Comparison of Current Control Techniques for

Single-phase Voltage-source PWM Rectifiers

Fen Li, Yunping Zou, Wei Chen, Jie Zhang
Power Electronics Center, College of Electrical & Electronics Engineering, Huazhong University of Science and Technology,
Wuhan, P.R.China
e-mail:lifen@smail.hust.edu.cn

Abstract -This paper presents two current control techniques

for single-phase voltage-source PWM rectifiers. The PI controller
is compared with the resonant controller. In addition, a
compensating method to eliminate input current distortion a C +
caused by supply voltage harmonics for the resonant control is Ls is uab
proposed. Finally, the differences in the performance of the two b
controllers in a single-phase PWM rectifier are investigated by us RL
simulations of MATLAB/SIMULINK.

I. INTRODUCTION Fig.1 Main circuit of the single-phase voltage-source PWM rectifier

In these years, with the broad research on PWM rectifiers,

they can realize operation with near sinusoidal current II. CURRENT CONTROL TECHNIQUES
waveforms with low harmonics distortion to network, Fig.1 shows the main circuit of the single-phase voltage-
controllable power factor (bi-directional power flow and any source PWM rectifier: is is input current, us is supply voltage,
active-reactive power combination), regulation of dc bus uab is modulated voltage, Ls is input inductor, R is inductor
voltage and high-speed dynamic response [1-3]. Consequently, resistance and RL is load resistance.
they are widely accepted in industry, such as high power In Fig.1, according to Kirchoffs voltage law, the
factor ac/dc converters instead of conventional diode rectifiers, mathematic model of single-phase voltage-source PWM
ac motor drives and active filters. rectifier can be written as (1).
Recently, control techniques of voltage-source PWM di
rectifiers are indirect and direct current control mainly [1-2] Ls s + Ris = us uab (1)
dt
[4-6]. Obviously, the performance of PWM rectifiers largely
From (1), we can see that in essence, the input current is is
depends on the quality of the applied current control strategy. controlled by adjusting the phase and amplitude of modulated
In this paper, two direct current control methods are
voltage uab.
considered. Also, evaluation rules of the applied current A. PI Controller
control are as follows:
Fig.2 shows the current loop based on PI controller of the
1) No steady-state phase and amplitude errors (precise single-phase PWM rectifier. Here, u* is the modulated voltage
tracking) [3],
reference.
2) Fast response to achieve good dynamic performance, Neglecting the delay of PWM Bridge, which is equal to a
3) Anti-interference ability (robustness)
linear system with unity gain, we can get that uab= u* (2)
The PI current controller has become a classical method for Hence, the transfer function from input current reference Is*
current control of PWM rectifiers in industry, which can
to its actual input current Is can be expressed as (3).
eliminate the steady-state control error of input current for
K 1
three-phase PWM rectifiers completely, with coordinate ( KP + i )
transformations of three-phase ac current to dc current. I ( s) s R + sLs
Gi (s) = * = (3)
However, for ac current of single-phase PWM rectifiers, this I ( s) K 1
1 ( KP + i )
result can not be realized. Because the PI controller can s R + sLs
eliminate the control error completely only for dc components
[2] [7]. A resonant controller is just suitable for ac current of + us
Is
the single-phase PWM rectifier to realize zero steady-state Is* PWM 1
Kp + Ki Bridge
control error, which has an infinite gain at the resonant s u* R+sLs
+ uab
frequency set at the fundamental frequency and is independent
of the circuit parameters [3][7]. Also, this paper proposes a
method to eliminate input current distortion caused by supply Fig.2 The system black diagram based on PI controller
voltage harmonics.

978-1-4244-1706-3/08/$25.00 2008 IEEE.

 When s=jwr , we can obtain the control characteristics at the
resonant frequency wr (6).
I ( j ) K2
Gi ( jr ) = * r = r r 2 = 1 (6)
I ( jr ) Krr

