2010 International Conference on Power System Technology

A Novel Digital Automatic Voltage Regulator for Synchronous Generator

Weilin Li, Xiaobin Zhang , Huimin Li

Abstract-- In this paper, a Digital Signal Processor (DSP) based Automatic Voltage Regulator (AVR) for synchronous generator is proposed. Analysis and development of the proposed regulator is done by both computer simulations and DSP implementation. Steady state and dynamic control performance of the regulator are investigated on different working conditions (such as voltage establishment, load connection and disconnection). A hardware platform of the AVR which uses DSP TMS320F2812 as the microprocessor is set up. Several novel methods have also been adopted in the configuration of the hardware for a better dynamic performance. Experiment results show good consistency to the simulation results. Index Terms-- Automatic voltage control, voltage regulator, synchronous generator.

I. INTRODUCTION YNCHRONOUS generators operate as variable frequency machines in many applications. One of the applications is in more electric aircraft (MEA) power systems. Aircraft power systems are required to operate in a wide frequency range because the generators are driven by propulsion turbine. Automatic Voltage Regulator (AVR) is used to regulate the output voltage through controlling the excitation field. With the development of electronic technology, AVRs begin to emerge from analog to digital transformation since digital control is a cheaper and more reliable method than analog circuit. It also has advantages of more flexible, allowing easy implementation of more complex control strategies, and interfacing with other generator control and protective units [1]. In this paper, a DSP-based AVR is developed for variable frequency synchronous generator. A three-loop control structure is adopted [2]. The internal feedback loop controls the excitation current of the exciter in order to have larger gain and bandwidth. The external feedback loop provides the basic voltage regulation. An extra disturbance-rejection loop is adopted here to compensate for the changes in output voltage caused by the generator load conditions. Analysis and development of the proposed controller is
W. Li is with the Institute for Automation of Complex Power Systems, E.ON Energy Research Center, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, 52074 Germany (e-mail: wli@eonerc.rwth-aachen.de). X. Zhang is with the Department of Electrical Engineering, Northwestern Polytechnic University, Xian, 710072 China (e-mail: dgl907@126.com). H. Li is with the Department of Electrical Engineering, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC, USA (e-mail: li80@cec.sc.edu).

done with Saber simulator prior to the implementation with DSP. Saber simulator is developed by Synopsys company, which can use models represented by MAST modeling language to perform simulation analysis [3][4]. The interaction of the MAST language and the Saber simulator provides a powerful method of simulating systems containing a wide variety of models. Because MAST language has the features and capabilities of an Analog Hardware Description Language (AHDL), it is suitable for the diverse and complex modeling requirements of simulation in general. The mathematic model of synchronous generators is set up here. Then based on the Saber simulator, the simulation model of the synchronous generator is built, and the effectiveness of control scheme is verified. Both the steady and dynamic control performance of the voltage regulator is analyzed during different working conditions, such as voltage establishment, load connection and disconnection. Simulation results prove that the proposed solution is effective in all these conditions. A hardware platform of the AVR is also set up. DSP TMS320F2812 is used as the microprocessor. Two types of filters are adopted because of the harmonics and noise in the real circuits. One is implemented in hardware platform as antialiasing filter. The other is realized by software in order to improve the measured magnitudes. In the DSP controller, an inverse-Chebyshev filter is defined via programming. And a novel excitation circuit is also developed to improve the dynamic performance. The rest of the paper is organized as following: In section II, the overall system structure and generator model are briefly described. The control strategy is illustrated in section III. The simulation results of both steady state and dynamic state are presented and analyzed in section IV. A hardware platform is set up and the experimental results are portrayed in section V. The conclusion is made with a discussion of future research consideration in section VI. II. SYSTEM STRUCTURE AND GENERATOR MODEL In this paper, a digital AVR for a variable frequency synchronous generator is developed. The rated generator output voltage is 115V. The frequency ranges from 360 Hz to 800Hz. A typical generator in aircraft applications is a so called three-stage generator which contains two synchronous machines, a rectifier and a small permanent magnet generator (PMG), driven by the same shaft [5]. One synchronous

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machine is the main generator and the other smaller lower rating machine with its field winding on the stator works as the brushless exciter. The armature winding of the exciter is on the rotor and connected to a rotating diode rectifier bridge that feeds the field winding of the main generator. Such a system characteristic requires that the main generator excitation regulation be realized through the exciter field winding on its stator, since there is no access to the rotor of the combined machine. The PMG on the shaft serves as the power supply for excitation. The AVR commands a dcdc converter connected to the rectified PMG output. This converter provides the controlled excitation voltage to the exciter. Fig. 1 schematically shows the system structure of the three-stage generator.

