IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 53, NO.
4, AUGUST 2006
Letters to the Editor
A Negative Feedback Repetitive Control Scheme for
Harmonic Compensation
G. Escobar, P. R. Martnez, J. Leyva-Ramos, and P. Mattavelli
AbstractIn this letter, a different feedback structure of the repetitive
control that apparently is more appropriate for applications in power
electronics is proposed. Moreover, a simple analog-circuit implementation
is proposed which is suitable for high-frequency power electronics applica-
tions, where digital control is unpractical due to cost and performance of
available DSPs and microcontrollers.
Index TermsAnalog circuits, harmonic compensation, periodic distur-
bances, repetitive control.
I. I NTRODUCTION
Tracking or rejection of periodic signals is an issue commonly
found in power electronics applications, i.e., switching power supplies,
ac/dc converters, motor speed uctuation, synchronous rectiers, un-
interruptible power supplies (UPS) and active lters. In these cases,
the disturbances and/or references are composed of specic higher
harmonics of the fundamental frequency of the power source. Repet-
itive control arises as a practical solution to such issues and is based
on the internal model principle [1]. It is aimed to provide an exact
asymptotic output tracking of periodic inputs or rejection of periodic
disturbances. The internal model principle states that the controlled
output can track a class of reference commands without a steady-state
error if the generator, or the model, for the reference is included in
the stable closed-loop system. It is well known that the generator of
a sinusoidal signal, i.e., containing only one harmonic component, is
a harmonic oscillator, i.e., a resonant lter. Therefore, according to
the internal model principle, if a periodic disturbance has an innite
Fourier series (of harmonic components), then an innite number of
resonant lters are required to reject it. Fortunately, in the repetitive
control approach, a simple delay line in a proper feedback array can
be used to produce an innite number of poles and thereby simulating
a bank of an innite number of resonant lters, leading to a system
dynamics of innite dimension.
First works on repetitive control were presented in [2] and [3].
Interesting theoretical developments of repetitive control can be found
in [4] and [5], and the numerous references within where the discrete-
time formulation has also been treated. See [6][9], and the references
therein, for applications of repetitive control on power electronic
systems such as rectiers, inverters and active lters. Indeed, as shown
in these papers, it is already well accepted in the power electronics
community that repetitive techniques offer some advantages over
Manuscript received August 17, 2004; revised October 5, 2005. Abstract
published on the Internet May 18, 2006. This work was supported by the
National Council of Science and Technology of Mexico (CONACYT) under
Grant SEP-2003-C02-42643.
G. Escobar is with the Instituto Potosino de Investigacin Cientica y
Tecnolgica (IPICyT), San Luis Potos 78216, Mexico (e-mail: gescobar@
ipicyt.edu.mx).
P. R. Martnez and J. Leyva-Ramos are with the Division of Applied
Mathematics, Instituto Potosino de Investigacin Cientca y Tecnolgica
(IPICyT), San Luis Potos 78216, Mexco (e-mail: panlo@ipicyt.edu.mx;
jleyva@ipicyt.edu.mx).
P. Mattavelli is with the Dipartimento di Ingegneria Elettrica Gestionale
e Meccanica (DIEGM), Udine University, 33100 Udine, Italy (e-mail:
mattavelli@ uniud.it).
Digital Object Identier 10.1109/TIE.2006.878293
0278-0046/$20.00 2006 IEEE
1383
conventional solutions especially in active lters and inverters, which
is demonstrated by the industrial applications in recent equipment.
In most of these works, the authors use a positive feedback scheme
to implement the repetitive controller. Some of them place the delay
line in the direct path and others in the feedback path. It is important
to notice that a positive feedback structure has the disadvantage of
compensating for every single harmonic either odd or even, including
the dc component. Moreover, depending on the position of the delay
line in the structure, it may even modify the phase shift, which explains
the need of some extra lters to alleviate this problem.
