15th International Power Electronics and Motion Control Conference, EPE-PEMC 2012 ECCE Europe, Novi Sad, Serbia

A Switched Model Predictive Control

Formulation for Flying Capacitor Converters
Ricardo P. Aguilera1 , Pablo Lezana2 , Daniel E. Quevedo1
1

School of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science, The University of Newcastle, Australia;
e-mails: {raguilera, dquevedo}@ieee.org.
2
Depto. de Ingeniera Elctrica, Universidad Tcnica Federico Santa Mara, Valparaso, Chile; e-mail: pablo.lezana@usm.cl.

AbstractThis work presents a switched Model Predictive

Control (MPC) formulation for Flying Capacitor Converters
(FCCs). The key idea of our proposal is to use standard
Finite Control Set MPC (FCS-MPC) to lead the system to
a region near to the desired reference, e.g. during reference
changes. Once the system state is close to the reference,
the optimal solution of Explicit MPC will be used to nally
achieve the desired reference. The actuation of this local
controller will be modulated using a PWM stage. As an
illustrative example we apply this proposal to control an
FCC. Thus, the output current control as well as the
balancing of the oating voltages will be achieved with a
zero steady state error and a constant switching frequency.
Index TermsPower Electronics, Predictive Control,
Emerging Control Issues.

I. I NTRODUCTION
In general, model predictive control (MPC) for power
converters can be classied into two major categories
according to the nature of the system input, Explicit MPC
and Finite Control Set MPC (FCS-MPC) [1].
Explicit MPC [2] considers the duty cycle (or modulation index) as control input. Therefore, for this kind
of predictive strategy, the system input belongs to a
bounded continuous control set, e.g. d(t) [0, 1]. To track
references, a cost function which considers the tracking
error at each sampling instant is used. To obtain an
optimal input, the state-space is divided in several partitions, e.g. Ri Rn . Thus, an optimal local controller,
i (x), is obtained for each state-space partition Ri . This
procedure is carried out off-line. Afterwards, a lookup
table is used to implement the optimal controller to be
applied. Consequently, the on-line algorithm is focused
on determining which region Ri the system-state belongs.
Regarding the advantages of this predictive strategy,
Explicit MPC presents a good performance during the
steady state. In this case, a zero-average tracking error can
be achieved as well as a constant switching frequency in
the electrical variables, e.g. output converter voltage and
load current. Additionally, depending on the modulation
strategy, a x number of switch commutations can also
be obtained. The main drawback of this predictive formulation is related to the off-line computation complexity. The derived controller may consist of several local
controllers, yielding a lookup table with several entries.
To overcome this situation, some suboptimal solutions

978-1-4673-1972-0/12/$31.00 2012 IEEE

have been proposed, see e.g. [3], [4]. This problem is

even more complex when MPC is applied to non-linear
systems. [5].
The second main category and one of the most attractive predictive formulations for power converters is
FCS-MPC [6] (also known as direct MPC [7]). In this
group, the predictive strategies expressly take into account
the power switches as control input of the system. Since
power switches can adopt only two states, namely 1 or 0
(ON or OFF), the input is restricted to belong to a nite
set of feasible switch combinations. Therefore, one can
also obtain a nite number of predictions for the different electrical variables. To obtain the optimal solution,
the cost function is evaluated for each possible switch
combination at each sampling instant. Afterwards, the
optimal switching action to be applied to the converter is
the one which minimizes the cost function. Consequently,
no modulation stages to handle the power switches are
required.
One of the most important benets of FCS-MPC is
the fact that this predictive technique can deal with more
complex target than Explicit MPC and traditional linear
controllers, by incorporating them in the cost function,
e.g. reducing the common mode voltage [8] and switching
loses [9]. Regarding the performance, FCS-MPC allows
one to achieve a fast transient response when changes
in the load and/or reference are present. Moreover, this
predictive technique allows the converter to avoid unwanted over-currents, which normally appears during
this transients, by adding safety limits for the electrical
variables as constraints in the optimal problem; see e.g.
[10], where a converter power limitation is imposed in
the control of an AFE rectier. The main drawback of
FCS-MPC when compared to PWM-based strategies is
the performance obtained during the steady state. In [11],
it has been shown that the FCS-MPC algorithm gives,
in general, a non-zero steady state error. To mitigate this
problem, some modication in the cost function has been
proposed in [11]. On the other hand, it is well known
that FCS-MPC gives spread voltage and current spectra
[6], [7].
This work presents a switched MPC formulation which
exploits the advantages of Explicit MPC and FCS-MPC.
To some extent, our approach is related to ideas underlying so-called dual mode MPC; see [12]. This concept is

