Finite-States Model Predictive Control of a Four-Level Diode-Clamped Inverter P. Cortes(1) , J. Rodriguez(1) , S. Alepuz(2) , S. Busquets-Monge(2) , J. Bordonau(2) (1) Depto. Electronica. Universidad Tecnica Federico Santa Maria. Av. España, 1680, Valparaiso, Chile. Tel:+56 32 2654761, Email: [email protected] (2) Dept. Electronic Engineering. Technical University of Catalonia. Av. Diagonal 647, 08028 Barcelona, Spain. Tel:+34 93 4016602, Email: [email protected] Abstract— This paper presents a new and simple finitestates model predictive control strategy for a four-level threephase diode-clamped inverter. This strategy allows for fast load current control while keeping the balance of the dclink capacitor voltages. A discrete-time model of the load and of the dc-link capacitors is used to predict the behavior of the load current and the capacitor voltages for each possible switching state. A cost function that considers the load current error and the capacitor voltages error is used to evaluate each prediction. The switching state that minimizes the cost function is selected and applied during a whole sampling period. Simulation results are shown verifying the good performance of the proposed predictive controller. I. I NTRODUCTION Multi-level converters are considered for medium voltage and high power applications, and also for other applications where high quality voltages and currents are required [1], [2]. These converters have several advantages over the traditional converters: operation with voltages over the switching devices rating, reduced common mode voltages and smaller voltage changes (dv/dt). Increasing attention on these kind of converters is reflected in a large number of publications in the last years [3], [4]. One of the most popular multi-level topology is the diode-clamped converter, specially the three-phase threelevel neutral point clamped converter. For the control of these converters several modulation techniques have been proposed. Most of this techniques are based on Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) [5], [6] and Space Vector Modulation [7]. Modifications of the PWM strategy has been proposed in order to guarantee dc-link capacitor voltage balance in a four-level diode clamped converter under any operating condition [8]. Predictive control is a very wide class of controllers that have found rather recent application in power converters, a classification of them is proposed in [9]. A well known type of predictive controller is the deadbeat controller, which has been applied for current control in threephase inverters [10], [11], [12], rectifiers [13], [14], active filters[15], [16], and uninterruptible power supplies (UPS) [17]. 978-1-4244-1668-4/08/$25.00 ©2008 IEEE Model Predictive Control (MPC) is a different approach that considers a model of the system in order to predict the future behavior of the system over a horizon in time. A cost function represents the desired behavior of the system. Finite-States MPC is a simple way to use MPC for the control of power converters taking advantage of the discrete nature of the power converters. These are systems with a finite number of states given by the possible combinations of the state of the switching devices. By this way, the behavior of the system is predicted for each possible state. Then, each prediction is evaluated using the cost function and the state that minimizes it is selected. This approach has been successfully applied for the current control in a three-phase inverter [18], a three-level neutral point clamped inverter [19] and a matrix converter [20], power control in an active front end rectifier [21], [22], and torque and flux control of an induction machine [23]. This strategy has been also applied for current control in a four-level three-phase diode-clamped inverter [24], but without considering balance of the dc-link voltages. This work proposes the use of Finite-States MPC for a four-level three-phase diode-clamped inverter considering current control and balancing of the dc-link capacitor voltages. II. C ONVERTER MODEL A diagram of the four-level three-phase diode clamped inverter considered in this work is shown in Fig. 1. Each output phase of the inverter can be connected to the points 0, 1, 2 or 3. The switching state of each leg of the inverter will be represented by variables Sa , Sb and Sc , where Sx ∈ {0, 1, 2, 3}, with x ∈ {a, b, c}. The relationship between the switching state of one leg Sa , the switching state of each switch of this leg, and the output voltage in one phase is shown in the following table: Sx Sx1 Sx2 Sx3 vx0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 1 vc1 2 0 1 1 vc1 + vc2 3 1 1 1 vc1 + vc2 + vc3 2203 idc