Simulation and Experimentation of a Voltage Source Active

Filter Compensating Current Harmonics and Power Factor

J.H.Xu*, C.Lott**, S.Saadate* and B.Davat*
* GREEN-INPL-CNRS URA 1438; 2, avenue de la ForQ de Haye-54516 Vandoeuvre les Nancy cedex - France
phone : +33 83 59 56 52; fax : + 33 83 59 56 53; e-mail : xuji@ensem.u-nancy.fr

** GREEN & CEGELEC-DEI; 3, avenue des Trois Chih.s-90018 Belfort cedex - France

Abstract - This paper describes a simple control method of es Rs Ls is vs ic Rc Lc

voltage source active filters which compensate simultaneously the
harmonics and reactive power absorbed by non linear loads. The
calculation of active filter current references is based on the
principle that the active component of load currents can be
I g'
estimated by a PI regulator which controls the capacitor voltage Rd
of active filter. By choosing appropriate parameters for the PI U
regulator, satisfactory static and dynamic performances can be
obtained. The theoretical study is firstly confirmed by numerical Mains Non linear load
simulation of a three-phase active filter-rectifier system and then
by experimentation through a single-phase low-power model. Rf Lf

INTRODUCTION Active power filter

Static converters such as rectifiers and cycloconverters have

greatly contributed to the improvement of performance and saving U

energy in industrial power conversion systems. But with the

generation of current harmonics and consumption of reactive power, Figure 1 : System configuration
these equipments disturb the AC mains. The usual method to reduce
these disturbances is the use of costly and bulky filters together with
reactive power compensators. However, these remedies do not S, =dPc2 + Qc2 + DC2
provide good results when the network or the pollution source is (1)
modified.
For a perfect compensation of current harmonics and reactive power,
Recently, along with the remarkable progress made in the field of
the apparent power of the active filter is equal to :
power electronic devices, new static converters utilizing PWM
techniques or resonant link principles have being developed, which
are expected to replace line commutated converters [ 11. However,
line commutated converters remain up to now dominant in industrial
power conversion systems. Current harmonics and reactive power Q, and D , vary with the active power absorbed by the rectifier.
generated by these converters are becoming a serious problem in AC which is the same as that consumed by the resistive load. In the case
power network. Thus, the development of active power filters where the output current of the rectifier is perfectly smoothed, we
becomes more interesting [2-51. have :
In this paper, a voltage source active filter is used to compensate
simultaneously the harmonics and reactive power. A relatively
simple control method of active filter is developed, which results in
(3)
satisfying static and dynamic performances. The theoretical study is
then confirmed firstly by numerical simulation of a three-phase
active filter-rectifier system and secondly by experimentation where a represents the triggering delay angle of the thyristors and
through a single-phase low-power model. udo the average value of the rectified voltage for a equal to .
'
0 The
reactive and distorted powers can be expressed respectively by :
DESCRIPTION OF THE POWER SYSTEM

Figure 1 shows the main circuit of the system considered. It

consists in a power network, a six-pulse thyristor rectifier with highly D, = S e d ] - A 2
inductive load and a voltage source active filter. The active filter
compensates the harmonics and reactive power absorbed by the
rectirier. Therefore, the power network supplies only a sinewave where h represents the waveform factor of the distorted current.
current which is in phase with the line voltage. Let us note by ,
S the apparent power of the non linear load for
In order to estimate the power rate of the active filter with respect a equal to Oo, from (3). (4) and (5) we have:
to the non linear load, let us decompose the apparent power of the
non linear load to active, reactive and distorted powers, noted
udo2
respectively by P,, Qc and D, : s, =-
md

0-7803-1328-3/94$03.000 1994 IEEE

411
Then, we get from (2) and (6):

The maximum ratio between Sf and Scm is given by :

1
for cos(a) =- (9)
.\r;7L
Since the waveform factor ?L is equal to 317~in the case of a six-
pulse rectifier, the power rate of the active filter is therefore equal to
52% of the non linear load. Figure 2 compares the ratios DclScm
and Sf'Scm as a function of trigerring delay angle a . Note that the
power rate of the active filter increases from 30 to 52% of Scm if the
reactive power Qc is also compensated. Due to the relatively
A J L ~ ~ v :
important power rate of active filter. this compensation strategy will V C
be limited for small to medium non linear loads.
Figure 3 : Control circuit of active filter

where V represents the rms line voltage. The instantaeous active

power absorbed by the active filter can be expressed as :