DS3c.5-1

based on the idea of dening a so-called terminal region,

in which a local controller can stabilize the system. In this
work we propose to use FCS-MPC to steer the system
towards the terminal region while Explicit MPC is used
to nally achieve the desired reference. As an illustrative
example, we implement this switched predictive strategy
to handle a Flying Capacitor Converter (FCC).
II. F LYING C APACITOR C ONVERTER
The FCC is an interesting topology for medium voltage
applications [13], [14]. This topology requires a single
main dc-link to electrically feed the whole converter
even for three-phase applications, similar to the Neutral
Point Converter (NPC) topology [15]. The basic unit
of this converter is called cell and is conformed by a
capacitor and two complementary switches, as shown in
Fig. 1. These cells are connected in tandem to generate
a multilevel output voltage waveform. Thus, the control
algorithm must deal not only with the output current
control, but also keep the ying capacitor voltages (vc1
and vc2 in Fig. 1) at their adequate values. Traditionally,
they must accomplish with:
vcy = y vc1 ,

y {1, . . . , n}.

(1)

In this way, all semiconductors can be designed to

block an equal voltage of vc1 , while the maximum voltage
at the load can reach up to n vc1 = Vdc .
Hereafter, a three-cell FCC will be considered, but the
analysis can be easily extended to any cell number. Then,
the instantaneous phase output voltage can be calculated
from:




vaN = S3 Vdc S3 S2 vc2 S2 S1 vc1 , (2)
where Sy {0, 1}. The output current, considering an
rL-load, can be obtained from:
dia
= vaN .
dt
The ying capacitor voltages are a function of
switch states and the output current according with:
 t
1
vc1 =
ic1 ( ) d,
C1 0


ic1 = ia S2 S1 ,
 t
1
ic2 ( ) d,
vc2 =
C2 0


ic2 = ia S3 S2 .
r ia + L

Notice that, since the output current is multiplying the

converter switches in (5) and (7), this is a nonlinear
model.
III. S WITCHED MPC F ORMULATION
In general, MPC or receding horizon control [12] is
a control technique which calculates the control action
by solving, at each sampling instant, an optimal control
problem which forecasts, over a nite horizon, the future
system behaviour from the current system state. This
generates an optimal control sequence. The control action
to be applied to the plant is the rst element of this
sequence. The main advantage of MPC is that system
constraints (e.g., voltage and current limitations) and
nonlinearities can be explicitly taken into account. MPC
operates in discrete time with xed sampling frequency
fs = h1 . Therefore, it is necessary to obtain a discretetime model of the plant
x[k + 1] = f (x[k], u[k]),

(8)

where x represents the system states and u stands for the

control inputs.
Afterwards, it is necessary to select a cost function
to evaluate the future system behaviour. In this case we
will focus on a quadratic cost function, with a prediction
horizon N :
N
1

VN (x, u) = Vf (x[N ]) +
(x[k], u[k])
(9)
k=0

where
(x, u) = xT Qx + uT Ru,
is the stage cost, in which Q and R are positive denite
matrices, and
Vf (x) = xT P x,

(4)

is the nal cost, in which P is also positive denite.

Notice that Q and R are weighting matrices used
to penalize predicted behaviour. Hence, these are given
matrices. On the other hand, matrix P is used to penalize nal predicted state and is related to the controller
stability, see [16].
Now, the MPC strategy can be stated as an optimal
control problem, PN (x), as:

(5)

PN (x) : VN0 (x) = min{VN (x, u) | u UN (x)}, (10)

(3)
the

(6)


u

where UN (x) is the set of control sequences, u, which

satises
u[k] U, k {0, , N 1},
x[N ] Xf .

(7)

(11)
(12)

The result of this optimization will give us an optimal

input sequence, uop , expressed by


uop  {uop [0], . . . , uop [N 1]}  arg min V (k, u) .

uUN

Finally, the optimal input applied to the system is the

rst element of the optimal input sequence
Figure 1.

u[k]  M P C (x[k]) = uop [0].

Three-cell (four-level) single-phase FCC.