i3 3 ic3 vc3 + + vc1 Sa2 Sb2 Sc2 2 2 Sc3 Sa3 Sb3 Sa1 1 Sb1 Sa2 Sb2 Sc2 Sa3 Sb3 Sc3 C i1 1 + Sc1 i2 ic2 vc2 Sb1 C 2 Vdc Sa1 1 Sc1 ic1 C 0 i0 a Fig. 1. ia b ib c ic Four-level three-phase diode-clamped inverter. The load current dynamics are described by Imag(v) v=L di + Ri dt (3) where L and R are the load inductance and resistance. Considering the variable names defined in Fig. 1, the behavior of the dc-link capacitor voltages can be described by Real (v) vc1 = ic2 − i1 dt vc2 = ic3 − i2 C dt vc3 = idc − i3 C dt C Fig. 2. Possible voltage vectors generated by the four-level three-phase diode-clamped inverter. (5) (6) where currents i1 , i2 and i3 are calculated as a function of the load currents and the switching state of the converter. The expression to calculate these currents is the following: i1 = (Sa == 1)ia + (Sb == 1)ib + (Sc == 1)ic i2 = (Sa == 2)ia + (Sb == 2)ib + (Sc == 2)ic i3 = (Sa == 3)ia + (Sb == 3)ib + (Sc == 3)ic The output voltage can be written in vectorial form as 2 Vdc 2 (Sa + aSb + a2 Sc ) = (va0 + avb0 + a2 vc0 ) 3 3 3 (1) j 2π where a = e 3 . The 64 possible combinations of Sa , Sb and Sc generate the 37 different voltage vectors shown in Fig. 2. The load current vector is defined as 2 i = (ia + aib + a2 ic ) (2) 3 and a resistive-inductive load is considered for this work. (4) v= (7) (8) (9) A discrete time equation for the load current dynamics can be obtained from (3) by approximating the derivative for a sampling time Ts RTs Ts (10) i(k + 1) = 1 − i(k) + v(k) L L 2204 The discrete-time equations for the capacitor voltages Predictive controller 4-Level Inverter Vc*(k) i*(k) i(k) Minimization S i(k+1) Predictive model vc1(k) vc2(k) vc3(k) Load i L R of g function 64 vc1(k+1) vc2(k+1) vc3(k+1) Fig. 3. Predictive control scheme for the four-level three-phase diode-clamped inverter. are: IV. I MPLEMENTATION I SSUES Ts (ic2 (k) − i1 (k)) C Ts vc2 (k + 1) = vc2 (k) + (ic3 (k) − i2 (k)) C Ts vc3 (k + 1) = vc3 (k) + (idc (k) − i3 (k)) C vc1 (k + 1) = vc1 (k) + (11) (12) (13) where C is the dc link capacitor. These equations are used by the controller to predict the behavior of the output current and the capacitor voltages, as will be explained in the next section. III. C ONTROL S TRATEGY Equations (10)-(13) are used to predict the behavior of the output current and capacitor voltages for each one of the 64 possible switching states. Each prediction is evaluated using a cost function. The switching state that minimizes the cost function is selected and applied during a whole sampling period. The cost function considers two terms, the first one evaluates the load current error in orthogonal coordinates, and the second term evaluates the error of the three capacitor voltages. g =(i∗α − îα )2 + (i∗β − îβ )2 + A[(Vc∗ 2 − v̂c1 ) + (Vc∗ (14) 2 − v̂c2 ) + (Vc∗ − v̂c3 )2 ] where the hat symbol (ˆ) denotes the predicted variables at time k + 1, and A is a weighting factor that allows to adjust the importance of different terms in the cost function. The capacitor voltage reference is defined as Vc∗ = Vdc /3. A block diagram of the predictive controller is shown in Fig. 3. Here, the measured values of the load currents and the capacitor voltages are the inputs to the predictive model block which calculates the predicted values of these variables for all possible switching states. These 64 predictions are compared with their respective reference values using the cost function. The switching state which generates the minimum value of the cost function is selected as the output of the controller and is applied in the converter. Implementation of the proposed predictive control must consider several important issues. The most important ones will be briefly explained here. The proposed control scheme will require a large amount of calculations, in order to predict the behavior of currents and voltages for the 64 possible switching states. This will limit the minimum sampling time value. As explained in [18], it takes less than 7μs to predict the value of the load currents in a three-phase two-level inverter, with 8 possible switching states. Considering that the four-level inverter has 64 possible states, and the addition of the capacitor voltages prediction, with some optimization of the code a sampling time of 100μs is feasible. The calculation time will also introduce a delay between the instant in which the measurement are made and the instant in which the new switching state is applied. This delay must be considered in the model as explained in [25], taking into account the one sample delay in the model and predicting the behavior until time k + 2. It is also important to mention that not all the variables used by the predictive model are available