INDIAN INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY, KHARAGPUR 721302, DECEMBER 27-29, 2002 711 Performance Evaluation of Single Phase Three Level H-Bridge Converter D.P. Kothari, Bhim Singh and Ashish Pandey Abstract- This paper presents the performance analysis of single phase H-bridge AC-DC boost converters for bi-directional power flow require d in Adjustable Speed Drives (ASD), Uninterruptible Power Supplies (UPS), and Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) etc. The detailed modeling along with control algorithm for this AC-DC converter is carried out with a view of proper design of such systems. Simulation results demonstrating fast response and improved power quality in terms of reduced harmonics in AC mains current, high powerfactor and well regulated DC output voltage are given for the change of load on the proposed AC-DC converter system. Index Terms-Power-factor Correction, AC-DC boost converter, Power Quality and PWM Control I. INTRODUCTION Single-Phase AC-DC boost converters with bi -directional power flow is widely used in Adjustable Speed Drives (ASDs) for traction, line interactive Uninterruptible Power Supplies (UPS), Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) for load leveling, battery charging for electric vehicles and power conditioning, utility interface with renewable energy sources such as solar photo-voltaic (PV) etc [1-51]. These AC-DC converters provide high power quality in terms of low value of total harmonic distortion of AC mains current, high powerfactor, well regulated DC output voltage and fast response compared to conventional rectifiers realized using thyristors and diodes. One of the major reason for a remarkable development in these boost converters is due to advancement in self commutating devices namely for small power rating, MOSFETs 1have unsurpassed performance because of high switching rate with negligible losses. In medium power rating, IGBTs are considered ideal device for these with PWM technology. In high power rating GTO are normally used in multilevel modes with low switching frequency for reducing the switching losses. Many manufacturers are developing IPM (Intelligent Power Modules) of the selfcommutating devices to provide cost effective and compact structure of these boost converters. Another break-through has been in these converters because of fast response Hall effect voltage and current sensors, isolation amplifiers normally required for the feedbacks used in the control of these AC-DC converters to provide a high level of dynamic and steady state performance. Many manufacturers such as Prof. D.P. Kothari and Mr. Ashish Pandey are in Center for Energy Studies and Prof. Bhim Singh is Deptt. of Electrical Engineering, IIT Delhi, Hauz Khas New Delhi-110016(bsingh@ee.iitd.ac.in). ABB, LEM, Analog Devices and others, are offering these sensors at competitive low prices. Another major push in the technology of the boost AC -DC converters has been due to revolution in microelectronics. Because of high volume requirement, a number of manufacturers such as Unitrode, Analog Devices, Siemens etc. have developed dedicated ICs for the cost effective, reliable and compact solution to control these converters. Moreover, high-speed micro controllers and DSPs are available at reasonable low cost. Many processors are developed to give direct PWM outputs with fast software algorithm normally used in these converters, which reduces the hardware drastically. With these dedicated processors, it is now possible to implement new and improved control algorithms of real time control to provide fast dynamic response of these converters. Starting with conventional PI controller, sliding mode, fuzzy logic and neural network based controllers have been employed in the control of these converters. A number of configurations of these boost AC-DC converters have been developed to meet the exact requirements of widely varying applications. However, majority of them has employed either PWM technology [3-37] or multilevel [2,3851] control to reduce harmonics and effective control of these converters in wide varying ratings with suitable solid-state self-commutating devices. Multilevel AC-DC boost converters have been developed in cascaded, flying capacitor and diode clamped configurations [2] to reduce size, switching losses along with improved power quality at AC mains and DC output. In light of increasing potential applications of these boost bi-directional AC-DC converters, this work is aimed to investigate the performance of a basic H bridge configuration out of these converters to demonstrate the improved power quality and fast response capability of these bidirectional AC-DC boost converters. II. CIRCUIT CONFIGURATIONS AC-DC bidirectional boost converters are developed in number of circuit configurations for different power ratings and to meet other performance requirements of applications of bidirectional power