A Simple Load Power Estimator for Quasi-Direct AC-AC Converter System

Abstract

In this paper a simple load power estimator for the three-phase quasi-direct acac converter system is reported. Since the ac-ac converter control by means of pulsewidth modulation (PWM) is based on the power balance concept, its load power should be known. Two control boards, based on the dSMC (digital Smart Motion Controller) 30 MIPS 32-bit fixed-point digital signal processor (DSP), were involved in the ac-ac system driving. By using the power balance control, the DC link voltage variation at the load changes can be reduced. In this way a small DC link capacitor is required to handle the dc voltage error control. The feed-forward (Sul and Lipo, 1990) current component provides fast correction of the reference control to load power variation. In order to obtain the feed-forward current component, the load power must to be known. In this paper the load power is estimated from the dc link, indirectly, through a dc load current estimator. In this way the author overcomes the use of the serial communication between control boards (Gaiceanu, 2004) in order to deliver the load power information from the inverter side. The load current estimator is based on the DC link voltage and on the load current of the supply converter. This method presents certain advantages instead of using measured method, which requires a low pass filter: no time delay, the feed-forward current component has no ripple, no additional hardware, and more fast control response. Through simulation and experimental results the performances of the proposed load current estimator scheme are demonstrated.