A DQ Synchronous Reference Frame Control for Single-Phase Converters

U.A. Miranda and M. Aredes

L.G.B. Rolim

Federal University of Rio de Janeiro

COPPE / Electrical Engineering Programm
21945-970 Rio de Janeiro, RJ - BRASIL
Email: ulisses@coe.ufrj.br

Federal University of Rio de Janeiro

Polytechnic School / Department of Electrical Engineering
21945-970 Rio de Janeiro, RJ - BRASIL
Email: rolim@dee.ufrj.br

Abstract This paper presents a current control using the

DQ synchronous reference frame for single-phase converters.
This control method consists in transforming an orthogonal pair
composed by the actual single-phase input current and a fictitious
current, from a stationary to a rotating frame. The steady state
current components in DQ frame become DC instead of AC
values so a zero error current control can be implemented. A
single-phase PFC boost rectifier is used as an example application
of this control. To validate the control method simulation and
experimental results are presented.

(a) Real input delayed by

1
4

of the line period

I. I NTRODUCTION
Single-phase converters with input current regulation are
widely used in several applications such as Active Power
Filters, Power Factor Control (PFC) Rectifiers, Uninterrupted
Power Supplies (UPS), Photo-Voltaic Generation, etc. [1].
The current regulation is based on current control loops,
however for AC power converters it is not simple to design
this controllers, due their time variant currents and voltages.
For DC converters it is quite simple to design linear current
controllers with no steady state error, but if the AC controllers
are designed the same way as DC controllers, a significant
steady state error in both amplitude and phase may occur.
In three-phase systems the steady-state AC quantities become DC by means of the transformation from ABC static
frame to dq synchronous frame. To perform this transformation
in a single-phase system it is necessary to create a second
quantity in quadrature with the real one so as to apply the
transformation from the static to the synchronous frame. In
the technical literature this second quantity is obtained either
using the capacitor current feedback [2] , delaying the real one
by 14 of the line period or by means of notch filters tuned at
twice the line frequency [3], [4]. Figure 1 shows some of this
methods.
The control presented in this paper is based on the detection
of the frequency and phase of the input voltage by a PLL and
then generates a fictitious input current. The proposed method
neither requires tuned filters nor store samples to produces a
quarter cycle delay. Using this method the current control can
also be made unsusceptible to switching noise with a proper
PLL design. A proper choice for the current peak value also
make possible the reduction of the computational requirements
in a digital implementation.

(b) Notch filters tuned at twice the line frequency

Fig. 1.

across the capacitor at the reference value and also drain a

sinusoidal current with unitary power factor.

Fig. 2.

Boost Rectifier

The block diagram of the control is showed in Figure 3. The

reference value Vdc

is compared with the measured voltage
Vdc . The error signal is applied to a PI controller and its output
is the amplitude I of the reference current is . The frequency
and phase of the is current are the same of the input voltage
vs . They are determined applying vs in a PLL circuit. Once
calculated the reference current is it must be synthesized by
a current controller.
III. DQ S INGLE -P HASE C URRENT C ONTROLLER

II. T HE B OOST R ECTIFIER

Figure 2 shows the rectifier topology. This is a well known
circuit and there are many papers describing it [5], [6], [7].
The circuit control must be able to regulate the voltage Vdc
0-7803-9033-4/05/$20.00 2005 IEEE.

Reference and real currents

A. DQ Transformation
The transformation to the synchronous frame DQ requires
two orthogonal components. In three-phase systems the ABC

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C. Input currents DQ transformation

The input current is is defined as i (7) and the fictitious
input current i0 is defined as the reference current i (8).
This choice for the fictitious input current will result in a
simplification, as will be shown.
i = is = I cos(t)
i0
Fig. 3.

= sin(t)

(7)
(8)

The values of Id and Iq are obtained using equation (1)

where is the input current (7) and the fictitious current (8).

Rectifier Control Block Diagram

components are transformed to the orthogonal and stationary

frame system and then to the synchronous frame DQ as
shown in Figure 4 and equation (1). The inverse transformation
is showed in (2).

D. Control circuit
The purpose of this control is to regulate the inductor current
is . Considering no losses in the circuit of Figure 2, its average
equation through a switching period is given by (9).
dIs
= Vs Vpwm
(9)
dt
This equation is converted to dq frame substituting the
variables for its values in equations (10), (11) and (12).
L

Vs (t)

Fig. 4.

d
q


=

=

Frames

 


(1)

 

cos() sin()
d

sin() cos()
q

(2)

cos()
sin()

sin()
cos()

However this transformation cannot be applied directly in

the single-phase systems, because there is only one variable.
This drawback can be solved creating a fictitious input current.

(3)

i = I sin(t)

(4)

Performing the DQ transformation taking to the input

voltage vs as reference, it is equivalent to make = t in
equation (1), leads to equations (5) and (6).
Id = I

(5)

Iq = 0

(6)

Is = Id cos(t) Iq sin(t)

(11)

Vpwm = Vpwmd cos(t) Vpwmq sin(t)

(12)

dId
Vpwmd
V
= Iq
+
dt
L
L

(13)

Vpwmq
dIq
= Id
(14)
dt
L
The equilibrium point (15),(16) is reached when the derivatives terms are equal to zero.

is

i = is = I cos(t)

(10)

Splitting the resulting equation in the cosine and sine terms,

leads to the circuit equations for the d (13) and q (14) axis.

B. Reference Values
As showed in the previous section, the desired current
has phase and frequency obteined from the t signal of the
PLL circuit. It is also possible to create a second reference
current in quadrature and delayed in relation with is , using the
same t signal. These reference currents are equivalents to the
currents in the frame, as show in equations (3) and (4).