flow in addition to improved power quality at input AC mains in terms of high power- factor and low THD with well regulated output DC voltage. Some of their applications are battery charging and discharging in line interactive UPS [11,14,16,25,33], battery energy storage systems (BESS), transport application such as metro and traction, ASDs in hoist cranes [5,37,38,40-45]. These converters are also used for utility interface with nonconventional energy sources such as PVs, winds etc. [9]. These are classified here into two types namely simple bridge 712 NATIONAL POWER SYSTEMS CONFERENCE, NPSC 2002 and multilevel configurations as shown in Figs 1-2. Starting from basic topology, the other circuits are evolved to enhance their performance. Primitive topologies are PWM based voltage source inverter with an input AC filter inductor and output energy storage capacitor. Fig 1a shows a half bridge bidirectional boost converter normally used in small power rating with one leg of H-bridge and it is controlled in PWM mode for desired power output. Fig 1b shows classical H-bridge AC-DC converter normally controlled in unipolar PWM mode for reduced size of AC inductor with double frequency ripples. Concept of DC link ripple reduction is also investigated using third active arm as shown in Figs 1c-1d to improve their performance and reducing the need of energy storage capacitor at DC link. Another types of bidirectional boost converters are multilevel converter as shown in Fig 2. These converters offer the advantages of low voltage stress on the switches, reduced losses at reduced switching frequency for same level of performance in terms of reduced harmonics and high power-factor at input AC mains and regulated ripple free DC output voltage at varying loads. These are classified on the number of levels starting from three levels as shown in Fig 2a. These are further classified as diode clamped (Fig 2b), flying capacitor (Fig 2c) and cascaded (Fig 2d) multilevel bi -directional AC -DC converters. These converters are developed for higher number of levels for high voltage and high power applications. It has been reported that the AC mains current THD can be reduced below one percent without using PWM control [ ]. Stepped voltage waveform generated by multilevel converters avoids higher order harmonics, reduces switch losses and stress on switching devices and these are most suitable for high power and high voltage applications. In this paper, a basic H-bridge topology of these converters (Fig 1b) is modelled and simulated to demonstrate its enhanced performance in terms of power quality at input AC mains and output DC loads. III. CONTROL STRATEGY Fig.3 shows the block diagram of overall control scheme for H-bridge, AC-DC converter (Fig. 1b). The sensed DC voltage of the converter is compared with set reference value in the error detector. The voltage error is processed in the PI (proportional-integral) controller. Its output is limited to the maximum permissible value. This output of the voltage controller is taken as amplitude of AC mains current. The unit vector in phase with supply voltage is achieved using sensed AC voltage. The output of PI controller is multiplied to unit vector to generate reference sinusoidal supply current in phase with supply voltage for the unity power factor of the AC mains. This reference supply current is compared with sensed AC current in current controller. This current error is amplified in current controller and output of the current amplifier is compared with triangular carrier wave to generate gating signals for the H-bridge VSC. The unipolar control scheme is used to reduce the harmonics in PWM AC voltage of the VSC. IV. MODELING The proposed H bridge AC-DC bidirectional boost converter is comprised of the voltage controller, current controller, Hbridge VSC with DC bus having capacitor in parallel with DC load. All parts are modeled separately and then joined together in order to simulate the performance of AC-DC converter. A. Voltage Controller P-I (proportional-integral) controller is used to regulate the DC bus vo ltage of the AC-DC converter. The DC bus voltage vdc is sensed using a voltage sensor and compared with sensed DC reference voltage (vdc* ). The resulting voltage error ve(n) at nth sampling instant is expressed as: (1) ve(n) = vdc* - vdc The output of the PI voltage controller vo(n) at the nth sampling instant is expressed as: vo(n)=vo(n-1) +Kp {ve(n) -ve(n-1) }+Ki{ve(n)} (2) Where Kp and Ki are proportional and integral gain constants of the voltage controller. vo(n) and ve(n-1) are the output of the controller and voltage error at the (n-1) th sampling instant. This output of the voltage controller, vo(n) is limited to safe permissible value and resulting limited output is taken as amplitude of the AC mains current, Ism* . B. Reference AC Mains Current From sensed AC mains voltage (Vsm Sin wt), a unit vector template is estimated by