A CURRENT CONTROL METHOD for PHASE-CONTROLLED RECTIFIER

THAT HAS AN LCL FILTER

Burhanuddin Halimi' and Pekik Argo Dahono*

Department of Electrical Engineering

Bandung Institute of Technology
J1. Ganesa No. 10, Bandung 40132
'
Telp. 62-22-25033 16 Fax. 62-22-2508132
'
burhan@konversi.ee.itb.ac.id
pekik@konversi.ee.itb.ac.id

-
Abstract A new current control method for three-
phase phase-eontrolled thyristor rectifier that has
an LCL filter is proposed in this paper. The
proposed method is based on state feedback and
tracking system. By using this method, the load
current can be controlled with a minimum sensor
and the load current state can track the reference
well. Experimental results are included to verify the
proposed method.
environmental constrains, such as high temperature,
wet condition, long distance between the rectifier and
load, placing the current sensor on the load side is
impractical. In the proposed method, the current sensor
is placed directly on the output of the rectifier side
instead of on the load side. Because the sensor is placed
on the output of the rectifier, the effect of noise and
delay time on the control signal can be reduced.
Experimental results are included to show the validity
of the proposed current control method.

Index Term - Current control, observer, optimal 11. Filter .Analysis

control, tracking system
In this section, rectifier with an L filter and
rectifier with an LCL filter are analyzed. The analysis
I. Introduction refers to Fig. 1. In this analysis, it is assumed that the
load is resistive.
In some rectifier applications, such as in the
electrochemical industries and magnet power supplies,
a rectifier is usually operated as a dc current source
with very low ripple requirement [11-[6]. Because an L
filter which meets this requirement can become very
large and impractical, it is often desirable to use a high-
order filter, such as an LCL filter [2]-[7].
Unfortunately, a high-order filter can make the system
-
T u
unstable if improperly designed [SI. Various current Rectifier L Filter
control methods for three-phase phase-controlled
thyristor rectifiers were published [9]-[ 101. These
methods are usually concentrated on how to design the
PI current controller
In this paper, a new current control method for
three-phase phase-controlled thyristor rectifier that has
an LCL filter is proposed. The proposed method is
based on state feedback. In state feedback, there are
some variables that have to be measured. Hence, it
needs sensors as many as the state variables that are
measured. Therefore, it can make the reliability of the
system decrease. To solve this problem, the proposed
method uses an observer to observe the unmeasured (b)
states. By using an observer, the load current can be
controlled with a minimum sensor, i.e. just one current Fig. 1 Rectifier with (a) an L filter
sensor. In some specific applications, due to some (b) an LCL filter

0-7803-7233-6/01/$10.00 02001 IEEE. 20

The output voltage of the rectifier in Fig. l(a) can be that the outer LC filter give up to 1SO" additional phase
written as : delay in the system transfer function, and it often give
dio rise to stability problems.
v, = rf io + L -+ RLio Fig. 3 shows the load current ripple of the system
dt with an L filter and with an LCL filter. By using the
where same energy storage in the filter, the load current ripple
r/ : resistance of the filter inductor of the systm with an LCL filter is better than of the
Lf : inductance of the filter inductor system with an L filter.
i0 : load current
v, : output voltage of the rectifier
RL : resistance of the load
If the current is separated into the average and ripple
- -
component, i.e. io = io + io, (1) can be written as :

v, = r f ( t + s ) + L f$ ( ~ o + ~ ) + R L b + ~ )

At steady stale,the value of Lf -

di0
dt
is equal to zero.
Therefore, (2) can be witten as :
v, =F,+Lf -+(rf
di +RLk
dt (3)

where V, = (rf +R~ Fo.The 1 0 4 current ripple transfer

function can be obtained by using (3), i.e.:

-lo -
-- 1
(4)
kT I1111
111111
11111111
I 11111111
I 11111111
I 11111111
I 11111111
I I1111111
I
I
I
v, Lfs+(rf +RL) do - r i ~ ir- i~nnr-~iinnir-iiirin

j
I111111
where V, = v, - V, is the rectifier output voltage ripple. I I I I111

I I I1111
By using a similar manner, the load current ripple I I I1111
I I I1111
transfer function for the case of rectifier with an LCL J-ILIU

filter can be written as :

