83

A Simplified Three Phase Pwm Rectifier With Fixed Frequency Modulation

Blessy John
1
, Vincent George
2

Department of Electrical Engineering,
Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Technology,
Kerala, India
e-mail
1
: blessy.john@rit.ac.in
Mahesh K. Mishra
3

Department of Electrical Engineering,
Indian Institute of Technology Madras,
Chennai, India
e-mail
3
: mahesh@ee.iitm.ac.in
e-mail
2
: vincentg@ieee.org


AbstractThis paper proposes a fixed frequency modulation
scheme for a three-phase PWM rectifier operating at unity
power factor. It provides a constant and reduced switching
frequency for all the switches of the rectifier by controlling the
occurrence and duration of the zero vector states indirectly.
The two legs of the converter are operated in hysteresis current
tracking mode and the third leg is controlled by a square pulse
of user-defined frequency. The low harmonic distortion and
high input power factor are added advantages of this scheme.
Also, it offers simplicity, fast response and robustness. The
feasibility of the proposed method is verified through extensive
simulation results.
Keywords - Three-Phase PWM rectifier, Unity Power Factor
Current Control, Constant Switching Frequency.
I. INTRODUCTION
A three-phase PWM rectifier is a device that converts
three-phase sinusoidal ac power into dc power while the
input currents are sinusoidal with unity power factor. It is
increasingly used in most of the high performance
applications such as motor drives [1], battery chargers,
ad/dc/ac link converters and electronic ballast. The
performance of this voltage source PWM boost rectifier will
depend on the current control strategy used. Basically a
current controller forces the input phase current to follow the
current command which makes the input current balanced
and in unity power factor relationship with source voltage.
The conventional hysteresis control [2]-[5], is mainly used in
most of the applications because of its excellent dynamic
response and simple implementation. But the variation of
switching frequency during the fundamental period is its
main disadvantage. A constant switching frequency is
desirable as it reduces the uneven stress in the power
semiconductor switches and aids easy filter design. Also, a
reduction in switching frequency is needed because of the
following reasons. The switching loss in semiconductor
devices is proportional to the switching frequency and
semiconductor switches for higher power generally produce
higher switching losses. The effect of EMI is also
pronounced at high frequency.
The ramp comparison controller uses a fixed frequency
triangular wave as the carrier and thus maintaining a constant
switching frequency of the converter [2], [3]. But the system


response is affected by the stability requirements of the
feedback loop and thus offers immanent phase and amplitude
errors in the output current. The predictive controller
calculates the converter voltage vector once in every sample
period to force the current to track the current command [3],
[4]. It is very complex and requires knowledge of the load,
which may limit the dynamic response of the controller. In
the case of space vector modulation [6]-[8] the definition of
3-D vectors, identification of adjacent switching vectors in
the 3-D space, and switching vector sequencing are needed.
Thus it is quite complicated in operation and hardware
implementation. In variable band hysteresis controller, the
amplitude of the tolerance band can be varied by means of
PLL loop, to maintain the switching frequency constant. But
the PLL loop with large LP filter tends to create stability
problem and slow transient response [9]-[11]. Also it is more
computation-intensive and the advantage of basic hysteresis
control, namely, the simplicity is lost. The above-mentioned
schemes are complicated in operation and hardware
implementation. So, there is a need of a simplified current
control strategy with constant and reduced switching
frequency.
This paper describes a novel current control scheme with
fixed frequency modulation for a three-phase PWM rectifier.
The two legs of the converter are operated in hysteresis
current tracking mode and third leg is controlled with a
square pulse of fixed user defined frequency. Consequently,
the other two legs follow the switching frequency as dictated
by the third leg. The constant switching frequency is
achieved by controlling the occurrence and duration of zero
vector states of the converter indirectly. The most desirable
requirements of a good rectifier like low harmonic distortion
and high input power factor are achieved in this scheme. In
addition, it overcomes the demerits of the conventional
hysteresis controller without sacrificing its merits. Similar
schemes are proposed for three leg and four leg inverters in
DSTATCOM applications by the same author [12], [13].
Volume 5
C 978-1-4244-5586-7/10/$26.00 2010 IEEE
84

Va
Vc
Vb
-
G
+
Vref
V
c

LIMITER
CURRENT CONTROL
isaref isbref
A
1 A
2 B
1
B
2
C
2
C
1
A
1
A
2
B
1
B
2
C
1
C
2
R L
isa
isb
L
O
A
D
User Defined
Square Pulse
for leg-c
sin( ) t c o -
sin( )
3
t c o
r
- -

