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9, SEPTEMBER 2012
Abstract—With the progress of “more electric aircraft,” intro- controlled current source that can draw any chosen current ref-
ducing active power filter (APF) technology into the aircraft power erences which is usually the harmonic components of the load
system to improve its quality and reliability catches growing inter- currents [5]–[7]. Meanwhile, more and more APFs are applied
est. In this paper, based on the analysis and modeling of the shunt
APF with close-loop control, a feedforward compensation path of not only in harmonic current and reactive power compensation
load current is proposed to improve the dynamic performance but also in the neutral line current compensation, harmonic
of the APF. The two H-bridge cascaded inverter is selected for damping application, and power flow control. As Fig. 1 shows,
the aeronautical APF (AAPF). Justifications for topology choosing in the aircraft EPS, the APF could be installed in the source
and corresponding system control method are given. Furthermore, side (such as the aircraft generator) or near the load side, and it
the global framework and operation principle of the proposed
AAPF are presented in detail. A prototype with the load power of could even be integrated into the load-front converter (such as
7.2 kVA is built and tested in the laboratory. Experimental results the input stage converter of variable-speed drives).
verify the feasibility of the proposed AAPF and the high perfor- Introducing APF technology to resolve the power quality
mance of the control strategy during steady-state and dynamic issues of the aircraft EPS catches increasing attention. Several
operations. papers have been published about the APF’s application in the
Index Terms—Aeronautical active power filter (APF) (AAPF), aircraft EPS since 2005. In [8], Ganthony and Bingham pro-
cascaded multilevel inverter, close-loop control, feedforward of posed an integrated series active filter for aerospace flight
fundamental load current. control surface actuation. Simulation results based on Matlab
are given as well as the hardware platform picture. In [9],
I. I NTRODUCTION Lavopa et al. proposed an estimation method of fundamental
frequency and harmonics for APF applications in aircraft sys-
T HE increasing use of electrical power in place of hy-
draulic, pneumatic, and mechanical power is demanding
more advanced aircraft power systems. The concept of the
tems, and its transaction version is [10]. Good harmonic real-
time detection performance is achieved from both simulation
“all-electric aircraft” and the “more electric aircraft” (MEA) and experimental waveforms. In [11], Odavic et al. proposed
have been introduced to overcome some of the drawbacks a current control strategy for shunt APF in aircraft power
found in conventional architectures and bring more attractive networks. A predictive controller with a genetic algorithm and
advantages, such as improved fuel consumption and lower multilevel converters are applied. In order to compensate the
maintenance and operation costs [1]. This implies an increase inherent delay of digital control systems, Biagini et al. [12] in-
of the electrical load and power electronic equipment, higher vestigated the development of an improved deadbeat controlled
consumption of electrical energy, more demand for generated shunt APF for aerospace applications working in an aircraft
power, power quality, and stability problems. power system with a supply frequency of 400 Hz. In [13], a
Fig. 1 illustrates the next-generation electrical power sys- multiresolution control strategy is proposed for the DSP con-
tem (EPS) of MEA. In the variable-speed variable-frequency trolled shunt APF to reduce real-time computational require-
(VSVF)-based EPS, the “constant speed drive” is moved. Har- ments. However, the system dynamic performance from the
monic current compensation by means of active power filter given experimental result is not improved. In [14], a shunt APF
(APF) is a well-known effective solution for the reduction using perfect harmonic cancellation is studied. The harmonic
of current distortion and for power quality improvement in filtering performance of the APF in both the conventional and
electrical systems [2]–[4]. The shunt compensator behaves as a the advanced aircraft EPS is presented with Matlab simulation
results. In [15], based on the given structure and modeling of the
Manuscript received October 31, 2010; revised April 8, 2011; accepted advanced aircraft EPS, performance characteristics of the EPS
June 27, 2011. Date of publication August 30, 2011; date of current version without and with APF are compared. The power-quality char-
April 13, 2012. This work was supported in part by the National Nature Science acteristics of both the conventional and the advanced aircraft
of China under Award 51007037, by the Aeronautical Science Foundation
of China under Award 2009ZC52030, and by the Nanjing University of EPS with APF are shown to be in compliance with the popular
Aeronautics and Astronautics Research Funding under Awards NS2010062 and electrical standards, i.e., IEEE-Std. 519 and MIL-STD-704 F.
NJ2010015. In this paper, a high-performance aircraft APF is proposed.
The authors are with the Aero-Power Sci-Tech Center, College of Au-
tomation Engineering, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Differently from traditional open-loop control strategy, the
Nanjing 210016, China (e-mail: chenz@nuaa.edu.cn; ypluo@nuaa.edu.cn; proposed aeronautical APF (AAPF) works in a close-loop way.
chenmiao875@gmail.com). Good power quality of the EPS is achieved by using the novel
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org. AAPF. Furthermore, in order to improve the dynamic perfor-
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TIE.2011.2166231 mance of the load response, a feedforward path of the load
Fig. 3. Model for active power analysis. Fig. 5. Disturbance compensation-based lose-loop control.
Fig. 4. Bode diagram of transfer function HiL (s). 0.005, and the dc-link capacitor is 3300 µF. It means that poor
dynamic respond is derived in both applications.
