To improve the power quality of a multi-pulse rectifier, a zigzag 18-pulse uncontrolled rectifier with an auxiliary circuit at the DC side is proposed. When the grid-side currents are sinusoidal waves, the required DC side injection currents to be compensated can be obtained by analyzing the AC-DC side relationship of diode bridge rectifiers. Then the 6 compensation currents generated by an active auxiliary circuit are injected into the DC side to eliminate the grid-side harmonics of the rectifier. The simulation results verifying the correctness of the theoretical analysis show that the proposed rectifier can mitigate the harmonic content, as the total harmonic distortion of the grid-side current is about 1.45%. In addition, the single-phase inverter used in the active auxiliary circuit has the characters of simple circuit structure and easy controllability.

This paper deals with real-time (RT) simulators applied in power electronic applications and implemented in a real inverter. The process of preparing and starting up an active rectifier prototype (with an active filter function), using the real-time OPAL RT simulator is given. The control system of the converter and the results of simulation using the Matlab/Simulink suite are discussed.

The existence of inrush current poses a significant problem during the start-up process within three-phase voltage-source rectifiers. To address this problem, this study proposes a strategy to suppress the inrush current effectively based on the virtual-resistor- control method, while preventing the increase in cost of the system and complexity of the algorithm. First, a mathematical model is established based on the dq coordinate frame, and the primary cause of the inrush current is analyzed. Then, the design process of the virtual-resistor-control method is detailed. Finally, the accuracy and effectiveness of the proposed method are verified by simulations and experiments. The results show that the inrush current can be more than two times the rated current before the addition of the virtual resistor. The start-up process can be realized without the inrush current after the addition of the virtual resistor, it does not need to increase hardware costs, there is no secondary inrush current, and the sensitivity of the parameters and the complexity of control are low.

Current source inverters (CSI) is one of the widely used converter topology in medium voltage drive applications due to its simplicity, motor friendly waveforms and reliable short circuit protection. The current source inverters are usually fed by controlled current source rectifiers (CSR) with a large inductor to provide a constant supply current. A generalized control applicable for both CSI and CSR and their extension namely current source multilevel inverters (CSMLI) are dealt in this paper. As space vector pulse width modulation (SVPWM) features the advantages of flexible control, faster dynamic response, better DC utilization and easy digital implementation it is considered for this work. This paper generalizes SVPWM that could be applied for CSI, CSR and CSMLI. The intense computation involved in framing a generalized space vector control are discussed in detail. The algorithm includes determination of band, region, subregions and vectors. The algorithm is validated by simulation using MATLAB /SIMULINK for CSR 5, 7, 13 level CSMLI and for CSR fed CSI.

Afault diagnosis method for the rotating rectifier of a brushless three-phase synchronous aerospace generator is proposed in this article. The proposed diagnostic system includes three steps: data acquisition, feature extraction and fault diagnosis. Based on a dynamic Fast Fourier Transform (FFT), this method processes the output voltages of aerospace generator continuously and monitors the continuous change trend of the main frequency in the spectrum before and after the fault. The trend can be used to perform fault diagnosis task. The fault features of the rotating rectifier proposed in this paper can quickly and effectively distinguish single and double faulty diodes. In order to verify the proposed diagnosis system, simulation and practical experiments are carried out in this paper, and good results can be achieved.

This paper presents an improved Virtual Flux-based Direct Power Control (VF-DPC) applied for a three-phase pulse width modulation rectifier. The proposed control approach incorporates an enhanced Virtual Flux estimator made up of a cascade second-degree low-pass filter. This latter guarantees the attenuation of the highest harmonics. The introduced control concept presented in this paper has interesting features such as reducing the current harmonics distortion. In other words, it ensures that the input current drawn from the power supply is perfectly sinusoidal whatever the state of the network voltage. The proposed method also allows to maintain the DC side capacitor voltage at the required level and assure that the input current is in phase with the respective voltage to satisfy the unity power factor function. The results obtained from the numerical simulation have proved the effectiveness of the proposed method for disturbed grid voltage and system parameters variation.

The paper presents a concept of a control system for a high-frequency three-phase PWM grid-tied converter (3x400 V / 50 Hz) that performs functions of a 10-kW DC power supply with voltage range of 600÷800 V and of a reactive power compensator. Simulation tests (in PLECS) allowed proper selection of semiconductor switches between fast IGBTs and silicon carbide MOSFETs. As the main criterion minimum amount of power losses in semiconductor devices was adopted. Switching frequency of at least 40 kHz was used with the aim of minimizing size of passive filters (chokes, capacitors) both on the AC side and on the DC side. Simulation results have been confirmed in experimental studies of the PWM converter, the power factor of which (inductive and capacitive) could be regulated in range from 0.7 to 1.0 with THDi of line currents below 5% and energy efficiency of approximately 98.5%. The control system was implemented in Texas Instruments TMS320F28377S microcontroller.

Due to high performance demands of grid-connected pulse-width modulation (PWM) converters in power applications, backstepping control (BSC) has drawn wide research interest for its advantages, including high robustness against parametric variations and external disturbances. In order to guarantee these advantages while providing high static and dynamic responses, in this work, a robust BSC (RBSC) with consideration of grid-connected PWM converter parameter uncertainties is proposed for three-phase grid-connected four-leg voltage source rectifiers (GC-FLVSR). The proposed RBSC for GC-FLVSR is composed of four independent controllers based on the Lyabonov theory that control DC bus voltage and input currents simultaneously. As a result, unit power factor, stable DC-bus voltage, sinusoidal four-leg rectifier input currents with lower harmonics and zero-sequence (ZS), and natural currents can be accurately achieved. Furthermore, the stability and robustness against load, DC capacitor, and filter inductance variations can be tested. The effectiveness and superiority of the proposed RBSC compared to the PI control (PIC) have been validated by processor-inthe- loop (PIL) co-simulation using the STM32F407 discovery-development-board as an experimental study.