DS3c.5-2

(13)

A. FCS-MPC of an FCC
As already mentioned, we rst need to obtain a
discrete-time model of the FCC. Considering the system
state as x[k] = [vc1 [k] vc2 [k] ia [k]]T and the control
input as u[k] = [S1 [k] S2 [k] S3 [k]]T , equations (2) to
(7) can be easily discretized and rewritten in a matrix
form (see [17], [18]) as:
x[k + 1] = Ax[k] + B(x[k])u[k],
where

1
A = 0
0


0
1
0

(14)

B. Explicit MPC of an FCC

For our problem, we propose to apply Explicit MPC
only when the system state, x, is near to the reference,
x . Moreover, the optimal action will become the duty
cycle. To implement this optimal input, a PS-PWM stage
will be used. Thus, a natural balancing of the oating
voltages can be achieved [20], [21]. Therefore, the system
becomes linear, due to the fact that only the output current
is considered as a system state. Thus, we have that:

0
0 ,
ka

x[k + 1] = F x[k] + Gu[k],

(19)

where x[k] = ia [k], F = ka , G = kb Vdc , and u[k] = d[k]

which
stands for the duty cycle.

h
Ch x3 [k]
x
[k]
0
3
Notice
that (19) is a single-input single-output system.
C1
1
h
B(x[k]) =
,
0
Ch x3 [k]
x
[k]
3
However,
for a three phase converter, independent on
C2
2
kb x1 [k]
kb (x2 [k] x1 [k]) kb (Vdc [k] x2 [k])
the number of cells, the system can be reduced to three
in which
states which represent the three-phase load current, and
r
h L
three inputs which stand for the duty cycle. Considerka = e
,
kb = (1 ka )/r,
(15)
ing this linear model, we then apply the Explicit MPC
and h stands for the sampling period.
strategy taking into account that now the constraint (11)
To design a closed loop controller for an FCC, it
has changed from a nite set to a bounded set, i.e.
is necessary to control not only the output current, but
u[k] U  [0, 1]. Consequently, the optimal problem
also the internal oating voltages in order to achieve the
(10) becomes a quadratic convex problem.
desired balancing voltage condition (1). Therefore, from
As previously mentioned, Explicit MPC will be applied
a control viewpoint, this is a challenging topology which
only in the so-called terminal region, x Rf  Xf .
presents nonlinearities, due to B(x[k]), and the control
It is well known that the optimal solution of MPC for
input belongs to the following nite set
an unconstrained linear system is the linear quadratic
regulator (LQR) [12], expressed by
u[k] U  {0, 1} {0, 1} {0, 1} .
To incorporate these targets to the controller, we rst
dene the error signals of the system via:

vc1 [k] vc1

.
(16)
e[k]  vc2 [k] vc2

iL [k] iL [k]
In this case, we chose a prediction horizon of N = 1.
Thus, the quadratic cost function (9) becomes:
V (x[k], u[k]) = e[k]T Qe[k] + e[k + 1]T P e[k + 1] (17)

E [k] = K(x[k] x [k]) + u [k],

(20)

where u [k] is the required input to keep x [k] in a steady

state, i.e. x [k] = (I F )1 Gu [k].
Matrix K is obtained by solving the Riccati equation
ATK P AK P + Q + K T RK = 0,
in which AK = F + GK. Thus, the optimal controller
gain in (20) is expressed by

where R = 0 and

K = (GT P G + R)1 GT P F.

P = Q = diag{1 , 2 , 1}.

Now, we can characterize the terminal region, Xf , via

Here, 1 and 2 are design parameters, which allow one

to trade current tracking errors versus capacitor voltage
tracking errors and, thus, achieve the proposed target.
Consequently, the optimal switching action to be applied
to the converter is:


uop [k]  F (x[k]) = arg min V (k, u[k])
(18)
u[k]U

Notice that in this case, the optimal problem presented

in (10) is a non-convex problem. Therefore, obtaining
an analytical solution is a non-trivial task. However, the
optimal input can be easily obtained on-line by evaluating
all the eight switching combinations in the cost function.
Additionally, we are not considering the constraint (12)
due to the fact that it is always possible to steer the system
state near to the reference when the FCC is governed by
FCS-MPC [19]. Nevertheless, a zero steady state average
error can not be guaranteed [11].

Xf  {x Rn : E (x[k]) U} .

(21)

Finally, the optimal solution E (x[k]) is modulated

using the PS-PWM strategy which guarantees the openloop balancing of the oating voltages [20].
It is important to emphasize that E (x[k]) is only
optimal if x[k] Xf . Thus, E (x[k]) U satises
constraints (11) and (12) in the optimal problem.
C. Proposed Switched MPC Strategy
Considering both FCS-MPC and Explicit MPC, the
optimal solution of our proposal for the whole system
state is given by

F (x), x Rn , x
/ Xf
uop [k]  M P C (x) =
E (x), x Xf
(22)

DS3c.5-3

Table I
M AIN CONVERTER AND CONTROL PARAMETERS .