C. Load Current Feedforward Compensation In order to improve the dynamic speed responding to the
load’s change, A feedforward compensation path is added to
As Fig. 3 illustrates, load power PL (s) works as a distur- weaken the disturbance effect of the load current, as shown in
bance factor on the APF system. The transfer function between Fig. 5. Here, F (s) is the transfer function of the low-pass filter
PL (s) and ∆Vdc (s) is (LPF) which extracts the fundamental components of the load
1 currents
∆Vdc (s) sCVdc Kf
Φen (s) = = . (1)
PL (s) 1 + Gv (s) · 12 Vs · sCV
1
· Kf ω2
dc F (s) = √ 0 . (3)
s2 + 2ω0 s + ω02
The transfer function between IL (s) and IS∗ (s) is
Here, ω0 = 2πfc is the cutoff angular frequency of the LPF.
I ∗ (s) ∆Vdc (s)Gv (s) G (s) After the fundamental of the load current is feedforward, the
HiL (s) = S = 1 = Φen (s) · 1v
IL (s) transfer function between IL (s) and IS∗ (s) becomes
PL (s)/ 2 Vs 2 Vs
Gv (s) · 12 Vs CV1dc Kf A · Gv (s) A · Gv (s) ω2
= = (2) HiL (s) = + √ 0 . (4)
s + Gv (s) · 12 Vs CV1dc Kf s + A · Gv (s) s + A · Gv (s) s2 + 2ω0 s + ω02
where A = Vs Kf /(2CVdc ). Fig. 6 shows the bode diagram of HiL (s) with feedforward
HiL (s)|f=50 shows the dynamic speed of the current refer- compensation and different cutoff frequencies. After the load
ence responding to the load power’s change at fundamental fre- current is feedforward, the magnitude of HiL (s)|f=50 gets
quency. Generally speaking, high dynamic respond is required increased. However, the selection of fc plays an important role
for an APF system, meaning that a higher value of HiL (s)|f=50 to HiL (s); usually, fc should be larger than the fundamental
is desired. However, HiL (s) is sensitive to many other factors, frequency.
i.e., voltage controller, line voltage, dc-link voltage, dc-link
capacitor, and voltage detection coefficient. Fig. 4 shows the III. C ONTROL M ETHOD OF THE
bode diagram of HiL (s) in different voltage controller and C ASCADED -I NVERTER -BASED AAPF
coefficient A. For an APF system applied in a 220-V/50-Hz
A. Discussion and Demonstration on the Power Stage of AAPF
application, coefficient A corresponds to 0.14 when the dc-link
voltage is 800 V, dc-link voltage detection coefficient Kf is A shunt APF acts as a controlled harmonic current source,
0.005, and the dc-link capacitor is 6800 µF. It is hard to design injecting current which is inverse equivalent to the load har-
a voltage controller to derive a high value for HiL (s)|f=50 at monic. In the 400-Hz aircraft EPS, frequencies of the 11th and
50 Hz in such a low value of A. In the aircraft EPS, the phase 13th harmonics reach as high as 4.4 and 5.2 kHz. How to draw
voltage is only 115 V, leading A to be 0.2 when the dc-link a high-frequency harmonic current accurately is a key issue of
voltage is 600 V, dc-link voltage detection coefficient Kf is developing AAPF.
CHEN et al.: CONTROL AND PERFORMANCE OF A CASCADED SHUNT APF FOR AIRCRAFT EPS 3617
Fig. 7. Four possible solutions of AAPF. (a) Three-leg-inverter-based APF. (b) H-bridge-based APF. (c) Two H-bridge cascaded APF. (d) Four H-bridge cascaded
APF.
TABLE I Here, PSW and Pcon correspond to switching loss and con-
PARAMETERS OF F OUR P OSSIBLE AAPF S OLUTIONS
ductive loss, and ID , VD , and fsw are the drain current, bus
voltage, and switching frequency, while tON and tOF F are
the power MOSFET turn-on and turnoff times, respectively.
COSS Rds(on) are the output capacitance and the on-resistance
of the power MOSFET while VDF is the forward voltage drop
of the reverse parallel diode of the power MOSFET.
Power loss distributions of the four different AAPF solutions
are given in Fig. 8. As Fig. 8 shows, the following conclusion
could be made.
Fig. 8. Power losses of different possible AAPF solutions. (a) With the equivalent switching frequency feq of 60 kHz. (b) With the equivalent switching
frequency feq of 120 kHz. (c) With the equivalent switching frequency feq of 240 kHz.
Fig. 13. Simulated waveforms for 400-Hz EPS application with inductive load. (a) With sinusoidal phase voltage. (b) With distorted phase voltage.
Fig. 14. Simulated waveforms for 400-Hz EPS application with capacitive load. (a) Key waveforms under loading. (b) DC capacitor voltage waveforms under
loading.
Fig. 17. Experimental waveforms of AAPF under inductive load power of 7.2 kW. (a) Waveforms of phase w. (b) Source current waveforms of each phase.
Fig. 20. Transient experimental waveforms when load power changes from full load to no load and no load to full load. (a) Without feedforward compensation.
(b) With feedforward compensation.
Zhong Chen (M’09) was born in Jiangsu, China, Miao Chen was born in Jiangsu, China, in 1988.
in 1975. He received the B.S. and M.S. degrees He received the B.S. degree in electrical engineer-
in electrical engineering from the Harbin Institute ing from Nanjing University of Aeronautics and
of Technology, Harbin, China, in 1997 and 1999, Astronautics, Nanjing, China, in 2010, where he is
respectively, and the Ph.D. degree in electrical engi- currently working toward the M.S. degree in power
neering from Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China, electronics in the Aero-Power Sci-Tech Center, Col-
in 2005. lege of Automation Engineering.
He is currently an Associate Professor with the
Aero-Power Sci-Tech Center, College of Automation
Engineering, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and
Astronautics, Nanjing, China. His research interests
include active power filters and soft switching of power conversion.