In the resonant controller, wr is set to the fundamental

frequency. From (6), we can see that in steady state, the
fundamental frequency components of ac input current
coincide exactly with its current reference in amplitude and
phase. That means there is no steady-state control error for the
fundamental frequency components of ac input current applied
resonant controller. In addition, we can find that Gi(jwr) is
Fig.3 Bode plot of Gi(s) unity, independent of the values of control parameters Kr, Kp,
and the circuit parameters R, Ls . In others words, the resonant
For ac components, there are inevitable control errors controller is not affected by these parameters variation and
in the PI controller.Fig.3 shows the bode plot of Gi(s). It enjoys good robustness.
From Fig.4, we can see that the supply voltage vs is the
is clear in Fig.3 that at the fundamental frequency 314 disturbed input of the current loop, which has an influence on
rad/sec, there is phase shift and amplitude attenuation. In tracking performance. Similarly, the transfer function Gv(s)
order to reduce current control error for the single-phase from the supply voltage Vs to its input current Is can be also
PWM rectifier, current loop based on PI controller with expressed as (7).
supply voltage feed forward was presented in [8].
B. Resonant Controller 1
Fig.4 shows the control block diagram based on a I ( s) R + sLs
Gv (s) = =
conventional resonant controller. The transfer function Gr(s) V (s) 1 (G (s) + K ) 1
of the resonant controller is given by i p
R + sLs (7)
Kr s2 + r 2
Gr (s) = (4) =
1 + (s / r )2 (R + sLs K p )(s2 + r 2 ) Krr 2
Where Kr is gain and wr is the resonant frequency.
According to (4), Gr(s) has infinite gain when s=jwr. When s=jwr , we can get that
Therefore the resonant frequency is set to the fundamental I ( jr ) 0
frequency of ac current (also the supply voltage). Gv ( jr ) = = =0 (8)
V ( jr ) Krr 2
In Fig.4, we can see there is an additional P controller Kp in
parallel with the resonant controller. It is used to increase
From (8), we can find that Gv(jwr) is 0, independent of the
phase margins in order to make the whole system stable. values of control parameters Kr, Kp, and the circuit parameters
From Fig.4 and (2), the transfer function Gi(s) from input R, Ls.
current reference Is* to its actual input current Is can be However, the supply voltage is not sinusoidal and contains
expressed as (5). harmonic components. When s=jwc , wc (harmonic frequency),
Gv(jwc) will be not equal to 0. Therefore, we need to find a
1
(Gi (s) + K p ) solution to eliminate the current distortion caused by supply
I ( s) R + sLs voltage harmonics. In [7], an additional resonant controller for
Gi (s) = * = specific harmonic voltage is used, but the supply voltage
I (s) 1 (G (s) + K ) 1
(5) contains different harmonic frequency components. If every
R + sLs
i p
harmonic frequency needs a matching resonant controller, the
K p (s2 + r 2 ) + Krr 2 whole control will be very complex. In this paper, a simple
= compensating method is proposed; supply voltage is fed
(R + sLs K p )(s 2 + r 2 ) Krr 2 forward in the current loop to eliminate the influence of
supply voltage in Fig.5.
Kp us
+ +
Is* Is Kp
Kr PWM 1
Is* + us Is
+ 1+(s/wr)2 Bridge R+sLs Kr + + PWM 1
+ u*
uab + 1+(s/wr)2 + Bridge R+sLs
u*
uab

Fig.4. The control block diagram based on a conventional resonant controller

Fig.5 An improved resonant controller with supply voltage feed forward
 III. SIMULATION RESULTS

In the paper, the single-phase voltage-source PWM rectifier

of Fig.1 is simulated by Matlab/Simulink to evaluate the
performance of the proposed current control techniques. Mail
circuit parameters are as follows: supply voltage 55V, supply
voltage frequency 50Hz (314rad/sec), switching frequency 10
kHz, input inductor 5mH with the resistance 0.3 , DC bus
capacitor 2350 F and the load resistance 80 . For PI
controller, Kp is 32 and Ki is 10. For resonant controller, Kp is
3, Kr is -3, and wr is 314 rad/sec.

Current (5A/div); Error (1A/div); Time (20ms/div)

(a)

Current (5A/div); Error (1A/div); Time (20ms/div)

Fig.6 Waves of input current based on PI controller with the supply voltage
feed forward at a sudden change in input current reference with sinusoidal (b)
supply voltage. Up is*, middle is and down control error

(c)
Current (5A/div); Error (1A/div); Time (20ms/div)
(a) Fig.8 Waves of input current based on resonant controller with the supply
voltage feed forward at a sudden change in supply voltage from sinusoidal to
containing harmonic components (a) Up is*, middle is and down control error,
and (b) its spectra in steady-state at low- medium frequency with the supply
voltage feed forward, (c) its spectra in steady-state at low- medium frequency
without the supply voltage feed forward

Fig.6 and Fig.7 show the simulation waves of input current

(b)
Fig.7 Waves of input current based on resonant controller without the supply
voltage feed forward at a sudden change in input current reference with
sinusoidal supply voltage(a) Up is*, middle is and down control error, and (b)
its spectra in steady-state at low- medium frequency
based on PI controller with the supply voltage feed forward
and the simple resonant controller without the supply voltage
feed forward at a sudden change in input current reference
with sinusoidal supply voltage, respectively. From Fig.6 and
Fig.7(a), its clear the control error (is*-is) at the fundamental
frequency is effectively eliminated by the single resonant
controller and is smaller than that of PI controller with the
supply voltage feed forward, when the supply voltage is
sinusoidal.
In the low-medium frequency range, it can be noted that
with sinusoidal supply voltage, the gird current obtained in
simulation has a THD of 0.29% in Fig.7 (b), with the sample
resonant controller.
Fig.8 shows the simulation input current based on resonant
controller with the supply voltage feed forward at a sudden
change in supply voltage from sinusoidal to containing
harmonic components, and its spectra in steady-state at low-
medium frequency with and without the supply voltage feed
forward. It can be observed that input current changes little to
the harmonic components of the supply voltage with the
proposed compensating method and has a THD of 2.5% less
than that of 3.63% without the supply voltage feed forward.
IV. CONCLUSIONS
For the single-phase PWM rectifier, PI controller can not
realize no control error of ac input current theoretically, and PI
controller with supply voltage feed forward can reduce the
control error and achieve no error approximately, applied in
the non-high precision condition.
The resonant controller is just suitable for the single-phase
PWM rectifier. Because it can reduce control error to zero for
the fundamental frequency components of ac input current and
eliminate the disturbance of the fundamental supply voltage
completely, independent of the control and circuit parameters.
That means the resonant controller also enjoys good
robustness. But it cannot eliminate the disturbance of the
harmonic components of supply voltage. So, a resonant
controller with the supply voltage feed forward is proposed in
this paper. This method is proved to be effective by the
simulations.
The next work is to verify by experiments. Also, there is a
problem that the resonant controller is sensitive to the resonant
frequency in practice.
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