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A PWM CURRENT AMPLIFIER FOR TESTING PROTECTIVE RELAY

K.S. Ling, A.M. Gole Electrical and Computer Engineering University of Manitoba
Wdpeg,MB

R. Wachal P.G. McLaren Center for Advanced Power Systems Manitoba HVDC Research Centre Florida State University Winnipeg, MB Tallahassee, FL
purpose. Although a high fidelity output and a wide bandwidth can often be guaranteed, it is well known that analog designs suffer from low power efficiency. Cons'equently, the output power rating of these analog amplifiers is limited by the losses, and a significant amount of weight and size of the amplifiers has to be used to dissipate these losses. On the other hand, with the advent of high performance switching algorithms and semiconductor components, it is possible to develop a power electronics based switching amplifier that will offer the advantages of better efficiency, lighter weight, and higher power rating as compared to its analog counterpart. The capability of the digtal simulators will be enhanced substantially with the use of such an amplifier, because realistic currents and voltages can be used for testing the actual equipment. In addition, it would be more convenient for field testing because of the reduced weight and increased portability of the switching amplifier. A current amplifier with high output current is significantly more difficult to build than a voltage amp1ifier, and there are few commercially available products of such amplifier suitable for protection relay testing. This paper presents the implementation of a high current amplifier which uses fast MOSFET switches.

Abstract
Digital Simulator Systems used for protective relay testing require power conditioning amplijiers to interface their D/A outputs to apparatus under test. This paper describes a feasible design approach f o r the current amplijer utilizing a PWM (Pulse Width Modulated) switching method. With the use of a double hysteresis band control scheme and an active compensation technique, it is demonstrated that a highly eficient switching amplijer with a good quality output waveform can be developed. This can be a promising replacement for a comentional analog current amplfler used in the applications of relay testing.

Keyword: Relay Testing; P W ; CumentAmpl$el:

1. BACKGROUND

1.1 Digital Simulators for Relay Testing and the Need for Power Conditioning Amplifiers
Today's protective relays require a higher performance n terms of selectivity and decision time. Therefore, level i the behavior of a modem day protective relay needs to be tested and evaluated in greater detail. Real-time digital simulator systems play an important role in achieving these objectives[ 1-31. If a real-time digital simulator is too expensive, a cheaper alternative is a playback system in which the result from an off-line simulation can be converted to analog form and replayed to the relay under test. Although these simulators offer an economical and flexible way to test power protection systems, they require external power conditioning amplifiers to faithfully convert the D/A output signals to the actual current and voltage level in the secondary of a CT (Current Transformer) and a PT (Potential Transformer) respectively. Traditionally, analog amplifiers have been used for thls

1.2 Characteristics and Performance Requirements of the Current Amplifier


At the output stage of the digital simulator systems used for protective relay testing, the function of a current amplifier is to convert the voltage signal generated by thew systems and apply it in the form of a current source to the protective relay under test. Before starting the design process, the characteristics and the performance requirements of the current amplifier have to be identified as listed below: The current amplifier receives a signal generated by the D/A converter in the simulator in the range of

Proceedings of the 2002 IEEE Canadian Conferenc on Electrical k Computer Engineering


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several volts. The amplifier is required to translate the voltage value to the appropriate output current value with a certain conversion factor. The frequency response of the amplifier should be based on the D/A converter time step. For example, with a time step of 5 h s , a bandwidth of DC to 10 kHz is required. The types of protective relays targeted are static (numerical and electronics) relays, which have an extremely low impedance burden in comparison to a mechanical relay. Since the simulators can be used for real-time testing such as a closed loop or an end-to-end test, the phase shift and time delay of the amplifier has to be as small as possible to prevent any testing error. The nominal continuous current rating of a relay is typically 1A or 5A. For a short duration, when a fault occurs, a large current in the range of up to lOOA must be generated in order to realistically simulate the fault conditions. To prevent unintentional pickup of the relay due to a poor quality or contaminated waveform generated by the amplifier, the noise, distortion, and error produced by the amplifier have to be kept to a minimum level. The amplifier must have a stable performance within its operating range and produce a regulated output in case of any changes in the load or supply voltage. Finally, the developed amplifier should have sufficient portability for ease of relay testing in situ.

current falls below the lower threshold of the hysteresis band, the top switch of the converter will be turned on. A positive voltage will be applied across the load and the inductor, forcing the current to rise. Conversely, if the load current exceeds the upper threshold, the bottom switch will be turned on, and a negative voltage will force the current to drop.