Now, we dene when to switch between the two predictive formulations in practice. At each sampling instant
k, based on the system error presented in (16), we evaluate
the following system deviation:
J[k] = e[k]T Qe[k].
If J[k] is higher than a lower bound, JL , i.e. J[k] >
JL , we will apply FCS-MPC to lead the system towards
the reference. Once, J[k] < JL , we will apply the LQR
presented in (20).
To avoid unnecessaries switching between these two
predictive techniques during a transition, the FCS-MPC
only will be applied again as soon as the system deviation
is higher than an upper bound, JH , i.e. J[k] > JH . Notice
that the upper bound, JH , is related to the terminal region,
Xf , in (21). Thus, it must be designed in order to satisfy
that when J[k] < JL = x[k] Xf .

Parameter

Value

Vdc
R
L
C1 =C2
fs
fc

400 V
40
10 mH
110 F
4000 Hz
1333 Hz

IV. R ESULTS
The most relevant converter and control parameters
are detailed in Table I. For the FCS-MPC strategy the
sampling time, h, is set as 250s, i.e. fs = 4 kHz.
Thus, for this predictive strategy, the maximum switch
commutation frequency and the output voltage switching
frequency is 2 kHz. On the other hand, to implement the
Explicit MPC solution, a PS-PWM along with the LQR is
considered. Here, the carrier frequency is set as fc = 1.33
kHz. Thus, each switch will commutate at fc . However,
as a positive consequence of using PS-PWM, the output
voltage switching frequency will be 4 kHz, see [22].
The weighting factors used by FCS-MPC are chosen
as 1 = 2 = 0.01. Thus, P = Q = diag{0.01, 0.01, 1}
and R = 0. Using these weighting matrices, we nally
obtain the optimal controller gain presented in (20) as
K = 6.5896.

Figure 2. Start-up with a LQR+PWM scheme: (a) FCC inner voltages;

(b) Output current; (c) Output voltage.

A. Start-up performance
One of the most demanding test for a control scheme
of an FCC is the start-up process without pre-charging
the oating capacitors. Fig. 2 shows the performance of
a pure LQR+PWM scheme under this condition with an
output current reference given by:
ia = ia + ia
= 5 + 4 sin(250 t).
Under this control strategy, there is not a closed-loop
control of the ying capacitor voltages. Therefore, this
strategy relies in the natural balancing (open-loop control)
yielded by the modulation strategy PS-PWM. As can
be clearly observed in Fig. 2, those voltages tend to
their desired values but with a very low dynamic and a
signicant overshoot. Finally, after approximately 300ms,
the oating capacitor voltages reach their nominal values
of 266V and 133V respectively. As a consequence of the
start-up dynamic of the oating voltages, signicant highfrequency distortion is presented in the output current.
Nevertheless, its fundamental component follows the reference.

Figure 3. Start-up with the proposed scheme: (a) FCC inner voltages;
(b) Output current; (c) Output voltage; (d) Joint error function.

On the other hand, in Fig. 3 the results obtained for the

proposed switched MPC formulation are presented. Since
during the start-up the oating voltage errors are very
large, the system deviation error, J[k], presents a large
value. Therefore, the control scheme operates in the FCSMPC mode. This can be clearly appreciated during the

DS3c.5-4

Current reference

f S1

f S2

f S3

FCS-MPC

1A
1.5A
2A
2.5A
3A
3.5A
4A
4.5A
5A

1.49kHz
1.46kHz
1.39kHz
1.34kHz
1.09kHz
0.93kHz
1.1kHz
0.79kHz
0.65kHz

1.55kHz
1.52kHz
1.45kHz
1.43kHz
1.36kHz
1.1kHz
0.99kHz
0.75kHz
0.68kHz

1.61kHz
1.48kHz
1.44kHz
1.42kHz
1.2kHz
1.01kHz
0.83kHz
0.7kHz
0.59kHz

Prop. Scheme

Table II
AVERAGE S WITCHING F REQUENCIES FOR D IFFERENT C URRENT
R EFERENCE VALUES

Any

1.33kHz

1.33kHz

1.33kHz

rst 10 ms in the output voltage. Thus, FCS-MPC steers

the oating capacitors voltage to their reference values
in almost 8ms (35 times faster than LQR+PWM). This
leads to a fast reduction in the joint error function, J[k].
Consequently, the control scheme switches from FCSMPC mode to LQR+PWM mode. Note that the transition
between both control modes does not generate additional
dynamics either in the oating capacitor voltages or the
output current. As a natural consequence of the operation
in LQR+PWM mode, during the steady state the oating
capacitor voltages remain at their desired values yielding
a 4-level output voltage waveform.