- -I I IIIII
I I OIII
I I 11111
-t run
I I I1111

-_- -
'0
1 I I I1111
..-+...++m,
I I I1111

v, LfLoCs3+ {LfC(ro+RL)+ LOGf)s2 +

I 11111111 I I1111111 I 11111111 I I I I1111

10' Id Id 10' 18
(5) Frequency (rad/sec)
{Lf +rfCko+ % ) + L o b + ( r f +ro +&I
where (b)
r/ : resistance of the fmt filter inductor
L, : inductance of the frst filter inductor Fig. 2 Bode plot of the load current ripple transfer
ro : resistance of the second filter inductor function
LO : inductance of the second filter inductor
C : capacitance of the filter capacitor
If the f d and the second inductor are identical (L, =
Lo = L and r / = ro = r),then (4)canbe witten as :

wimer,=2r+RL
The bode plots of load current ripple transfer
functions based on the same energy stored in the filter
are depicted in Fig. 2. Fig. 2 shows that an LCL filter
is better than an L filter on suppressing the high
frequency harmonics . Moreover, it means that to meet
the very low ripple requirement, the LCL filter is more
Fig. 3 Load current ripple ( 2ms/Div, lA/Div)
practical than the L filter. However, Fig. 2 (b) shows

21
 111. A Current Control Method For Phase- In control system design, first, it is assumed that
Controlled Rectifier That Has An LCL Filter all of states are observable. Therefore, the common
method of states feedback analysis can be used in this
There are two ways to place the current sensor in case.
current control for phase-controlled rectifier that having The system of Fig.4 can be expressed in state
an LCL filter, i.e. on the load side and on the output of space equation as :
rectifier side. In some specific applications, due to
some environmental constrains, such as high x = A,X+B,U+G,X~ (7)
temperature, wet condition, long distance between the
Y = c,x (8)
rectifier and load, placing of current sensor on the load
side is impractical. In these cases, placing of the current where U the output voltage rectifier v,.
sensor on the output of the rectifier side directly as
shown in Fig. 4(b) is more practical. Because the
sensor is placed on the output of the rectifier, the effect
of noise and delay time on the control signal can be
reduced.

x = [ iJ vc io 1' and x d = [ vo 3 are the state vector

and the disturbance vector, respectively.
t Where
iJ : output current of the rectifier
vc : voltage of the filter capacitor
VO : voltage of the load

In this system, we require that the state x track a

reference state x, To formulate this problem in term of
state variables, it is expedient to assume that xd and x,
satisfy following equation:

i d = AdXd (9)
xr = A J , (10)

I--
For this case, the state reference is a step reference. So,
matrices Ad and A, are equal to zero. At steady state the
currents on the all of inductors are equal. Therefore, the
current reference IR,f.can be used as state reference on
i, and io.
The error can be defined as

e=x-x,

By using (7) and (lo), it can be obtain :

e=f-f, =A,e+Ex,+B,u

where
(b)
E=[A,-A, f G ]
Fig. 4 Schemes of load current control methods
(a) without and (b) with proposed method. and