Although the positive feedback-based scheme may apparently solve
the harmonics compensation problem, it may lead to more distortion in
certain cases. Consider, for instance, a system where even harmonics
do not exist originally, like in many power electronic systems, in this
case, the positive feedback repetitive controller would try to amplify,
and indeed reinject, any small noise that has components on the even
frequencies. This evidently has the danger of producing responses
polluted with such harmonics, which were not present before.
This letter shows that a negative feedback scheme, in contrast to
the positive scheme, compensates only for the odd harmonics, thus,
reducing the possibility of reinjecting unnecessary distortion into
the system. Moreover, it has been found that placing a delay line
in the feedback trajectory shows better phase characteristics. It is
expected that this scheme will be specially useful, and will generate
cleaner responses, than traditional positive feedback-based repetitive
schemes in applications of power electronic systems containing mainly
odd harmonics. For instance, the proposed scheme could replace the
traditional repetitive schemes, and moreover, it may replace the bank
of resonators reported in [10].
An analog implementation of the proposed negative feedback
scheme is also presented for low-power high-frequency power elec-
tronics applications. The proposed scheme is completely different
from a more complex fully digital implementation, which would
require costly a microcontroller and/or a DSP with analog-to-digital
converters, with the inherent quantization errors, and, above all, large
memory requirements. Thus, the proposed circuit seems to be an inter-
esting solution for low-power high-frequency power-factor-correction
circuits, inverters, active lters, etc., where cost constrains would not
allow the use of the microcontrollers or the DSPs.
Our experimental setup uses an analog integrated circuit (IC) of
special purpose referred as low-noise bucket brigade delay (BBD)
for the implementation of the analog delay. This circuit is an analog
delay line which is very simple to tune for the exact delay and has
a high signal to noise ratio; therefore, precision is not lost during
the delay. This circuit is thoroughly used in the music industry to
create reverberation and echo effects. The circuitry presented here can
reproduce the same frequency response as an innite set of resonant
lters tuned at higher odd harmonic frequencies of the fundamental.
II. B LOCK D IAGRAM R EPRESENTATION
Consider the single-inputsingle-output (SISO) continuous-time
system described by
y(t) = u(t) y(t L) (1)
where L is a positive real representing the time delay, y(t) is the
output and u(t) is the input of the system. Application of the Laplace
transform to (1) results in the block diagram shown in Fig. 1(b), where
for simplicity zero initial conditions are considered.
1384 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 53, NO. 4, AUGUST 2006

Fig. 2. (a) Implemented negative feedback (odd harmonics) compensator.

(b) Experimental frequency response for the implemented compensator (x-axis
125 Hz/div and y-axis 10 dB/div). (Top) K = 0.824 and (bottom) K = 0.955.

where w0 = /L. Notice that, the negative feedback compensator

contains only odd harmonics. That is, the poles for G(s) are located
at odd harmonics of w0 , and there is no pole at the origin. In contrast,
the poles for the positive feedback compensator are located at every
harmonic of w0 , including a pole at the origin [see Fig. 1(a)]. Notice
that, the time delay in the case of the positive feedback compensator is
twice the delay required in the proposed negative feedback scheme for
the compensation of harmonics of the same fundamental frequency
w0 . The Bode plot of the negative feedback compensator consist in
a set of peaks centered at the harmonics frequencies and has the
Fig. 1. Continuous-time model and poles location of (a) conventional positive interesting feature that the phase shift is zero exactly at the resonance
feedback (all harmonics) compensator, (b) proposed negative feedback (odd frequencies and varies between 90 and 90 .
harmonics) compensator, (c) K-modication of the negative feedback com-
The above compensator is, however, not yet ready to be used. To
pensator (odd harmonics) plus an LPF, and (d) theoretical Bode plots of G(s)
for different values of K (x-axis Hz, y-axis dB): 1) K = 0.95, 2) K = 0.95, limit the innite gain at the resonant frequencies, and thus guarantee
and 3) K = 0.5. a safer operation, it is proposed to add damping to all the poles,
i.e., to slightly shift them to the left of the imaginary axis. This
For the proposed negative feedback compensator the resulting shifting process is realized as follows G(s) = G(s + a). Applying
transfer function is G(s) = 1/(1 + esL ). The poles of this rep- the shifting to the exponential term results in e(s+a)L = eaL esL .
