Proceedings of the World Congress on Engineering and Computer Science 2009 Vol I WCECS 2009, October 20-22, 2009,

San Francisco, USA

New Series Active Power Filter for Computers Loads and Small Non-Linear Loads
Mohamed Tarnini

AbstractThis paper contains a new series single phase active power filter based on high input power factor and low input harmonics, it is for electrical power quality purposes. We developed it in order to define new control schemes characterized by simple control algorithms and a reduced number of current transducers. The filter is designed to meet the requirements of voltage-sourced harmonic loads it is based on a load current estimation using a DC capacitor voltage of active power filter sensing the load current. The proposed filter can improve the problems of conventional small and medium non-linear loads like as computers, system of computers, washing machines, faxes, photocopier machines printersetc and it also can suppress the harmonic current and compensate for the reactive power at the float charge mode. In general, this paper deals with a non-linear loads like as a house loads. The experimental results verify that the proposed filter has the expected performance [1][2]. Index TermsSeries active power filter (SAPF), non linear loads, power system harmonics
1

bridge. This non-linear load is approximately similar to a load formed of 2 or 3 personal computers. A passive filter can be used to compensate the mentioned problems, but it is very limited, namely: they only filter the

C AC VS

Fig. 1 Non -Linear Load Circuit

frequencies for which they have been previously tuned, its operation cannot be limited to a certain load, resonances can occur.

I. INTRODUCTION The power conversion using the thyristor rectifier and all electronic devices or computers machines will result in the problems of poor input power factor and high input harmonic current and hence causes much distorted voltage. If the mains voltage is undistorted, but non-linear loads are connected to the electrical grid, the current harmonics produced will cause voltage distortions at the load terminals, hence, the loads absorb distorted currents causing heat lost exceeds in most cases 35% of the consumed power [3]. The experimental measurement, of both, load current iL and load voltage (VL) are done, before and after correction, to ensure that the relative large phase difference, between the main voltage (Vs) and the line currents, becomes very small and the power factor (PF) becomes approximately one (PF=1), as well as the shape of the current becomes clearly sinusoidal and in-phase with the main-voltage, after adding an additional voltage (Vf) extracted from the proposed filter. Where the resistance R and the capacitance C with the four diodes are represent the non linear Load [4]. The proposed prototypes filter achieving both tasks by using digital signal processor (pic16f877). The main target here is to compensate for voltage sag and voltage unbalance very effectively. Fig. (1) illustrates the distorted system that is formed of a non-linear load; the load is formed of 40 f capacitor in parallel with 33 resistor, across a diode

II. CONTROL ALGORITHM AND THE GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF THE CONTROL THEORY Active power filter (APF) has been proposed since 1970s. An APF is configured from switching converters or better known as inverters that are based on pulsed operation and can be categorized as a nonlinear dynamic system [5]. A. Connection and operating mode Fig. (2) shows the connection of the SAPF and the main components of the proposed system, the SAPF, the adjustable controller, current sensor, current limiter, nonlinear load and a power resistor R used to show the instantaneous current of the load before and after corrections
uR = i (oscilloscope)

EARTH

R=1ohm
C AC VS L R

VS (Oscilloscope)

di/dt Limeter

Current sensor
T1
DIGITAL CONTROLLER AND FIRING CIRCUIT

D1

Non linear load

T4 D4 C

T2

D2

T3

D3

Fig. 2 SAPF Connection

Manuscript received May 15, 2009. The author is with the Hariri Canadian University Almechref - Aldamour Lebanon (phone: 961-5601386) e-mail: tarninimy@hcu.edu.lb

ISBN:978-988-17012-6-8

WCECS 2009

Proceedings of the World Congress on Engineering and Computer Science 2009 Vol I WCECS 2009, October 20-22, 2009, San Francisco, USA
i T 1, T 3 i-actual i-referen ce D 2, D 4

current below the reference value which means that the capacitor is charged. In Fig. (2) if the load DC voltage is assumed constant (Udc), the input voltage of the load (VL) will be square wave, such that: U dc in the positive half cycle of the line current (1) V =
L

t
0

U dc in the negative half cycle of the line current

tp T 2, T 4

B. Formulas Assuming that the filter voltage compensates for the load harmonic voltage, we can consider only the behavior of the fundamental current and voltage. Vs = Vm sin( t ) (2)
4 V = U sin( t ) L dc

(3) (4) (5) (6)

Fig. 3 Operating Principle of the Proposed Filter

i = I m sin( t )

1- The positive half cycle - +

2- The negative half cycle + i

vs = v f + L v f = ( Vm
i

di + vL dt

i i T1 T4 + C + C
T

U dc ) sin( t ) LI m cos( t )

At steady state case the capacitor will neither receive or deliver energy or power (PC=0)
PC = v f I m sin( t )dt
0
2 = ( I m (Vm U dc ) sin2 ( t ) LI m cos(t ) sin(t ))dt = 0 0

T3 a- The current flows through T1&T3 +

T2

(7)

Moreover, this gives,

b- The current flows through T2&T4

Vm =
+ i i D4 + i D1 + D3 i

U dc

(8)

Equation (8) gives the relation between the maximum of the source voltage and the required DC voltage of the load, in order to have constant voltage on the filter capacitor at steady state when operates in unity power factor mode.