Figure 1. Three- Phase PWM Rectifier Feeding an R-L load

II. PROPOSED CONTROLLER
A novel current control strategy is proposed for a three-
phase voltage source boost PWM rectifier to accomplish the
constant and reduced switching frequency for all the legs
with unity input power factor; thus allowing the user to
directly set the switching frequency of the switches of all the
legs. This simplified control scheme doesnt need additional
computation, circuitry or modulation.
A three phase PWM rectifier feeding an R-L load is
shown in Fig. 1. The dc voltage V
c
is measured and is
compared with the reference voltage V
ref
, which is fed to a PI
controller (G) to obtain the magnitude of the reference
source currents. Synchronization is done for getting the
correct phase information.
Fig. 2 shows the block diagram of the proposed current
controller. The current error signals are generated for the legs
a and b by comparing the source currents with their
respective reference currents. Then the hysteresis controller
determines the appropriate switching signals A1, A2, B1 and B2
to track the source currents within a specified hysteresis band.
Tracking of leg-c is avoided by providing a switching pulse
of fixed user-defined frequency with 50% duty cycle and its
complement to C1 and C2. These switching generate and
control the zero vector states and thus a reduced and constant
switching frequency is obtained for all the legs.
The zero vector (uncontrollable) states occur when all
the top/bottom switches attain the same status i.e. the
condition when all top switches A1, B1 and C1 are ON is
called as zero vector 1 (ZS1) and bottom switches A2, B2

and C
2
are ON is taken as uncontrollable 0 (ZS0). Under such
conditions, the dc link capacitor gets effectively
disconnected from the circuit. Thus, there is no control over
the current synthesis during such periods. But the constant
switching frequency method is intended to bring out the
latent potential of the zero vector states. During every
switching cycle the zero vector states ZS1 and ZS0 are
forced upon the converter to maintain reduced and constant
switching frequency. The duty cycles are allowed to vary
over the switching cycles to obtain constant switching
frequency. Thus the user can indirectly control the duration
and occurrence of these zero vector states.
A1
A2 THREE
B1 PHASE
B2
PWM
C1
RECTIFIER
C2
+
-
isaref
isa
+
-
isbref
isb
User
Defined
Pulse

Figure 2. Block Diagram of the Proposed Controller

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85
III. SWITCHING PERFORMANCE PARAMETERS
The performance of the current controller is assessed
using some performance indices defined below.

1) Total average switching frequency
The total average switching frequency, f
av_total
is defined
as
_
, ,
av total
k
k a b c
N
T
f

_
(1)

where Nk is the number of switching cycles in leg-k
during one cycle period T of the system voltage.

2) Switching frequency Deviation Index
The switching frequency deviation index (DI) for any
leg-k is defined as


2
_ _
2
_
( )
( )
k inst k av
k
k k av
DI
f f
N f
-

-
_
for k=a, b, c (2)

where f
k_inst
and f
k_av
are the instantaneous and average
switching frequencies and N
k
is the number of switching
cycles in the leg -k during one power cycle. DI indicates the
constancy in switching frequency and a very low value of DI
is desirable.

3) Percentage Total Harmonic Distortion
The percentage total harmonic distortion indicates the
quality of source current and a value of less than 5% is
desirable.

IV. SIMULATION RESULTS
The simulation is carried out on a three-phase PWM
rectifier feeding an R-L load using PSCAD 4.2.1. The
performance of proposed controller is compared with
conventional hysteresis controller. In a conventional
hysteresis controller, all the three legs of the rectifier are
tracked in hysteresis current tracking mode. Table I shows
the system parameters chosen for simulation. An ac grid
voltage of 100V is provided as input with a source
impedance of 6+j2.826 O . An R-L load of 800+j31.4 O
with an output capacitance of 100
F
is given at the DC
side and a PI controller of proportional and integral gain of
K
p
=0.54 and K
i
=1 is used to obtain the correct magnitude of
reference current. A square pulse of 2.5 kHz is given as
switching signal for the third leg and a fixed bandwidth of
h=8% is provided for other two legs.


TABLE I. SYSTEM PARAMETERS

AC Grid Voltage

100V


Source Impedance

6+j2.826 O

Load parameters

R-L load : 800+ j31.4 O

DC link reference
voltage

430V

PI Controller

Kp= 0.54, Ki=1

Hysteresis Band

8%

Switching frequency to
leg-c

2.5 kHz (For proposed control)


Fig. 3 shows the simulated waveforms of source currents
for the proposed current control. While analysing the
simulation results, the new approach has very low harmonic
distortion. Fig. 4 (a) and (b) shows the instantaneous and
average switching frequency for leg-a, leg-b and leg-c using
conventional hysteresis controller and proposed constant
switching frequency method respectively. In the
conventional hysteresis controller the instantaneous
switching frequency deviates from the average value to a
large extent. In the proposed controller, switching frequency
of all the three legs are constant and is equal to user-defined
value of 2.5 kHz .