resentation can be found from esL = 1. Due to the delay, this Notice that, a gain factor is introduced of the form K = eaL to
transfer function has innitely many poles on the imaginary axis the exponential function, as shown in Fig. 1(c). Conversely, if a gain
as discussed later. The corresponding transfer function can also be K > 1 is proposed, the poles move to the right, but if 0 < K < 1
written as then they move to the left. Moreover, it is easy to show that the
s peaks have a maximum magnitude of 1/(1 K) and the valleys a
1 e 2w0
G(s) = = (2) minimum magnitude of 1/(1 + K). Introduction of a simple low pass
s s s
1 + e w0 e 2w0 + e 2w0 lter (LPF) in the form shown in Fig. 1(c) is also recommended in
s s
2w
e 0 e 2w0 repetitive schemes. This would in principle restrict the bandwidth of
=
s
 =    (3) the controller, and at the same time reinforce the stability. However,
2 cosh 2w 0 2
s2
+1
k=1 2
(2k1)2 w0 as a consequence of these modications, two side effects appear: rst,
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 53, NO. 4, AUGUST 2006 1385

the peaks of resonance are slightly shifted with respect to the corre-
sponding harmonic frequency, and second, an almost imperceptible
phase shift appears at the tuned harmonic frequencies. The sensitivity
functions with respect to parameters L and K are given by

sLKesL KesL
SL = SK =
s + 1 + KesL s + 1 + KesL
respectively, which are bounded by SL  < K/ (1 K) and
SK  < K/(1 K), with 0 < K < 1.
Fig. 1(d) shows the theoretical Bode plots of G(s) for various values
of K. For K = 1, the plot goes to innite at the resonant frequencies
and the minimum magnitude is 6 dB. These plots show clearly that as
gain K decreases, the peak amplitude is reduced while the bandwidth
of each peak increases, thus increasing its robustness with respect to
frequency variations.

III. P ROPOSED C IRCUIT

For the implementation of the delay appearing in the compensator
of Fig. 1(c), a BBD model MN3004 is used, which allows a delay
of 2.5 to 25 ms, and has a signal to noise ratio of 85 dB. The
delay time is programmed indirectly by means of an external clock.
The recommended IC for the generation of clock pulses and other
signals compatible to the BBD is the MN3101. In this IC, the clock
frequency is xed by the array of two resistances and one capacitor.
The circuit that implements the negative feedback compensator is
given in Fig. 2(a).
In the proposed circuit a time delay of 4.166 ms was pro-
grammed via R1 , R2 , and C1 . This generates an innite set of
resonant peaks at odd frequencies of 120 Hz, i.e., 360, 600, 840,
1080 Hz, and so on. The values of K are xed by R3 and R4 .
Two gains, K = 0.824 and K = 0.955, have been chosen, which
should produce (theoretically) a maximum peak gain of 15.08 and
26.9 dB at the peak resonant frequencies, respectively. We have
used a simple rst-order LPF of the form 1/(R3 C2 s + 1), i.e.,
= R3 C2 .
The experimental frequency response of output y(t) of the imple-
mented circuit is shown in Fig. 2(b). The plot shows that the circuit
contains peaks centered at odd frequencies of 120 Hz, as expected. If
additional tuning is required, then the frequency of the MN3101 can
be adjusted through R1 to tune the resonant frequencies at the right
values. Notice that the peak of resonance decreases with increasing
frequency, which is mainly due to the effect of the LPF. Notice also that
there is no need to compensate for frequencies close to the switching
frequency.
Fig. 3(a) shows the time response of the proposed circuit to a
pure sinusoidal signal input with 50 mV of amplitude and 120 Hz
of frequency. Notice that the output reaches an amplitude of 1 V,
which corresponds to 26 dB of gain, and zero phase shift. In contrast,
Fig. 3(b) shows the response to an input sinusoidal signal with the
same amplitude as before, but 240 Hz of frequency, i.e., the second
harmonic of 120 Hz. In this case, the output signal reaches 25 mV in
average, which corresponds to 6 dB of gain. Notice that the scale
in the top plot of Fig. 3(b) has been reduced to 50 mV/div to show a
clearer waveform.