Upper Threshold

F
(4

Fig. 1 Simple current controller (a) Voltage source converter topology (b) Current reference pulse width modulation
Based on the circuit of Fig. I(a), an equation for the rate of rise of the current can be derived. Note that depending on the state of the switches, V could either be E or -E.

_d- V - I x Rload
dt

2. PWM CURRENT AMPLIFIER


2.1. Introduction: Current Control with a Voltage Source Converter
One of the most widely used voltage source converter topologies is illustrated in Fig. l(a). The converter consists of two switches, a bipolar voltage source, and a smoothing inductor. By controlling the conduction state of the two switches, a user defined current or voltage waveform can be produced at the output of the converter. Numerous PWM (Pulse Width Modulated) switching techniques are available on controlling the voltage source converter to handle a variety of applications [4-51. Nonetheless, for an application requiring a small phase shift and time delay, a CWWM (Current Reference Pulse Width Modulation) technique, which offers the advantages of robust performance and fast transient response, can be utilized. The principle of the CWWM technique is illustrated in Fig. 1(b). A hysteresis band is fiist defined and imposed on an input reference signal. Then the input reference signal is compared with the measured load current. If the load

For the current to be able to follow the movement of the input reference signal, its slew rate has to be much higher than the maximum slew rate of the reference signal as shown in Eq. 2:
dl ))Ax61 dt

where A is the amplitude and w is the maximum frequency of the reference waveform. A CRPWM simulation example is presented in Fig. 2. It is clearly demonstrated that by tracking the movement of the input signal while confining the error within a given boundary, the goal of a fast response current control can be readily achieved. Nevertheless, it is still impractical to apply the switching concept in a current amplifier design because of two crucial problems. Firstly, as seen from the simulation results, for the converter to possess a frequency response of DC to several kHz, while having a reasonably small magnitude of current error, the switching frequency u r n will create problems will have to be very high. This in t with switching losses, electromagnetic interference, and control difficulties due to the limited speed of the switches. Secondly, the switching ripple should be reduced to acceptable values across the burden under test.

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Although a two level voltage source converter is efficient in current control, the shortcomingsof switching ripple and limited frequency bandwidth have impeded its implementation as a promising option in current amplifier design. To rectify these problems, a three level switching method combined with an active compensation technique is used, as presented in the following sections.
Current(A)

eliminate the switching ripples will be dmcussed. Finally, some hardware issues in realizing the current amplifier design will be addressed.

Input Reference Signal

30
20

10
0

-10

-20

-30
40

m+)
ActualCurrent 024
I

Fig. 3 A full bridge voltage source converter


2.2.1. Full bridge topology. A full bridge (or H-bridge) circuit is illustrated in Fig. 3. The configuration consists of

20
0

-20

-40.
\ ,

30

Input Reference S l p l

.^ , w

Actual Current
I

0.bol

@)

0.002

0.G63

Fig. 2 CRPWM simulated waveforms at (a) 30A 60Hz (b) 30A


lOO0Hz

four MOSFETswitches, an input side filter ( L b .Cin) used to remove the switching ripple from entering into the power source, and an outpiit smoothing inductor (L). Unlike a bipolar topology, a full bridge configuration requires only a single voltage source, and is capable of delivering a zero voltage level to the output, in addition to a positive and negative voltage level. The operation of the circtdt is explained with Fig 3. Assuming that current is flowing in the direction of the arrow, if sl and s4 are both turned on, a positive voltage will appear across the inductor L and the load, thus causing the current to increase. On the other hand, if s2 and s3 are turned on, a negative voltage will force the current to decrease. In this case, the rate of rise of the current is given in Eq. 1. Finally, if either sl and s2 or s3 and s4 are turned on, the load and the inductor will be connected to a common potential, and the current flow in the circuit, if there is any, will decay naturally to zero accordmg to the following rate:

2.2. Design of a Full Bridge PWM Current Amplifier with Active Compensation
As indicated in the previous section, to comply with the performance requirements of a current amplifier design, the inherent problems of limited bandwidth and switching ripple found in a conventional switching converter have to be dealt with. To solve the problems, a three level voltage source converter utilizing full bridge configuration with a novel control technique is introduced. By using this control scheme, it will be shown that the switching loss of the converter can be reduced substantially.Following that, an effective filtering and compensation technique used to

