics and negative sequence components ,
I idqref I Ldq
existed in the load current, it deteriorates the load voltage d,q V
STA current
loop controller
STA voltage
loop controller
idq
quality of the three-phase inverter (non-sinusoidal output
VLdqref
voltage with existence of low-order harmonics components).
Thus, the operations of the loads are influenced, espe- Fig. 3 Block diagram of proposed STA controller
cially, for the power quality demands such as communication
systems, medical equipment, semiconductor manufacturing
systems, and data processing systems. The voltage controller
regulates the load voltage to ensure the good performance of
output voltage (sinusoidal voltage, quick response, and low
TDH) even if sudden load, unbalanced load, and nonlinear
load.

3.1 Control Design Fig. 4 Block diagram of proposed STA current loop controller

The STA control technique is used to design the controller.

The purpose of the controller design is to ensure the good per-
formance of the load voltage under a sudden load, unbalanced
load, and nonlinear load. For this purpose, a dual controller
design which consists of an inner-loop current controller and
an outer-loop voltage controller is proposed. Both the cur-
rent controller and the voltage controller are involved in the
STA methods. The block diagram of the STA controller for
three-phase inverter in stand-alone is depicted in Fig. 3.
From Eq. (4), the current controller relates to the following
equation.
dIid
= f1 +  f1 + u 1
dt
dIiq
= f2 +  f2 + u 2 (5)
dt
The sliding variables can be chosen as
Taking the time derivative of the sliding variables of the
Eq. (6) then incorporated with the Eq. (5) leads to
s1 = −i idref + f 1 +  f 1 + u 1
s2 = −i iqref + f 2 +  f 2 + u 2 (7)
Moreover, each component of the action control variables
consist of two terms
u i = u eqi + ũ i (8)
where u eqi (i = 1, 2) are the equivalent control terms for
the nominal and unperturbed model, and ũ i are the terms of
control variables designed by using the STA.
The expression for the equivalent control terms u eqi can
be determined as

s1 = i id − i idref u eq1 = I˙idref − f 1

s2 = i iq − i iqref (6) u eq2 = I˙iqref − f 2 (9)

where i idref , i iqref are the reference values of the output cur- Substitution of Eqs. (8) and (9) into Eq. (7) produces
rent of the three-phase inverter which denote as i idref =
u 3 , i iqref = u 4 . ṡi = ũ i +  f i (10)

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J Control Autom Electr Syst

functions  f i are divided into two terms expressed as

 f i = g1i (s, t) + g2i (t) (11)

where functions g1i (s, t) = 0 when si = 0, and functions

g2i (t) are the perturbations on the 2-SM manifold. On the
other hand, the components of the control terms ũ i can be
given as Fig. 5 Block diagram of proposed STA voltage loop controller

t
Taking the time derivative of the sliding variables of the
ũ i = −k1i φ1i (si ) − k2i φ2i (si )dt (12)
Eq. (16) then incorporating with the Eq. (15) leads to
0

ṡ3 = −V̇Ldref + f 3 +  f 3 + u 3
where φ1i (si ) = |si |1/2 sign(si ) and
ṡ4 = −V̇Lqr e f + f 4 +  f 4 + u 4 (17)
1 
φ2i (si ) = sign(si ) = φ1i (si )φ1i (si )
2 Similar to the current controller design, each component of
the action control variables consists of two terms
 (s ) = 1 s −1/2
with φ1i i 2 i is the partial derivative of φ1i (si ) with
respect to si . Values k1i and k2i are the fixed-gains which are
u i = u eqi + ũ i (18)
determined by the following equation

k1i ≥ 2δ1i where u eqi (i = 3, 4) are the equivalent control terms for
the nominal and unperturbed model, and ũ i are the terms of
5δ1i k1i + 6δ2i + 4(δ1i + δ2i /k1i )2
k2i ≥ k1i (13) control variables designed by using the STA strategy.
2(k1i − 2δ1i ) The expression for the equivalent control terms u eqi can
be determined as
where δ1i , δ2i are the positive constants, are expressed by the
following equation
u eq3 = V̇Ldref − f 3
|g (s , t)| ≤ δ1i |si |1/2 u eq4 = V̇Lqr e f − f 4 (19)
 1i i 
d 
 g2i (t) ≤ δ2i (14)
 dt  Substitution of Eqs. (18) and (19) into Eq. (17) also becomes