= V cos t

Vpwmd = LIq + V

(15)

Vpwmq = LId

(16)

Now the references and the control variables are DC quantities and the controller can be implemented the same way as
in the DC converters. Note that were added coupling terms
between the d and q axis but these terms can be decoupled
with a proper controller design.
The block diagram of the control is showed in Figure 5. Id
and Iq currents are compared with their references values and
the PI controllers guarantee no steady state current error. The
gain L provide the decoupling terms and the addition of the
peak voltage V is intend to compensate the countereffect of
the supply voltage, with respect to the converter output voltage
vpwm , which has the same behavior as a disturbance signal.
When transformed to the stationary reference frame (2) the
term is discarded and the term is the signal vpwm that is
applied to the single-phase unipolar SPWM.

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Fig. 5.

Single-Phase dq Current Control Block Diagram

E. Simplified Control Circuit

As the main concern is the real implementation of this
control, it is useful to reduce the number of mathematical
operations. A simplification in the current control loop is
possible due the value attributed to the fictitious input current
i0 (8), as follow.
The steady state current error in dq frame in Figure 5 is
given by equations (17) and (18).
errord
errord
errord

errorq
errorq
errorq

= Id Id
= [i cos(t) + i sin(t)]
[i cos(t) + i0 sin(t)]
= (i i ) cos(t) + (i i0 ) sin(t) (17)

Fig. 6.

IV. R ESULTS
A. Simulation Results
Simulations of the simplified dq current control have been
made by using EMTDC/PSCAD software. The simulated
circuit is shown in Figure 2 and its parameters in Table I.
Switching frequency
Input Voltage
Boost inductor
Rated Direct Voltage
Load

= Iq Iq
= [i sin(t) i cos(t)]
[i sin(t) i0 cos(t)]
= (i i ) sin(t) + (i i0 ) cos(t) (18)

Using equation (8) in equations (17) and (18) results in the

simplified equations (19), (20) for the steady-state errors.
errord = (i i ) cos(t)

(19)

errorq = (i i ) sin(t)

(20)

The decoupling terms have the objective to improve the

controller dynamic and can be neglect without committing its
operation. The input voltage feed-forward is added directly to
the vpwm signal. It has exactly the same effect of adding the
peak value in the vpwmd component and has the advantage
that is no more necessary the voltage peak detector.
As result, Figure 6 shows the simplified current control
block diagram.

Simplified Single-Phase dq Current Control Block Diagram

fs
vs
L
Vdc
RL

5kHz
220V
5mH
425V
50

TABLE I
S IMULATED CIRCUIT PARAMETERS

At the simulation instant of 0.5s the rectifier is turned on

and the load at 1.5s. The reference and the real currents in
the synchronous dq and in the static reference frames at this
instants are shown in Figures 7 to 10 . Figure 11 shows the
input voltage and current.
B. Experimental Results
The experimental implementation of the simplified dq current control was done using the Texas Instruments DSP
TMS320F2812. Figure 12 shows the turn on transition moment. Once the capacitor voltage was regulated, as Figure 13
shows, the load was applied, this instant is showed in
Figure 14. The steady state input voltage ande current are
showed in Figure 15.

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Fig. 7.

Id and Iq : Rectifier on

Fig. 11.

Fig. 8.

Input voltage and current

Id and Iq : Load on

Fig. 9.

Fig. 10.

Fig. 12. Input voltage and current at the beginning of the rectifier switching

is : Rectifier on

is : Load on

V. C ONCLUSION
A single-phase synchronous reference frame current control
based on the PLL circuit was presented. The calculation of the
fictitious input current using the frequency and phase detected
by the PLL was successful. It has the advantage that it is not
necessary the use of filters and does not require digital memory
to allocate samples.
And also, the proper choice for the peak value of this
current has made possible a simplification in the control

Fig. 13.

Capacitor Voltage

without compromising its operation. After this simplification

the control become very simple to be implemented in a digital

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[4] J. Salaet, S. Alepuz, A. Gilabert, and J. Bordonau. Comparison between

two methods of dq transformation for single phase converters control.
application to a 3-level boost rectifier. Power Electronics Specialists
Conference, 1:214 220, June 2004.
[5] S. Manias. Novel full bridge semicontrolled switch mode rectifier. IEE
Proceedings on Electric Power Applications, 138:252 256, September
1991.
[6] Boon-Teck Ooi and Omar Stihi. A single-phase controlled-current pwm
rectifier. IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics, 3(4):453459, October
1988.
[7] V.B. Sriram, S. SenGupta, and A. Patra. Control of a transistorised singlephase bridge converter operated in the rectifier mode. Proceedings of
IEEE International Conference on Industrial Technology 2000, 2:353
358, January 2000.

Fig. 14.

Input voltage and current when the load is applied

Fig. 15.

Steady state Input voltage and current

controller.
The control was able to achieve zero steady state current
error. It was validated by the simulation and experimental
results presented.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This project was supported by CAPES/CNPq.
R EFERENCES
[1] B Singh, B.N. Singh, A. Chandra, K. Al-Haddad, A. Pandey, and
D.P. Kothari. A review of single-phase improved power quality ac-dc
converters. IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics, 50(5):962
981, October 2003.
[2] M.J. Ryan and R.D. Lorenz. A synchronous-frame controller for a singlephase sine wave inverter. Conference Proceedings of Applied Power
Electronics Conference, 2:813 819, February 1997.
[3] Richard Zhang, Makr Cardinal, Paul Szczesny, and Mark Dame. A grid
simulator with control of single-phase power converters in d-q rotating
frame. Power Electronics Specialists Conference, 3:14311436, June
2002.

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