The pattems of the switching sequence are summarized in table 1. Note that a cert,ain dead time is required in between the transitions in order to prevent the short circuit of die dc voltage supply. It can be observed from the table that for the state change between the zero and positive or zero and negative voltage level, only two switches are involved in the corrunutating process, as opposed to all four switches for a state change between the positive and negative voltage level. a s implies that the switching loss will be reduced sigruficantly if the zero voltage level can be incorporated into1 the conventional two level switching scheme. This is where a three level control scheme will come in. With the

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implementation of such control scheme, not only can a reduction in switching loss be guaranteed, but also an outstanding harmonics performance can be achieved [6]. Table 1 : Switching pattems
Voltage Level From Positive Negative Zero State of the Switches

To
Zero Zero

I s2 off, s3 on
Positive Negative Negative Positive

s3,s4 on

I IZero
Positive

s2, s3 on

1 Negative

current
f-

Reference

Fig. 4 Three Level Current Controller (a) Double Hysteresis Band (b) Lower band operation (c) Upper band operation 2.2.2 Control Strategy. To effectively control the three level switching converter, a novel control technique based on the double hysteresis band scheme discussed in [7-81 was developed. The advantages of this control technique are that switching frequency is reduced, and a fast transient response and robust performance can be achieved. The

controller is relatively insensitive to noise and signals of small magnitude, and unwanted switching induced by these disturbances can therefore be avoided In Fig. 4(a), an equidistant double hysteresis band is defined above and below an input reference signal. As in the CRPWM scheme, the objective of this technique is to keep the load current confined within the pre-defined bands. The upper band in this case will control the transitions between the positive and zero voltage level, whereas the lower band will be responsible for the transition between the zero and negative voltage level. At any instance, only one band is active, and the condition for switching band happens only when the current at zero voltage level crosses the outermost threshold of the inactive band. A graphical explanation of the process is presented in Fig. 4(b) and 4(c). Starting from the lower band and a positive voltage level, if the measured load current reaches the upper threshold of the band, a change of the voltage level to zero will commence immediately. Two possible outcomes would then happen to the current trajectory. In the first scenario, the load current will be diverted towards the lower threshold of the lower band. When the current falls below the threshold, the positive voltage level will again be applied to the output, thus causing the current to rise and move toward the upper threshold. In the second scenario, the load current will continue to move toward the inactive upper band. As soon as the current crosses the upper band's upper threshold, the active band will be switched from the lower to the upper band, and a negative voltage level will be applied to the output, thus forcing the current to drop and move away from the upper threshold. The operating principle for the upper band is similar to that of the lower band, and graphically is presented in Fig. 4(c). The simulation examples for the control scheme are presented i n Fig 5 . In the first simulation, it is demonstrated that given the same hysteresis band width, the three level scheme clearly outperforms the two level scheme with a significantly reduced switching frequency. In the second simulation, it is shown that for a small magnitude input signal with the frequency swept from 5kHz to SOkHz, the controller will remain relatively unaffected and will continue to switch at a relatively low frequency.

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-40 1 0

v +

0005

0010

0015

0020

0025

0030

(4
Current@) 14
8

be(4

filterkompensator,as shown in Fig. 6 , which improves the current waveform by removing additional switching ripple and a-ror due to the three level control scheme. The effectiveness of the active filter and compensation control scheme is clearly demonstrated in the simulation results illustrated in Fig. 7. The switching current shown is the product of the PWh4 switching and has a large amount of switching ripple. The filteredfcompensated current (labelled actual current), however, is essentially indistinguishable from the desired Reference Current waveform. Thus, with the advantages of smaller size and high (efficiency,and a good performance in terms of ripple contents, frequency response, and accuracy, the power electronics based converter clearly presents itself as an attractive alternative to the conventional analog approach for providing current amplification in protective relay testing applications.

Actual Current

2
1s

-4
0

0004

0008

0004

0008 tme(s)

Fig.5 Simulated waveforms with both two and three level schemes (a) at 30A 60Hz (b)at 1A with frequency swept from
S k H z to SokHz and dc offset of 1 O A and O A respectively

CO)

2.2.3. Filtering and compensation. Even though the switching loss in a three level scheme has been greatly reduced, another problem arises because the frequency of the switchmg ripple is now shifted back into the operating bandwidth of the amplifier. Therefore, in order to provide a low distortion waveform for testing purposes, the switching ripple contained in the output current waveform has to be eliminated. However, the design of a low pass filter has become a complicated task because the noise and the output waveform share a common frequency band. Furthermore, since the amplifier has very low load impedance, it would be difficult to filter the ripple using any LCR low pass filter. These filters are lossy, and undesired phase shift and distortionwill be introduced into the output waveform should such a filter be used Moreover, with the use of the double hysteresis band technique, a small magnitude signal can no longer be properly represented and amplified. The average value of the output current becomes unbalanced due to the separation of the two hysteresis bands. To create an accurate output waveform, these errors have to be accounted for and compensated. This is achieved by using a specially designed active