Neglecting the losses of the active filter, this power correponds to the
variation of capacitor's energy given by :

Pf=-g
d ? C1V c 2 )

0.0; ' I ' 1 . I ' I ' 1 a

0 20 40 60 80 100 For the values of Vc near to the reference voltage V
,: equation (13)
can be written as :
Figure 2 :DC/Scm and SfScm as a function of a(")

Pf=CVc
* 'T
dVc
CONTROL PRINCIPLES OF THE ACTIVE FILTER
From (12) and (14) we obtain :
Figure 3 shows the control circuit of the active filter. It is made up
of three parts : the PI regulator for the capacitor voltage control, the
current references generation bloc and the hysteresis current control 3 I,. v2
vc= -
bloc. In the following paragraphs, we will study the control scvc*
principles.
The output of the PI regulator is related to its input by :
Capacitor voltage control

Since the active filter compensates only the power ripples of the
non linear load, a capacitor can be used to replace a real DC source.
The voltage across the capacitor must be controled in order to ensure
a correct operation of the active filter. For the analysis of the where Tn and Ti are the time constants of the PI regulator. Then, we
capacitor voltage regulation, let us make the following obtain from (15) and (16) the transfer function of the capacitor's
simplifications for the control sheme shown in figure 3: voltage, which is:
- the load currents are zero;
- the hysteresis band is negligible;
- the line voltages are sinusoidal.
Then, we have the following relations :

Vsk = fiVsin[0~-2(k-l)n/3]
( k = 1.2.3)
i f i = - I a' Vsk

412
 The Bode diagram of this function is given in figure 3. The
characteristic parameters oc and kc can be modified by choosing
appropriate values for the time constants Ti and Tn.
Equation (22) means that iF* calculated with (20) is the required
reference current.

Currea coalrol

The hysteresis method is chosen for active filter current control

(figure 3). The power transistors are switched so that the output

$
\ '""1 current if& is limited within a hysteresis band enveloping the
reference current ifk*. That is, the upper transistor of the
corresponding phase is tumed on when ifi is equal to the lower limit

\
and tumed off on the contrary. Therefore, the output current ifi is
forced to follow the reference current ifi* and the power circuit of
active filter can be considered as a kind of three-phase current
-)2-01 d W C
amplifier.
10-2 10-1 100 101 102
NUMERICAL SIMULATION
Figure 4 : Bode diagram of function (17)
The system represented in figure 1 is simulated here for a 400kVA
Figure 4 shows that the static error of the capacitor voltage is non linear load. Its principal parameters are the followings :
zero. The dynamic performance depends on the bandwidth of the
control circuit. That is. the dynamic performance will be beuer if O, Rd=0.6R I 4 = 2 mH L=60pH Ls=30@
is higher. However, the cut-off frequency of the transfer function
(17) must be much smaller than the ripple frequency of the capacitor For the active filter, the voltage across the terminals of capacitor
voltage produced by ripple power compensation during normal C is limited to 700 V and the mean switching frequency is about 3.5
operation. kHz. With the above restrictions. a compromise was made leading to
In the case where the load is a six-pulse rectifier, the frequency of the following control and power circuit parameters :
ripple power to be compensated by the active filter is 300H.zfor a
50Hz network. oc is therefore chosen at 60Hz in the following AI = ? 60 A (hysteresis band) Lf = 80 mH C = 8.8 mH
simulation to find a compromise between dynamic response and
reduction of the working ripple component in the control circuit. The line voltages at the connection point, vsz. vs2 and vs3, are
disturbed at a high frequency range by switching operation of the
Generation of currenf references active filter due to limited ratio between Ls and h.Therefore, a low
pass filter is used to obtain the fundamental components for the
The current consumed by the non linear load in a given phase can control circuit.
be expressed by : The simulated waveforms of source current, load current and
OD active filter current are given in figure 5. Figure 6 compares the
harmonic content of the load and mains currents, showing that the
ick = ~1,sin[nol+~-2nn(k-1)/31 (18) low-order harmonics are highly reduced. Figure 7 shows the dynamic
n =1 performance of the active filter for a load transient.
(k=l,2,3)
et3 ic(A1
where E n represents the r m s valus of the nth harmonic current. The 1 . 0 0 -+
current to be generated by the active filter, noted iF*,is found by 0.50 -
subtracting the active fundamental component from the load current : 0.00 -
-0.50 -
-1.00
Practically. as illustrated in figure 2. the second term in (19) is et3 i f ( A 1
generated by multiplying the line voltage by the PI regulator outpu~ 1.00 1
thus :