ud r u 0 q u0 0 = u F 0 u D 0 uQ 0

0 r 0 0 0 0

0 0 r 0 0 0

0 0 0 rF 0 0

0 0 0 0 rD 0

0 ia 0 ib 0 ic + 0 iF 0 iD rQ iQ

p d q p q + d p 0 p F p D p Q

(1)

Flux equation of main generator:

Ld d 0 0 q 0 3 M 2 aF F D 3 M 2 aD Q 0 0 Lq 0 0 0 3 M aQ 2 0 0 L0 0 0 0 M aF 0 0 LFF M DF 0 M aD 0 0 M FD LDD 0 0 M aQ id 0 iq i0 0 i F 0 iD i Q LQQ

(2)

There is no damping winding in exciter. Then the mathematical model of exciter can be described as: Voltage equation of the exciter:
u d ra uq = 0 u f 0
Fig. 1. Structure of three-stage generator

0 ra 0

0 id p d q 0 iq + p q + d rf i f p f 0

(3)

Flux equation of the exciter: In order to set up the synchronous generator model in Saber simulator, the input variables, output variables and the state variables of the generator should be defined firstly (required by MAST coding). Input variables for the generator are speed and excitation current. Output variables are three phase voltages and currents. Winding flux is used as state variable. With the above definations, it is ready to set up the generator model in MAST language. There are two main parts in synchronous generators: the stator and the rotor. The stator is equipped with armature windings, while the rotor is equipped with DC excitation windings. For the salient pole machine, the rotor will usually be fitted with damper winding. For the synchronous generator used in MEA power systems, there are damper windings on daxis and q-axis of the rotor. Because of the uneven air-gap flux distribution along the circumference of the armature, the original motor equation has to be used in the quantitative analysis. However, the original equation of synchronous motor is a multi-variable equation, which is difficult to be analyzed in Saber simulator. Here, in this paper, d-q-0 equations under synchronously rotating coordinate system are used, which can be obtained through the Park transformation. The mathematical model of the main generator is shown as follows. Voltage equation of the main generator:
L dd 0 = 3 M 2 0 L qq
fa

d q f

M 0 L

af

id iq i f

(4)

Upon the above analysis on the mathematical model of the synchronous generator, the simulation model in SABER is set up (Fig. 2).

Fig. 2. Synchronous generator simulation model

III.

CONTROL STRATEGY AND SIMULATION MODEL SETUP

A. Control Structure The basic function of the AVR is to ensure the output voltage of the generator within a desired range. For this purpose, a feedback control is adopted here. In the modern MEA power systems, the speed and load of generators changes dramaticaly, which makes it hard to satisfy the

dynamic voltage regulation requirements with only single loop feedback structure. Thus a three-loop based controller [6] for the automatic generator voltage regulation is adopted here, as can be seen from Fig. 3.
Vref
+

iex reg
+

iEX ref
+

Vt

iEX
iex load

iload

stationary coordinate system is achieved by modeling with MAST language (models on the left of Fig. 5). Synchronous rotation angle is identified directly from the product of motor rotation angle and pole number. The relationship between load current and excitation current can be determined by the support of simulation, thus enables the selection of the parameters in the compensation current loop. s +1 i fc 2 = Kc (6) s id +1

Fig. 3. Control structure

The outer loop is the feedback loop for direct output voltage regulation of the main generator, which generates iexreg according to the error between output voltage and Vref. The middle loop is the disturbance-rejection loop that compensates for the changes in the output voltage caused by the generator load current, which makes the AVR has better performance both in steady state and dynamic state [7]. And the middle loop is a feed forward loop. The inner feedback loop controls the excitation current of the exciter. The excitation current command or reference for the inner loop is generated by the sum of the regulation action iexreg from the outer voltage regulator and the disturbance rejection iexload from the feed-forward loop. B. Voltage Feedback Loop A typical PID controller is adopted in the voltage feedback control loop. Considering that there is also a differential component in PID controller, a Low Pass Filter is added in this loop. The transfer function of a typical PID controller is in equation (5) [8].

The inputs of abc-dq0 Park transformation module are three-phase currents from the generator. The summation of the calculated compensation current iexload and regulation action current iexreg is used as the reference input of excitation current feedback control loop.

Fig. 5. Simulation model of load current compensation loop

Gd (s) =

Kg (1s +1)(2s +1)

3s

(5)

D. Excitation Current Feedback Loop As the excitation current contains many harmonic components, a Low Pass Filter is designed for the excitation current feedback control. Besides, given the differential component in excitation control, an additional high frequency pole is added to reduce the system's cut off frequency, thereby weakening the high-frequency noise introduced by differential component. The transfer function of excitation current feedback loop is shown in equation (7). Lf K e R f (1 + s) Rf (7) Gec ( s ) = s / ec + 1 The excitation current reference iEXref for the inner loop is generated by suming the two currents: regulation action current iexreg ( from the outer voltage regulator) and the disturbance rejection current iexload (from the load current compensate loop). Simulation model of excitation current feedback loop is shown in Fig. 6.