Current =

output
Input

Reference

I
full bridge converter

time

Fig. 6 Incorporation of filtering, and compensation amplifier in a


2.2.4 Hardware considerations. As specified in section

1.2, the dynamic range of the: current amplifier output for a relqy testing application can go well beyond 100A. Hence, when working on the design and implementation of the switching converter hardware, the most important issue lies in the effectiveness of generating, managing and delivering such a high currertt to the relay input. Starting at the power supply, the voltage source should be capable of supplying a sufficient amount of power and voltage to the converter when it is delivering maximum current at full load. Because high current testing is only conducted for a short duration, it would not be economical

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and practical to use a high power rated voltage source in the converter. Instead, it would be better to use an energy storage capacitor to supply the necessary high surge power, in conjunction with a low power rated switchmode voltage source to supply the required power during the normal operation of the converter and charging of the capacitor. In this way, the size of the power supply will be greatly reduced while meeting the power requirements of the amplifier. In addition, with the use of the high capacity capacitor, together with an input inductor filter, the noise created from the switching actions of the converter will be more effectively suppressed from entering into the power source.

windmg loss, and low magnetic interference. Finally, to ensure a maximum power level can be transferred from the converter to the relay input, the transmission path has to be as short as possible, and a low impedance transmission medium such as coaxial cable or twisted pair should be used.

3. CONCLUSION
In this paper, a promising approach of constructing a current amplifier for protection testing has been presented. Detailed simulationsplay an important part in the design of the amplifier. It is demonstrated from the simulation results that, by using a three level control scheme and active compensation technique, an output current waveform comparable to the kind of waveform quality generated with a conventional analog amplifier can be produced with high efficiency.

References
[ 1lP.G. McLaren, R. Kuffel, R. Wierckx, J. Giesbrecht, and L. Arendt, A real time digital simulator for testing relays, IEEE Trans. onPowerDelivery, v 7, n 1, pp. 207-213, Jan 1992.
Current (A) .,
11.5

10.8
10.1
9.4

[2]R. Kuffel, J. Giesbrecht, T. Maguire, R.P. Wierckx, P.A. Forsyth, and P.G. McLaren, Fully digital real-time simulator for protective relay testing, Pmc. o f the 1997 6thInt.1Con$ on Dev. in Power System Protection, pp. 147-150, Mar 1997. [3]D. Jakominich, R. Krebs, D. Retzmann, and A. Kumar, Real time digital power system simulator design considerations and relay performance evaluation,ICDS95,pp. 117-122,Apr 1995. [4]L. Malesani, P. Tomasin, PWM current control techniques of voltage source converters - a survey, IECON Proceedings,v. 2, pp. 670-675, NOV1993. [5]M.P. Kazmierkowski, L. Malesani, Current control techniques for three-phase voltage-source PWM converters:A survey, IEEETrans.on InhtriaI Elecfronics,v. 45, n. 5 , pp. 691-703, Oct. 1998. [6] E.Gaio, R.Piovan, and L.Malesani, Evaluation of current control methods for voltage source inverters, Int. Con$ on Elec. Mach. ( E a Pisa, ) . pp.345-350, Sept.1988. [7]G.H. Bode, D.G. Holmes, Implementation of three level hysteresis current control for a single phase voltage source inverter, PEYC 2000, vol. 1, pp. 33-38,2000. [8]M. Lafoz,I.J. Iglesias, C. Veganzones, M. Visiers, Novel double hysteresis-band current control for a three-level Voltage Source Inverter, PEW 2000, vol. 1, pp. 21-26,2000,

8.7
8

0,00175

(b)

0.0035

time($

Fig. 7 Simulation results with active compensation at (a)30A


60Hz (b)lA 5000Hz with dc offset of 1OA

On the other hand, in order to further increase the efficiency of the converter, it is essential to improve the performance of the switches used to control the flow of the current. For example, by paralleling the switches and positioning the switches and the voltage source as close as possible to minimize the resistive losses and the effects of parasitic inductance. Furthermore, a snubber circuit should be designed and implemented in order to reduce the losses and the stress exerted on the switches when switching at high current. Because of the high output current in the converter, and in order to deliver an efficient and reliable performance, the design of the smoothing inductor should be based on three criteria: high saturation current rating, minimal

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