0.420 0.425 0.430 0.435 0.440
.
.
.
-15.0
-10.0
-5.0
0.0
5.0
10.0
15.0
Isa Isb Isc
C
u
r
r
e
n
t

(
A
)

Time (s)

Figure 3. Source currents - Proposed Control

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86



0.4950 0.5000 0.5050 0.5100 0.5150 0.5200
0.0
2.5k
5.0k
7.5k
10.0
fa_ins fa_av
0.0
2.5k
5.0k
7.5k
10.0
fb_ins fb_av
0.0
2.5k
5.0k
7.5k
10.0
fc_ins fc_av
F
r
e
q
u
e
n
c
y

(
k
H
z
)

Time (s)


0.3950 0.4000 0.4050 0.4100 0.4150 0.4200
0.0
2.5k
fa_ins fa_av
0.0
2.5k
fb_ins fb_av
0.0
2.5k
fc_ins fc_av
F
r
e
q
u
e
n
c
y

(
k
H
z
)

Time (s)


(a) (b)
Figure 4. Instantaneous and Average Switching Frequency (a) Conventional Hysteresis (b) Proposed Controller

A closer view of switching pulses of upper switches A1,
B1 and C1 of the three-phase converter is presented in Fig. 5.
At time t=0.106507s the converter is trapped into zero vector
state ZS1. But due to the user defined square pulse at third
leg, the converter is able to break ZS1 state at t=0.1066 s.
One by one all the other two legs will attain a status 0, so
that converter is again trapped into ZS0 at time t=0.106723 s.
But that state is again broken at t=0.1068 s. Thus, a control
over the uncontrollable state is obtained.

Switching pulses
0.1062 0.1064 0.1066 0.1068
0.0
1.0
2.0
A1
0.0
1.0
2.0
B1
0.0
1.0
2.0
C1
Time ( s )

Figure 5. Switching signals-a Snapshot

The ac phase voltage and current waveforms in Fig. 6
indicate the unity input power factor operation of proposed
scheme. Fig. 7 shows that the output dc voltage is regulated
and it follows the reference voltage command of 430V.

0.300 0.310 0.320 0.330 0.340
-100
-75
-50
-25
0
25
50
75
100
Isa Ea
V
o
l
t
a
g
e
(
V
)

/

C
u
r
r
e
n
t
(
A
)

Time (s)


Figure 6. AC phase Voltage and Current Waveforms


0.00 0.20 0.40 0.60 0.80
0
100
200
300
400
500
Edc
V
o
l
t
a
g
e

(
V
)

Time (s)


Figure 7. DC Output Voltage
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87

TABLE II. PERFORMANCE INDICES


Average Switching Frequency (kHz)

_ av total f
(kHz)

Deviation Index (DI) %THD
Phase a Phase b Phase c isa isb isc
Phase a Phase b Phase c

Conventional Hysteresis

3.023

2.975

2.987

8.985

1.11

1.12

1.16

3.02

2.77

2.97

Proposed Control


2.5

2.5

2.5

7.5

0.0094

0.0090

0.0

0.3628

0.3847

0.728


Table II verifies the better performance of proposed
strategy compared to the conventional hysteresis control.
The switching frequency of all the three legs is varying
between 0.254 kHz and 7.142 kHz in conventional fixed
band hysteresis control. But in the proposed scheme, by
giving a fixed square pulse of 2.5 kHz, the other two legs
follow the same switching frequency. So, a total of 7.5
kHz is obtained as _ av total f , i.e. a reduction of about 1.485
kHz is obtained in the proposed method, which is an added
advantage while concerning the switching losses. The
parameter, switching frequency deviation index (DI),
which is an indication of constancy in switching frequency,
is obtained as a very low value for the simplified scheme
compared to hysteresis method. A very low value
of %THD is obtained for this constant switching frequency
scheme, compared to the conventional control, which
indicates the good quality of source current of PWM
rectifier.
Thus, the simulated waveforms verify the better
performance of the proposed scheme i.e. the constant and
reduced switching frequency is achieved without any
additional circuitry or complexity.

V. CONCLUSIONS
A simplified fixed frequency modulation for a three-
phase PWM rectifier is described in this paper. The
performance of the proposed controller is compared with
conventional hysteresis controller and is found to be very
beneficial. It overcomes the drawbacks of hysteresis
controller while retaining its merits as such, without any
additional computation or complexity. The existing
constant switching frequency schemes are quite
complicated in operation and hardware. But in this
approach, constant and reduced switching frequency is
achieved by controlling the happening and duration of
zero vector states indirectly. The power factor of nearly
unity and low harmonic distortion are the main attraction
of this scheme. The simulation studies validate the
efficacy of the proposed scheme over the conventional
controller.
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