%* = i,k - I u . fiVsin[ot-2n(k-1)/3] (20)

Using (12) and (20). the instantaeous active power absorbed by the
active filter can be expressed :
oo 0.50 -
- 1a.VI-V +
Pf = 3[1c~COS(@~) pn (21) 0.00 -
n =2 -0.50

The second term in (21) represents the ripple power. Since the 0.10 0.12 0.14 0.16 0.18 0.20
average power absorbed by the active filter must be zero, we obtain :
Fig.5 : Simulation results with triggering delay angle 30"
413
 Ld

Rd
301

20
h
Active power filter
E
2 10 22ov/11ov ,
7VC

0
5 7 11 13 17 19 23 25
Fig. 6 : Spectrums of the mains and load currents with
triggering delay angle 300
Figure 8: Diagram of the single-phase model

e+3 i c ( A ) three-phase system. Therefore, the bandwidth of the capacitor

1.00 f
voltage control circuit has to be reduced. The dynamic perfurmance
is consequently decreased with respect to the three-phase system.
0.50 - Figures 9a and 10a show the current waveforms for different
0.00 - triggering delay angles obtained with this model. Corresponding
-0.50 - L, spectrums are given in figure 9b and lob.
-1.00 L ,,t(s)
e+3 i f C A 1
1.00 1 CONCLUSION
0.50
In this paper, a voltage source active filter used for compensating
0.00 simultaneously current harmonics and reactive power absorbed by a
-0.50 conventional rectifier bridge is considered. The active filter uses a
simple control method which is suitable for analogical implantation.
The control method is confirmed by numerical simulation and
experimentation through a single-phase low-power model.
Satisfactory results have been obtained with limited operating
frequency and reasonable power circuit design.

REFERENCES

et3 Uc(U1 [ 13 B.K.Bose : Evaluation of modem power semiconductor devices

and future trends of converters. IEEE trans. on Ind. Appl., Vol. 28
No. 2 MarcNApril. 1992, pp.403413..

0.25
:_----
0 . 0 00 . 1 0 0.12 0.14 0.16 0.18 0 . 2 0t ( S 1
[2] L.Gyugyi and E.C.Strycular : Active AC power filters, In Roc.
IEEE IAS Annual Meeting,1976.V01.19-c. pp.529-535.
[3] H. Akagi. F.Z. Peng and A.Nabae: Analyse and design of an
active power filter using quad-series voltage-source PWM
converters, IEEE Trans. Ind. Appl. Vol. IA-26. 1990, NO. 1, pp. 93-
Fig.7 : Simulation results for a load lransient
98.

[4] J.H.Xu. C.Lott, SSaadate and B.Davat: Compensation of AC-

EXPERIMENTATION DC converter input current harmonics using a voltage-source active
power filter, EPE, Brighton, September 1993, Vol. 8 pp. 233-238.
A single-phase low-power model consisting of a 2kVA thyristor
rectifier as the non-linear load and an lkVA voltage-source active [SI M. Kohata, T. Shiota, A. Atoh and A.Nabae: Compensator for
filter has been developed in our laboratory (figure 8). The control harmonics and reactive power using static induction thyristors EPE,
circuit has been realized by using analogical devices, resulting in a Grenoble, 1987, pp. 1265-1270.
fast signal processing.
In the case of single-phase rectifier, the ripple power to be
compensated by the active filter is at 100 Hz. instead of 300 Hz for

414
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........:I........:,.....................................
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i .......................................
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.:
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.............................................................................
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i.......
e-
............
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.........I......... '. . . . . . . . . i . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . + . . . . . . . . j . . . . . . . . . !............................

i i ;
Fig. 9a :Experimental results with triggering delay Fig. 10a :Experimentai results with triggering delay
angle 30" (from top to bottom, is, i,, i, : 10 A/div) angle 60" (from top to bottom, is, i,, if : 10 Ndiv)

30 1
301

20 20
h
h

E E
2 2
10 10

0 0
3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19
Fig. 9b : Spectrum of the mains and load currents with Fig. 10b : Spectrum of the mains and load currents with
triggering delay angle 30" uiggering delay angle 60"

415