In order to obtain a better performance of the PID controller, the linear transfer function of the synchronous generator is built with model identification method based on a series of experiments [9].

Fig. 4. Simulation model of voltage feedback loop

Fig. 6. Simulation model of excitation current feedback loop

C. Load Current Compensation Loop Load current compensation could further improve the dynamic performance of the overall system [10]. In the load current compensation loop, transformation from three-phase coordinates to two-phase synchronous rotating

IV.

SIMULATION RESULTS

A. Steady State Results At a frequency of 400Hz, the output voltage and current of the generator with resistive load are shown in Fig. 7. It can be

obviously noticed from the figure that, the peak value of the output voltage of the main generator is 159V, while the RMS value of the output voltage is 112V. And the peak value of the current is 12A.

Fig. 8. Output voltage of load connection and disconnection (up) and excitation current of load connection and disconnection (down)

Fig. 7. Output voltage and current of main generator (up) and RMS value of output voltage (down)

V. HARDWARE SET UP Configuration of the hardware platform of the AVR is introduced in this section. Its main component is a DSP TMS320F2812 (microprocessor). The CPU board of the digital AVR can be seen from Fig. 9.

B. Transit State Results In the rest of this section, the impact of load changes to voltage regulator system will be analyzed. Simulation results of output voltage and excitation current under load connection and disconnection are presented in Fig. 8. A sudden connection of load leads to a sudden increase in load current. This situation will weaken the main magnetic flux and increase the internal impedance of the stator. As a result, the output voltage of the main generator will drop. Thanks to the role of the digital voltage regulator, the exciting current increases rapidly so that the generator output voltage is gradually restored to the given value, and finally the system reached a new steady state. Note that, due to the commutation of rotating rectifier, exciting current contains a large number of harmonic components. Under load disconnected situation, because of the sudden decreasing of the load current caused by load disconnection, demagnetization effects and the anti-EMF of armature current are significantly reduced, making a sudden increase of magnetic flux of the generator. This contributes to the sudden increasing of the generator output voltage. After the change is detected, the digital voltage regulator forces the exciting current to decrease rapidly, which makes the generator terminal voltage gradually restored to the given value.

Fig. 9. CPU board of the digital AVR

A. Filter Design Because of the harmonics and noise in the real circuit, two types of filters are adopted [5]. One is implemented in hardware platform as anti-aliasing filter. The other is realized by software in order to improve the measured magnitudes. In the DSP controller, an inverse-Chebyshev filter is implemented through programming. After digital filtering, harmonic spectrum of the signal is eliminated, which is verified by experimental results shown in Fig. 10.

5
5 4 Mag 3 2 1 0 0
x 10 4 3
Mag
4

x 10

Q1 VD1 C L
2000 4000 Freq/Hz 6000 8000 10000

Q2
Fig. 12. Novel excitation circuit

VD2

2 1 0 0 2000 4000
Freq/Hz

6000

8000

10000

Fig. 10. Input signal spectrum (up) and output signal spectrum (down)

When there is a sharp increase in the output voltage of the generator, both Q1 and Q2 are closed. The excitation current flows through diode VD1 and VD2, then charges the capacitor C. This leads to a larger excitation current decline to accelerate the process of the output voltage drop. The process can be described by equation9.

B. Calculation Error Analysis In this application, both data acquisition and calculation are completed by DSP. Because the signal period can not be divided exactly by the sampling interval, relative error is introduced. Thus it is necessary to compensate the measured value to make it closer to the actual value. The size of error has a relationship with signal frequency (1/T), sampling frequency (1/Ts) and the number of sampling points (N) [11]. So, it can be calculated and compensated to the RMS value of measured data. Equation (8) is used to calculate the absolute error.
U 2 = U '2 U 2 = d u 2 ( N ) U '2 N + d
(8)

di f dt

uC + uVD1 + uVD 2 + uRL L

VI.
EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS

Where d can be obtained from T/Ts N. As Fig. 11 shows, the measurement error is apparently decreased by using compensation.
0.4 0.2 error(%) 0 -0.2 -0.4 -0.5
x 10
-3

Experimental results are presented and analyzed in this section. These results could further validate the performance of the AVR besides the simulation results. Fig. 13 illustrates the results of the output voltages under different working conditions with rated resistive load. As can be seen, it takes about 32ms for the system to reconfigure from a sudden load connection to steady state. While it costs the system about 42ms to reach a new steady state in case of a sudden load disconnection. The output voltages of load connection and disconnection with lower rated resistive load are poytrayed in Fig. 14.