Fig. 3(c) shows that the output response smoothly grows and
Fig. 3. (a) Experimental time response of the proposed circuit to a sinusoidal
reaches a constant amplitude in the steady state when the input signal signal of frequency 120 Hz and amplitude 50 mV (x-axis 4 ms/div). (Top)
changes its frequency from 240 to 120 Hz while keeping an amplitude output signal y(t) (y-axis 1 V/div) and (bottom) input u(t) (y-axis 50 mV/div).
of 50 mV. (b) experimental time response of the proposed circuit to a sinusoidal signal of
frequency 240 Hz and amplitude 50 mV (x-axis 4 ms/div). (Top) output signal
y(t) (y-axis 50 mV/div) and (Bottom) input u(t) (y-axis 50 mV/div); and
IV. C ONCLUDING R EMARKS (c) transient response of the proposed circuit when the frequency of the input
sinusoidal signal is changed from 240 to 120 Hz while keeping an amplitude
In this letter, a negative feedback repetitive control scheme was of 50 mV (x-axis 100 ms/div). (Top) output signal y(t) (y-axis 1 V/div) and
proposed. It was shown that this scheme is specially useful in cases (bottom) input u(t) (y-axis 50 mV/div).
1386 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 53, NO. 4, AUGUST 2006
where compensation of only odd harmonics is required, like in many
power electronics systems. A simple low-cost analog circuit to im-
plement the proposed repetitive control scheme was shown. Finally,
experimental evidence using the proposed circuit is provided to assess
the performance of the repetitive control scheme.
R EFERENCES
[1] B. Francis and W. Wonham, The internal model principle for linear
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Jun. 1975.
[2] S. Hara, T. Omata, and M. Nakano, Synthesis of repetitive control sys-
tems and its applications, in Proc. 24th Conf. Decision and Control,
1985, vol. 3, pp. 13841392.
[3] T. Omata, S. Hara, and M. Nakano, Repetitive control for linear periodic
systems, Elect. Eng. Jpn., vol. 105, no. 3, pp. 131138, MayJun. 1985.
[4] S. Hara, Y. Yamamoto, T. Omata, and M. Nakano, Repetitive con-
trol system: A new type servo system for periodic exogenous sig -
nals, IEEE Trans. Autom. Control, vol. 33, no. 7, pp. 659668, Jul.
1988.
[5] J. Ghosh and B. Paden, Nonlinear repetitive control, IEEE Trans.
Autom. Control, vol. 45, no. 5, pp. 949954, May 2000.
[6] P. Mattavelli and F. P. Marafao, Selective active lters using repet-
itive control techniques, IEEE Trans. Ind. Electron., vol. 51, no. 5,
pp. 10181024, Oct. 2004.
[7] S. Xu and F. Yang, A novel three-phase AC/DC converter without front-
end lter based on repetitive control technique, in Proc. 3rd PIEMC,
Aug. 1518, 2000, vol. 3, pp. 11111115.
[8] Y.-Y. Tzou, S.-L. Jung, and H.-C. Yeh, Adaptive repetitive control
of PWM inverters for very low THD AC-voltage regulation with un-
known loads, IEEE Trans. Power Electron., vol. 14, no. 5, pp. 973981,
Sep. 1999.
[9] K. Zhang, Y. Kang, J. Xiong, and J. Chen, Direct repetitive control of
SPWM inverter for UPS purpose, IEEE Trans. Power Electron., vol. 18,
no. 3, pp. 784792, May 2003.
[10] G. Escobar, A. Stankovic, and P. Mattavelli, Dissipative-based adaptive
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Electron., vol. 18, no. 4, pp. 10561062, Jul. 2003.