22
Now, the system can be expressed as :
X = Ax +Bu
y = Ce = Cx
where
lo 01
In control system design, the problem is to determine
the gain matrix K in a associated feedback law
One of methods that can be used to solve this problem
is quadratic optimum control method. In this method,
an appropriate performance integral is used to obtain
the optimum gain matrix. The performance is expressed
the integral of quadratic form, i.e.,
For this case, it is desired that the error of all of state
variables is minimum. So, the weighting matrix is of
the form
By this performance, the normalized state feedback
gain K is given as
K = [K I K O ] (17)
where
K = k , K2 K3l (18)
K O =[K; K; K; i K d ] (19)
For the system under consideration, one of the
system states is measurable, i.e. the output current of
the rectifier is. Therefore, it must be designed an
observer to estimate the capacitor voltage vc , the load
current io, and the load voltage v,,.
The design of the observer can be based on (7).
Fig. 5 shows the scheme of the observer. In this case,
both of inductors are assumed to be identical Because
average output voltage of the rectifier has a linear
relationshipwith the output signal of the controller
23
I I
Fig. 5 Scheme of the observer
(input of the trigger circuit), the signal v, does not need
to be measured directly. Thus, only one current sensor
is required. The current sensor is used to measure the
first inductor current i, (output current of the rectifier).
The results of the observer are filter capacitor voltage,
load current, and. load voltage
IV.Experimental Results
In order to verify the proposed control method, a
small experimental system was constructed. A three-
phase thyristor bridge module was used as the rectifier.
The firing signals for the thyristors were generated by
using a dedicated firing signal generator that has a
linear relationship between the input signal and output
voltage of rectifier. The PI controller and the proposed
observer were implemented by using analog IC circuits.
These control circuits can be made simple if a powerful
microcontroller or DSP is used. The experimental data
is shown in the appendix. A variable resistor was used
as the load.
The experimental result of the load current control
without the proposed control method is shown in Fig.
6. The current sensor is placed on the load side. Fig.6
shows that the system overshoot is quite large when the
reference stepped-up and the system tends to diverge
when the reference stepped-down. A large oscillation
can be observed on the load current when the reference
is suddenly changed. The oscillation can only be
reduced by reducing the gain of PI controllers and,
therefore, the speed of current controller should be
reduced.
The experimental results of the proposed method
are shown in Fig. 7 and Fig. 8. Fig. 7 shows that when
a step reference is used, the proposed method can
improve the system response significantly. The output
current oscillation is significantly damped by the
proposed control method. Thus, the speed (bandwidth)
of current controller can be increased. For the case
when a ramp reference is used, the proposed method
can still maintain the load current to follow the current
reference very well such as shown in Fig. 8.
 OA

(a) Current reference (a) Current reference (1AiDiv.)

(b) Load current @) Load current (lA/Div.)

Fig 6 Experimental result without the proposed

controller. (Kp = 0.8, Ki = 0.6,40 ms/Div, lA/Div)

V. Conclusion
In this paper, a new current control method for
three-phase phase-controlled thyristor rectifier that has
an LCL filter has been proposed and verified by I . 1
experimental results. By using this method, the load
current can be controlled with minimum sensor, i.e. one
sensor that placed on the rectifier output directly. By
( c ) Capacitor voltage (lOV/Div.)
using the proposed control method, a large oscillation
on the LCL filter can be damped significantly. In this
method, the system load current state can track the
current reference very well. Accuracy of the proposed
I , - I
observer due to the inaccuracy of filter parameters is
under investigation. .

APPENDIX
Experimental data :
v !,10 l h = 60 Volt (d) Load voltage (10 V/Div.)
f =50Hz
L,= Lo = 38 mH Fig. 7 Experimental results of the proposed method
r / = r, = 0.5 ohm (Kp = 0.8, Ki = 0.6, ..uhns/Div.)
c = 1ooouF

24
 I I [8] Raymond B. Ridley, “Secondary LC Filter
Analysis and Design Techniques for Current-
Mode-Controlled Converter”, IEEE Transaction
on Power Electronics, vol. 3. No. 4, October 1988
[9] R. J. Hill, F. L. Luo, “Stability Analysis of

OA i Thyristor Current Controller”, IEEE Transaction

Industry Application, Vol. 1A-23 No. 4 January-
February 1987.
[ 101F. L. Luo and R. J. Hill, “Fast Response and
(a) Current reference (1 m i v ) Optimum Regulation in Digitally Controlled
Thyristor Converter”, IEEE Transaction Industry
I I Application, Vol. 22, No. 1, JanuaryFebruary
1986, pp. 10-17

(b) Load current (1Ndiv)

Fig. 8 Experimental result with the proposed method.

(Kp = 0.8, Ki = 0.6,40 ms/Div.)

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