The block diagram of the STA inner-loop current controller

ṡi = ũ i +  f i (20)
is presented in Fig. 4.
Next, the STA outer-loop voltage controller design is
related to the following equation The components of the control terms ũ i are the same com-
ponents of the control terms of Eqs. (12) and (13).
dVLd The block diagram of the STA outer-loop voltage con-
= f3 +  f3 + u 3 troller is presented in Fig. 5.
dt
dVLq
= f4 +  f4 + u 4 (15)
dt 3.2 Stability of the Control System
Similar to the design of the current controller, the sliding t
variables of the voltage controller can be chosen as Defining z i = − k2i φ2i (si )dt + g2i (t) as new states. The
0
closed-loop system Eqs. (10) and (18) with the STA control
s3 = VLd − VLdref law of Eq. (12) can be written as follows:
s4 = VLq − VLqr e f (16)
ṡi = −k1i φ1i (si ) + z i + g1i (s, t) (21)
where VLdref , VLqr e f are reference values of the load output dg2i (s, t)
voltage. ż i = −k2i φ2i (si ) + (22)
dt

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 J Control Autom Electr Syst

The Lyapunov function can be chosen as: Table 1 System parameters

Parameter Value

4
4
V = Vi = ςiT Pi ςi = ς1T P1 ς1 + ς2T P2 ς2 DGS rated power 450 VA
1 1 Dc link voltage 280 Vdc
+ ς3T P3 ς3 + ς4T P4 ς4 (23) Switching frequency 5 kHz
Load output voltages 110 V
where ςiT = [φ1i (si ), z i ] and Fundamental frequency 60 Hz

 Filter capacitance 6.67 µF
1 4k2i + k1i
2 −k
1i
Pi = PiT = > 0, k1i , k2i > 0 Filter inductance 10 mH
2 −k1i 2

The time derivative of each term Vi can be calculated as

(Moreno and Osorio 2008). V̇ is the negative definite function Eq. (31) and V is the
positive definite function Eq. (23), and therefore V and tra-
1 jectories of the states Eqs. (21) and (22) converge to zero in
V̇i = − ςiT Q i ςi (24)
|si |1/2 the finite time.

where

 4 Simulation Results
k1i 2k2i + k1i
2 − k1i
Qi =
2 −k1i 1
In this section, the simulations are performed by MAT-
1 1 LAB/Simulink to evaluate the proposed controller. The
V̇i = − 1/2 ςiT Q i ςi ≤ − 1/2 λm (Q i ) ςi 22 (25)
|si | |si | nominal parameters employed in these simulations are listed
in Table 1 (Jin et al. 2014). 50 % uncertain parameters are con-
where λm (Q i ) are minimum eigenvalues of matrix Q i , ςi 22 sidered for this system to demonstrate the robustness of the
represents the square of the 2-Euclidean norm determined as: proposed controller, namely 0.5k1n = k1 , 0.5k2n = k2 .
The gains of STA for the current loop control and the voltage
ςi 22 = φ1i
2
+ z i2 = |si | + z i2 (26) loop control can be determined

Additionally, the standard inequality for quadratic forms k11 = 224, k12 = 2500
λm (Pi ) ςi 22 ≤ Vi = ςiT Pi ςi ≤ λ M (Pi ) ςi 22 (27) k21 = 224, k22 = 2500
k31 = 0.75, k32 = 8.35
where λm (Pi ) and λ M (Pi ) are minimum and maximum k41 = 0.75, k42 = 8.35 (32)
eigenvalues of matrix Pi , respectively. From Eqs. (26) and
(27), the following inequalities can be expressed as: Simulations are implemented to illustrate the excellent per-
1/2 1/2 1/2
formance of the proposed the STA controller under following
Vi ≥ λm (Pi ) ςi 2 ≥ λm (Pi ) |si |1/2 (28) different cases
Vi Case 1 Sudden change balanced resistive load (load change
ςi 22 ≥ (29)
λ M (Pi ) 100–0 % and 0–100 %, RL = 80 ).
Case 2 Unbalanced resistive load (close phase A, RL =
From Eqs. (25), (28), and (29), the time derivative of Vi can 80 ).
be bounded as: Case 3 Nonlinear load (three-phase diode rectifier, Cload =
1/2 3300 µF, Rload = 500 ).
−λm (Pi )λm (Q i ) 1/2 1/2
V̇i ≤ Vi = −γi Vi (30) Case 4 Sudden change nonlinear load (load change 100–
λ M (Pi ) 0 % and 0–100 %, three-phase diode rectifier, Cload =
1/2 3300 µF, Rload = 500 ).
where γi = λm (P i )λm (Q i )
λ M (Pi ) > 0, which shows that V func- Figures 6, 7, 8, and 9 show the simulation results of the
tion is a strong Lyapunov function. Finally, the total time proposed controller under the aforementioned cases. Each
derivative of V is bounded as follows: figure illustrates the waveforms of the load voltage (VL ), the
inverter current (Ii ), and the load current (I L ), and the total