computing its amplitude. The unit vector is estimated as: u(t)= vs/Vsm =Sin wt (3) This unit vector is multiplied to an estimated amplitude of AC mains current Ism * . The resulting signal is taken as reference AC mains current as: is* =Ism * u(t)=Ism* Sin wt (4) C. Current Controller The carrier based PWM current controller contributes the switching pattern of the H bridge devices. The current error in reference and sensed AC mains currents (is* -is) is amplified and amplified output is compared with carrier triangular wave to generate gating signals of the devices. The PWM input voltage of the VSI is expressed as: va=vdc (SA-SB) (5) Where, SA and SB are the switching functions stating the ON/OFF status of the IGBTs. If SA is one it means upper device of the left arm of H-bridge is on. If SA is zero then lower device of the left arm of H-bridge is on. Similarly if SB is one it means upper device of the right arm of H-bridge is on. If SB is zero then lower device of the right arm of Hbridge is on. However, either IGBT or paralleled diode will conduct depending upon the polarity of the AC mains current. D. H Bridge VS Converter The H-bridge AC-DC converter is modeled in terms of its two basic equations on AC as well as DC side. The AC side volt-ampere equation is as follows: Rs is +Ls pi s +va = vs (6) Where is is AC mains current. vs and va are the AC mains voltage and PWM voltage of H bridge input, respectively. Rs INDIAN INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY, KHARAGPUR 721302, DECEMBER 27-29, 2002 and Ls are the resistance and inductance of the input AC reactor. The “p” is a time derivative operator (d/dt). The eqn.(6) may be written as state space equation as: p is = (vs-va-Rs is)/Ls (7) Similarly, DC side basic electrical equation may be written as: p vdc= (i dc-iL)/Cdc (8) Where vdc is the DC bus voltage across DC capacitor C dc. The charging current idc and DC load current iL can be expressed as: idc = i s (SA-SB) (9) iL= vdc/RL (10) Where RL is load resistance at the DC bus. The set of first order differential equations given in (7) and (8) governs the dynamic model of the AC-DC converter system. These equations are solved along with other equations using fourth order Runge-Kutta method to analyze dynamic and steady state behavior of the proposed AC-DC converter. A standard FFT package is used to compute harmonic spectrum and THD of the AC mains current. VII. REFERENCES [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] V. PERFORMANCE OF AC-DC CONVERTER SYSTEM [10] The performance characteristics of proposed H-bridge ACDC converter are shown in Figs. 4-5. Fig. 4 shows the harmonic spectrum of input AC mains current of H bridge AC-DC converter excluding fundamental component of it. The proposed control scheme is able to reduce harmonic level in AC current well below specified in IEEE-519 standard and THD of it is only less than 1%. Fig. 5 shows steady state and dynamic performance of proposed AC-DC converter for sudden application and removal of DC load. The AC mains current remains sinusoidal under steady state and dynamic operating conditions. A small dip in DC bus voltage at load application and a small rise in its value at removal of load are observed which recover to reference value within few cycles of AC mains. The DC bus voltage can be recovered at the faster rate by tuning the parameters of PI voltage controller but at the cost of transients in AC mains current. Therefore, a compromise is made between dynamics of DC bus voltage and smooth variation in AC mains current in selecting the parameters of PI voltage controller. [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] VI. CONCLUSIONS A brief review of single-phase bidirectional AC -DC boost converters has been made and few circuit configurations of these converters are presented with a view of selecting a right topology for a specific application. Performance analysis of a basic H bridge topology of boost AC-DC bi-directional converter has been carried out to demonstrate its improved power quality at input AC mains and DC output. 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INDIAN INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY, KHARAGPUR 721302, DECEMBER 27-29, 2002 715 idc Cd1 vs is Ls Load v dc Cd2 Fig. 2b Bi-directional Diode Clamped Three Level Converter. idc vs is Ls Cd Load vdc Fig. 4 Harmonic Spectrum of Input Current Drawn by HBridge Converter (neglecting fundamental harmonic) 20 0 Fig.2c Bi-directional Flying Capacitor Clamped Three Level Converter. -20 Input Current 0 500 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0 idc C d1 is -500 Input Voltage 0 410 400 390 0 Output Voltage vs vdc Load Time Fig. 5 Dynamic Performance of H-Bridge Converter. C d2 Fig. 2d Bidirectional Cascaded Five Level Converter. SWITCHING SIGNAL vdc* ve * PI Controller * Is is m vdc* ? iL PWM u(t) vdc c Vd iL Current Estimation Fig3 Control Block of AC-DC Converter System