-0.4

-0.3

-0.2

-0.1

0 deta

0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

5 0 error(%) -5 -10

-15 -0.5

-0.4

-0.3

-0.2

-0.1

0 deta

0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

Fig. 11. Error without compensation (up) and error with compensation (down)

C. Excitation Circuit Design In order to improve the dynamic response of AVR, especially the transit caused by load disconnection, a novel excitation circuit is adopted in this paper. As Fig. 12 shows, in normal working conditions, Q2 is kept in conduction state, Q1 is controlled by the PWM signal.

Fig. 13. Output voltage of load connection (up) and disconnection (down) (rated resistive load, 8000r/min, 57.6A)

6 Ma Xiangfei, Digital generator control unit for synchronous brushless gererator, Master Thesis, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 2004. [7] Chang Jie, Wang Anhua, New VF-Power System Architecture and Evaluation for Future Aircraft, IEEE Trans. Aerospace and Electronic Systems, 42(2), pp. 527-539, April. 2006. [8] Kim Kiyong, Schaefer. R.C, Tuning a PID controller for a digital excitation control system, IEEE Trans. Industry Applications, 41(2), March. 2005. [9] ZHANG Zhuo-ran, CHEN Zhi-hui, YANG Shan-shui, YAN Yangguang, Research on Building the Mathematical Model of Voltage Regulation System in Aero-power, Acta Aeronautica Et Astronautica Sinica. May. 2004. [10] Ghazizadeh. M.S, Hughes. F.M, A generator transfer function regulator for improved excitation control, IEEE Trans. Power System, 13(2), May. 1998. [11] Kuroe Yasuaki, Okada Kazuho, Analysis of Floating-Point Quantization Errors in Digital Control Systems: Influence of The Order of Arithmetic Steps in Controller, American Control Conference, 1992. [6]

Fig. 14. Output voltage of load connection (up) and disconnection (down) (lower rated resistive load, 8000r/min, 93.7A)

IX. BIOGRAPHIES
Weilin Li received the B.S. and M.S. degrees in electrical engineering from Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xian, China, in 2007 and 2009, respectively. He is currently working toward the Ph.D degree in electrical engineering with the Institute for Automation of Complex Power Systems, E.ON Energy Research Center, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany. His research interests are protection in medium voltage DC (MVDC) power system, integrated simulation, and smart grid.

VII.

CONCLUSION AND FUTURE WORK

A DSP based automatic voltage regulator for voriable frequency synchronous generator is proposed in this paper. Analysis and development of the proposed controller is done through both computer simulations and the actural implementation. The mathematic models of synchronous generators are studied first, then the controller parameters and characteristics are determined from the models. In order to obtain faster dynamic performance, better damping and stability, several methods have been applied in the hardware platform. Both the steady state and dynamic control performance of the regulator is investigated on different working conditions. Simulation and experimental results show a significant performance improvement compared with conventional regulators. However, the execution control algorithms executes upon one assumption: all the local measurements from the sensors are reliable. In this situation, once the sensor is failed, a catastrophic consequence on the whole system will occur. For example, the controller outputs wrong control signals according to the bad sensor data, even though the real system is still in good condition. In order to solve this problem, detecting the failed sensors and rebuilding the data after sensor failure is necessary, and will be part of the future work. VIII. REFERENCES
[1] [2] P. Kundur, Power System Stability and Control, McGraw-Hill, 1994. S. Rosado, X. Ma, C. Han, F. Wang, and D. Boroyevich, Model-based digital controller for a variable frequency synchronous generator with brushless exciter, in Proc. 36th IEEE Power Electron. Specialist Conf., Sep. 1114, 2005, pp. 9095. Guide to Writing MAST Templates, book 1, June. 2003. Guide to Writing MAST Templates, book 2, June. 2003. S. Rosado, X. Ma, C. Han, F. Wang, and D. Boroyevich, Model-based digital controller for a variable frequency synchronous generator with brushless exciter, IEEE Trans. Energy Conversion, VOL. 23, NO. 1, pp. 4252, March. 2008.

Xiaobin Zhang received the B.S. and M.S. degrees in electical engineering from Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xian, China, in 1983 and 1986, respectively. He is now a Full Professor and the Director of the Institute for Airctaft Power Systems, Northwestern Polytechnic University, Xian, China. His research interest are aircraft power systems, power electronics and power factor correction.

Huimin Li received the B.S and M.S. degrees in electrical engineering from Hefei Technology of University (Hefei, Anhui, China in 2002) and Donghua University (Shanghai, China, in 2005) respectively. She is currently working toward the Ph.D degree in electrical engineering with the department of Electrical Enginnering in University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC, USA. Her research interests are sensor failure detection and information rebuilding for power system, advanced ac motor drives, and smart grid.

[3] [4] [5]