Attitude Estimation by Multiple-Mode Kalman Filters
Young Soo Suh
AbstractThis letter proposes a multiple-mode Kalman lter for one-
dimensional attitude estimation using low-cost accelerometer and gyro-
scope. The nonlinearity and time-varying parameters are partitioned into
several modes; for each mode, a linear time-invariant Kalman lter is
selected. Experimental results are given to verify the proposed Kalman
lter.
Index TermsAccelerometer, attitude estimation, gyroscope, Kalman
ltering.
I. I NTRODUCTION
Attitude in this letter is dened with respect to an inertial coordinate
xed on the Earth: the attitude refers to either pitch angle or roll
angle. Attitude estimation plays an important role in many control
problems, e.g., control of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) [1], control
of walking robots [2], and an inertial head-tracker for virtual reality
Manuscript received June 23, 2003; revised May 24, 2005. Abstract pub-
lished on the Internet May 18, 2006. This work was supported by the University
of Ulsan Research Fund 2003.
The author is with the Department of Electrical Engineering, University of
Ulsan, Ulsan 680-749, Korea (e-mail: suh@ieee.org).
Digital Object Identier 10.1109/TIE.2006.878292
0278-0046/$20.00 2006 IEEE
systems [3]. In these problems, in addition to accuracy, the speed of
estimation is important.
A main sensor for attitude estimation is an inclinometer. However,
an inclinometer has a bandwidth that is too low to be able to estimate
fast-changing attitudes such as UAVs. Thus, a rate gyroscope is used
to supplement the estimation bandwidth. The gyroscope output can be
integrated to give a high-bandwidth estimation. The main drawback is
that the integration error increases as time goes by. How to combine
these two sensors is a key issue in attitude estimation.
In [4], a complementary lter is used to combine a gyroscope and an
inclinometer, where the one-dimensional attitude estimation of an au-
tonomous helicopter is considered. In [3], a complementary separate-
bias Kalman lter is used to combine gyroscopes, inclinometers, and a
uxgate compass, where the three-dimensional attitude estimation of
an inertial tracker is considered. To prevent linear acceleration from
affecting attitude estimation, an adaptive algorithm is used.
In this paper, an attitude estimation algorithm is proposed using a
gyroscope and an accelerometer [5]. The proposed algorithm is devel-
oped with attitude estimation of UAVs in mind, where vibration of an
aerial vehicle is the major source of noises. To cope with the vibration,
an adaptive algorithm is proposed.
II. I NTRODUCTION TO G YROSCOPE AND A CCELEROMETER
A piezoelectrical vibrating gyroscope (Murata ENV-05DB) is used
to measure angular velocity. The gyroscope output y1 (t) is propor-
tional to the angular velocity and is given by
y1 (t) = c1 (t) + v1 (t) (1)
where c1 is a scale coefcient and v1 (t) denotes gyroscope mea-
surement noises. The measurement noises include scale factor error
and drift.
Since the gyroscope measures angular velocity, angular position can
be obtained by integrating the angular velocity. However, integration
error tends to diverge as time goes by due to the v1 (t) term and
numerical integration error.
A micromechanical accelerometer (Analog Devices ADXL202) can
measure acceleration in two orthogonal directions: X and Y . The
angular position is determined by measuring gravitational acceleration.
The X-direction accelerometer is located orthogonally to the gravita-
tional eld, whereas the Y -direction accelerometer is located in the
opposite direction of the gravitational eld. Thus, the accelerometer
output in direction X is given by
y2 (t) = c2 sin (t) + v2 (t) (2)
where c2 is a scale coefcient and v2 (t) denotes accelerometer mea-
surement noises in direction X. The accelerometer output in direction
Y is given by
y2y (t) = c2 cos (t) + v2y (t) (3)
where v2y (t) denotes accelerometer measurement noises in
direction Y .
The major source of the accelerometer measurement noises in UAVs
is the vibration of the object. To reduce high-frequency vibration
noises, a low-pass lter is required. This limits the bandwidth of the
accelerometer, and a phase delay is introduced in the ltered result.