4
4
V̇ ≤ V̇i = −γi Vi ≤ 0 (31) harmonic distortion (THD) of the load voltage. In Figs. 6
1 1
and 7, a resistor of 80  is used for balanced load and unbal-

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J Control Autom Electr Syst

200 200

VLabc (V)
VLabc (V)

0 0

-200 -200
0 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.1 0.12 0.14 0.16 0.18 0.2 0 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.1 0.12 0.14 0.16 0.18 0.2

2 2

Iiabc (A)
Iiabc (A)

0 0

-2 -2
0 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.1 0.12 0.14 0.16 0.18 0.2 0 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.1 0.12 0.14 0.16 0.18 0.2

2 2

ILabc (A)
ILabc (A)

0 0
-2 -2
0 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.1 0.12 0.14 0.16 0.18 0.2 0 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.1 0.12 0.14 0.16 0.18 0.2

Time (s)
Time(s)
Fundamental (60Hz) = 155.6 , THD= 0.69%
-3
x 10 Fundamental (60Hz) = 155.6 , THD= 0.02%
0.3
8

Mag (% of Fundamental)
7 0.25
Mag (% of Fundamental)

6
0.2
5
0.15
4
0.1
3

2 0.05

1 0
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000
0
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000 Frequency (Hz)
Frequency (Hz)

Fig. 8 Simulation results of STA controller with 50 % variable para-

Fig. 6 Simulation results of STA controller with 50 % variable para- meters under Case 3
meters under Case 1
200
200
VLabc (V)
VLabc (V)

0
0

-200
-200 0 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.1 0.12 0.14 0.16 0.18 0.2
0 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.1 0.12 0.14 0.16 0.18 0.2
2
2
Iiabc (A)
Iiabc (A)

0
0
-2
-2
0 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.1 0.12 0.14 0.16 0.18 0.2
0 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.1 0.12 0.14 0.16 0.18 0.2
2
ILabc (A)

2
ILabc (A)

0
0
-2
-2
0 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.1 0.12 0.14 0.16 0.18 0.2
0 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.1 0.12 0.14 0.16 0.18 0.2

Time (s) Time(s)

Fundamental (60Hz) = 155.9 , THD= 0.12%
0.1 Fundamental (60Hz) = 155.6 , THD= 0.69%
0.09
Mag (% of Fundamental)

0.3
0.08
Mag (% of Fundamental)

0.07 0.25

0.06
0.2
0.05
0.04 0.15
0.03
0.1
0.02
0.01 0.05
0
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000
0
Frequency (Hz) 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000
Frequency (Hz)

Fig. 7 Simulation results of STA controller with 50 % variable para-

meters under Case 2 Fig. 9 Simulation results of STA controller with 50 % variable para-
meters under Case 4

anced load. Figure 6 presents the transient performances of

the load voltage, the inverter current, and the load current. a load resistor of500  and 3300 µF load capacitor are used
The transient time is very quick (5 ms). The load voltage for nonlinear load. As can be seen, the waveforms of the
is only slightly distorted within the transient time. Despite load voltage keep the sinusoidal form with a slight distortion,
the unbalanced load (Fig. 7), the load voltage still demon- while the waveforms of the inverter current and the load cur-
strates a good performance. Meanwhile, the inverter current rent are relatively distorted. Their transient performances are
and the load current are both unbalanced. In Figs. 8 and 9, guaranteed regardless of the nonlinear sudden change load.