Figure 5. Current reference step response:: (a) FCC inner voltages; (b)
Output current; (c) Output voltage; (d) Joint error function.

B. Steady-state performance
One of the main drawbacks of FCS-MPC is related
with its performance in the frequency domain. As shown
in Fig. 4 the output current spectrum obtained is wide
spread over the range 500-3000Hz, moreover, the spectrum signicatively changes with the current reference.
This can excite no modeled resonances, and make difcult
the design of lters to reduce the harmonic pollution. The
proposed technique uses a PS-PWM scheme in steady
state, therefore, the harmonics are well dened around
nfc , where n is the number of internal cells. In this case
n = 3 and fc = 1333Hz.
A signicant advantage of modulator-based control
strategies comes from the fact that the semiconductor
switching frequency is well known. In this case it corresponds to fc = 1.33kHz. Additionally, the switching
losses are equally spread among the semiconductors with
no additional effort. These characteristics are no present in
FCS-MPC unless additional modications in the quality
function are included.
Table II shows the average switching frequency, f Sx ,
for switches S1 S3 as a function of the current reference. As can be observed, S2 presents, in general, a
higher switching frequency when compared to S1 and S3 .
Moreover, these switching frequencies change depending
on the current reference magnitude.

Figure 6. Current reference step response: (a) FCC inner voltages; (b)
Output current; (c) Output voltage; (d) Joint error function.

C. Current reference step

To show the dynamic capabilities of the proposed
scheme, a step in the sinusoidal component of output
current reference from 4A to 2A is introduced. Additionally, a phase-shift of 180 is also included to obtain a
harder step. For comparison purposes, the response of the
FCC governed by a pure LQR+PWM scheme is shown
in Fig. 5, while the results for the proposed switch MPC
strategy are shown in Fig. 6. In both cases there are almost
no effects on the oating capacitor voltages, which remain
at the desired values.

DS3c.5-5

Output current spectrum [A] Output current spectrum [A]

FCS-MPC

0.15

Proposed Scheme

0.15

i*=5+4sin(2p50t)

i =5+4sin(2p50t)
*

0.1

0.1

0.05

0.05

(a)

0.15

i =5+2sin(2p50t)

0.15

i =5+2sin(2p50t)

0.1

0.1

0.05

0.05

0
0.5

0.5
6
7
Frequency [kHz] (b)

Frequency [kHz]

Figure 4. Output current spectrum obtained with a standard FCS-MPC algorithm and the proposed scheme for: (a) i = 5 + 4 sin(250t); (b)
i = 5 + 2 sin(250t).

Due to the step change in the reference, the joint error

value, J[k], is increased instantaneously, yielding to the
proposed strategy to operate in the FCS-MPC mode. The
output voltage is increased to its maximum value by
the FCS-MPC strategy in order to quickly increase the
output current. Once it is near to the desired reference, the
joint-error value is reduced allowing the control scheme
returns to the LQR+PWM mode. It can be observed
that the proposed technique presents a faster response
when compared to the LQR+PWM scheme (almost twice
faster), and no additional dynamics can be observed.
V. C ONCLUSIONS
A switched MPC formulation for power converters has
been presented in this work. This proposal is based on the
idea of using FCS-MPC to steer the system state near to
the system reference. Once a pre-dened neighbourhood
of the desired reference is reached, the proposed algorithm
switch to Explicit MPC to nally achieve the system
reference. Thus, our proposal exploits the main advantages that both predictive strategies offer. As an illustrative
example, this predictive formulation has been applied
to an FCC. From a control viewpoint, this topology is
highly challenging, due to inherent nonlinearities and
system constraints. As can be observed in the results,
the proposed switched MPC formulation allows one to
obtain a fast transient response as well as a good steady
state performance. Consequently, the capacitor voltage
balancing and the output current tracking are achieved
with a constant output switching frequency, fs = 4kHz,
and a constant switch commutation frequency, fc =
1.33kHz, during the steady state.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors acknowledge the support of the Chilean
Research Council (CONICYT) under grant FONDECYT
1100697 and the Australian Research Councils Discovery
Projects funding scheme (project number DP110103074).

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