from measurements. For the four-level inverter presented here it is usual that only the load currents are measured. In order to implement the proposed predictive controller, the capacitor voltages must be measured or estimated. In the results shown below, it has been assumed that the load currents and capacitor voltages are measured. However, the case without capacitor voltages measurement is also considered in the last results obtaining the values of the voltages from a simple internal model of the converter within the controller. V. S IMULATION R ESULTS The proposed control strategy has been verified by simulation. The system parameters are the following: Vdc = 200V , C = 470μF , load resistance and inductance R = 16.5Ω and L = 15mH. The sampling period for the control is Ts = 100μs. Unless explicitly mentioned, the load currents and capacitor voltages are measured. The load currents and the voltage in one phase are shown in Fig. 4.(a), when only current control is considered in the cost function and the capacitor voltages are not 2205 5 5 iload [A] [A] 10 0 i load 10 Ŧ5 0 0.01 0.02 0.03 0.04 0.05 0.06 0.07 Ŧ10 0.08 200 200 100 100 van [V] van [V] Ŧ10 0 Ŧ5 0 Ŧ100 Ŧ200 0 0.01 0.02 0.03 0 0.01 0.02 0.03 0.06 0.07 0.08 0.04 0.05 0.06 0.07 0.08 0.06 0.07 0.08 Ŧ100 0 0.01 0.02 0.03 0.04 Time [s] 0.05 0.06 0.07 Ŧ200 0.08 Time [s] (a) 250 250 V 200 150 dc 200 v 150 [V] c1 V dc V dc dc [V] 0.05 0 (a) V 0.04 100 100 vc1 v 50 0 0 0.01 0.02 0.03 vc3 50 c2 v vc2 c3 0.04 Time [s] 0.05 0.06 0.07 0 0.08 0 0.01 0.02 0.03 0.04 Time [s] 0.05 (b) (b) Fig. 4. Results without capacitor voltage balancing (A = 0). (a) Load currents and load voltage. (b) Capacitor voltages. Fig. 5. Results with capacitor voltage balancing (A = 0.5). (a) Load currents and load voltage. (b) Capacitor voltages. controlled, i.e A = 0. The capacitor voltages are shown in Fig. 4.(b). It can be noted that the current waveform is deteriorated as the capacitor voltages are out of balance. By changing the weighting factor to A = 0.5, the capacitor voltages can be controlled, as shown in Fig. 5. The load currents present low harmonic distortion and the capacitor voltages are completely balanced. The behavior of the proposed controller for a step in the amplitude of the reference load current is shown in Fig. 6. The step change is followed with fast dynamic response by the load currents while the capacitor voltages are kept constant. Results for the same reference step when the capacitor voltages are not measured are shown in Fig. 7. Here the capacitor voltages are estimated using an internal model based on the load current measurements and the applied switching state. It can be seen that the current control is not affected, but some steady state error and unbalance appears in the capacitor voltages. However, they are still under control. This issue can be fixed using a better voltage estimation, for example a state observer. VI. C ONCLUSIONS A new predictive control strategy for a four-level threephase diode-clamped inverter has been proposed. This scheme considers load current control and balancing of the dc link capacitor voltages. The proposed strategy is simple and easy to implement. It provides fast dynamic response for the load current control and guarantees capacitor voltage balance by considering both, current and voltages, in the cost function. It has been shown that capacitor voltage balance is kept during transients as well as during steady state operation. There is no need of modulators, the control signals for the power switches are generated directly by the control. Future work on the proposed predictive control includes experimental results and controlling the capacitor voltages without measuring them. Finite-States Model Predictive Control presents a different and powerful approach for the control of power converters. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support provided by the Chilean Research Fund CONICYT- 2206 5 5 iload [A] [A] 10 0 0 i load 10 Ŧ5 0.045 0.05 0.055 0.06 0.065 0.07 0.075 Ŧ10 0.04 0.08 200 200 100 100 [V] van [V] Ŧ10 0.04 Ŧ5 0.05 0.055 0.045 0.05 0.055 0.065 0.07 0.075 0.08 0.06 0.065 0.07 0.075 0.08 0.07 0.075 0.08 v Ŧ100 Ŧ200 0.04 Ŧ100 0.045 0.05 0.055 0.06 Time [s] 0.065 0.07 0.075 Ŧ200 0.04 0.08 (a) 250 V dc 200 Vdc 200 150 [V] 150 V dc dc [V] Time [s] (a) 250 V 0.06 0 an 0 0.045 100 100 vc1 vc2 vc1 vc3 50 0 0.04 v c2 v c3 50 0.045 0.05 0.055 0.06 Time [s] 0.065 0.07 0.075 0 0.04 0.08 0.045 0.05 0.055 0.06 Time [s] 0.065 (b) (b) Fig. 6. Results with capacitor voltage balancing during a step in the amplitude of the reference current. (a) Load currents and load voltage. (b) Capacitor voltages. Fig. 7. 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