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 J Control Autom Electr Syst

200 200

VLabc (V)
VLabc (V)

0 0

-200 -200
0 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.1 0.12 0.14 0.16 0.18 0.2 0 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.1 0.12 0.14 0.16 0.18 0.2

2 2

Iiabc (A)
Iiabc (A)

0 0

-2 -2
0 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.1 0.12 0.14 0.16 0.18 0.2 0 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.1 0.12 0.14 0.16 0.18 0.2

2 2

ILabc (A)
ILabc (A)

0 0

-2 -2
0 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.1 0.12 0.14 0.16 0.18 0.2 0 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.1 0.12 0.14 0.16 0.18 0.2

Time (s) Time (s)

Fundamental (60Hz) = 1.933 , THD= 0.79% Fundamental (60Hz) = 0.0002304 , THD= 1.67%

0.6
0.3
Mag (% of Fundamental)

Mag (% of Fundamental)
0.5
0.25

0.4
0.2

0.3
0.15

0.1 0.2

0.05 0.1

0 0
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000

Frequency (Hz) Frequency (Hz)

200 200
VLabc (V)

VLabc (V)

0 0

-200 -200
0 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.1 0.12 0.14 0.16 0.18 0.2 0 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.1 0.12 0.14 0.16 0.18 0.2

2 2
Iiabc (A)

Iiabc (A)

0 0
-2 -2
0 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.1 0.12 0.14 0.16 0.18 0.2 0 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.1 0.12 0.14 0.16 0.18 0.2

2 2
ILabc (A)

ILabc (A)

0 0
-2 -2
0 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.1 0.12 0.14 0.16 0.18 0.2 0 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.1 0.12 0.14 0.16 0.18 0.2

Time (s) Time (s)

Fundamental (60Hz) = 0.0001544 , THD= 0.92%
Fundamental (60Hz) = 0.0002304 , THD= 1.67%
0.3
0.6
Mag (% of Fundamental)

0.25
Mag (% of Fundamental)

0.5

0.2
0.4

0.15
0.3

0.1
0.2

0.05
0.1

0
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000 0
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000
Frequency (Hz)
Frequency (Hz)

Fig. 10 Simulation results of traditional sliding controller with 50 % variable parameters under all cases

Figure 10 describes the simulation results of a traditional It can be observed from Table 2 that the steady-state errors
sliding mode controller under the aforementioned cases. of the load voltage are smaller than 0.2 % and the THD of the
50 % of variable parameters are also considered for this con- load voltage are lower than 0.69 % in all cases. Meanwhile,
troller. The performances of the load voltage, the inverter Table 3 shows that the steady-state errors of the load voltage
current, and the load current are presented to compare with are smaller than 1.45 % and the THD of the load voltage are
the performances presented in Figs. 6, 7, 8 and 9. The steady- lower than 1.67 % in all cases. It obviously demonstrates that
state performances and the THD of the load voltage using the the STA controller is better than the traditional controller in
proposed STA controller and the traditional sliding controller this paper.
are listed in Tables 2 and 3, respectively.

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Table 2 Steady-state
Load types Load voltages (V) THD (%)
performance of simulation
results with proposed control VLa VLb VLc

Balanced resistive load 110.001 110 109.995 0.02

Unbalanced resistive load 110.22 110.08 109.78 0.12
Nonlinear load 110.01 110.005 109.995 0.69

Table 3 Steady-state performance of simulation results with traditional
sliding control
Load types Load voltages (V) THD (%)
VLa VLb VLc
Balanced resistive load 109.4 109.2 108.9 0.79
Unbalanced resistive load 108.6 108.85 108.8 0.92
Nonlinear load 109.5 109.3 109.1 1.67
5 Conclusions
In this paper, a fixed-gain STA for the outer-loop voltage
controller and inner-loop current controller of a three-phase
inverter has been proposed to ensure the good performance of
the load voltage under various load conditions. The proposed
controller is not only simple for the parameter calculations
of the controller, but is also robust to the system uncertain-
ties. Besides, the stability of the proposed control system
has been mathematically proven. The problem of the pro-
posed controller does not completely compensate for the
harmonic distortion of the inverter current, thus the high
THD of the inverter current exists under a nonlinear load.
Finally, to prove clearly the advantages of the proposed
controller, the simulations have been carried out through
MATLAB/Simulink software. The simulation results have
illustrated the superior performance of the proposed con-
troller compared with the performance of the traditional
sliding controller.
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