D2

III. EXPERIMENTAL SETUP The main goal of the series active power filter is to eliminate the voltage harmonics. In this case, the reference voltage is always known and it is installed in a pic16f877 as 80points (point by point of known reference voltage and of known fundamental value) the time difference between two consecutive points is t = 250 s . Then, it is possible to generate the reference synchronized with the main voltage and thus we can use the controller algorithm. Also it can be noted that the active filter performance is dependent on the time responses of the AC current and DC voltage control loops. However, the dynamic behavior of the filter is mainly affected by the time response of the AC current loop that must be designed in order to track the reference current waveforms closely The reference current is obtained by extracting the fundamental from the nonlinear load current off-line. Then the reference current is discretized into HEX into samples with sampling period t = 250 s taking into consideration the scaling of the Hall Effect sensor and the signal conditioning circuits.

c- The current flows through D2&D4

D- The current flows through D1&D3

Fig. 4 Circuit Operating Mode (a) Current Throught T1 and T2 in the Positive Half Cycle (b) Current through T3 and T4 in the Negative Half Cycle (c) Current Through D1 and D2 in the Positive Half Cycle (d) Current through D3 and D4 in the Negative Half Cycle

Fig. (3) displays the switching operating principle of the filter [6] and Fig. (4) displays the circuit operating modes. It can be shown that in the positive half cycle, the operating transistors are (T1&T3), the operating diodes are (D2&D4) while during the negative half cycle the operating transistors are (T2&T4), and the operating diodes are (D1&D3). At a fixed time interval, the line current is measured and checked. When the line current below the reference current, the appropriate pair of transistors are turned on and hence, the capacitor C is connected to the line circuit, in such a way, to increase the value of the load current above the value of the reference current and thus discharging the capacitor [12][13]. When the actual current is above the reference current all transistors are turned off, and the inductance circuit will force the current to flow through the appropriate pair of free wheeling diodes and hence, the capacitor C is connected in such away that its voltage brings about the drop of the

ISBN:978-988-17012-6-8

WCECS 2009

Proceedings of the World Congress on Engineering and Computer Science 2009 Vol I WCECS 2009, October 20-22, 2009, San Francisco, USA

circuit to work. The software is assembled using MPLAP and the generated HEX file is downloaded through any downloader deals with PIC microcontroller.
F. Driving Circuit The 4 output gating of the microcontroller is applied to a 4 optocoupler units to isolate the control circuit from the power circuit, using 4 isolated 12v DC power supplies to provide isolation between the gate signals of the 4 MOSFETs. A 4049 CMOS inverter is used at the output of the optocoupler as a driver to turn on/off the MOSFETs with high speed [11]. G. The Inverter Bridge The inverter bridge mainly consists of 4 IRF-740 MOSFETs each one is rated at 400v and 10A. each one has a built in freewheeling diode. From the data sheet of such element, we found that 12v is sufficient to drive it. H. Software Program We can summarize the program of the experimental work in the flow chart of Fig. (11).

Fig. 5 Laboratory Prototype Circuits

We built and tested a laboratory prototype of the singlephase active power filter, of Fig. (5), with the same power circuit parameters specified in table 1. The complete control circuit describes clearly, and the controller used is PIC16F877 microcontroller. In the following, a complete and detailed description for each part of the control circuit as well as the software program procedures is described. The simple control circuit consists of five parts 1- Power supply and zero crossing detector 2- Hall-effect current sensor and signal conditioning circuit. 3- Microcontroller circuit 4- Driving circuit for MOSFETs 5- The inverter bridge For more details, see Fig. (11)
C. Zero-Voltage-Crossing Detector Circuit It is used to inform the microcontroller in which half cycle the supply voltage is at any instant. Output is then limited by 5v before being applied to the external interrupt of the microcontroller. By software, when enabling the rising edge external interrupt or the falling edge external interrupt, the microcontroller can detect the positive half cycle or the negative half cycle of the supply voltage, respectively. D. Hall-Effect Current Sensor and Signal Conditioning Circuit The Hall-effect sensor used is RS-286-333 in order to obtain voltage output; pin 1 and 4 must be linked. The sensor is rated 50A and its output at full load is 5V (i.e 100mV / 1A) and it has a larger bandwidth (up to 100 KHz) and fast response time (<1 s) The instantaneous voltage output must be amplified before being applied to the microcontroller and then added with a small DC negative voltage to neutralize the small drift (positive DC bias) associated with the instantaneous output voltage. A LM324 OP-AMP is used to perform both tasks. Finally the output must be full wave rectified because the microcontroller does not accept negative voltage and also the output must be limited by a 5V zener-diod E. Microcontroller The microcontroller used in this paper is PIC (16f877). The instantaneous output voltage of the Hall Effect and signal conditioning circuit is applied to the first analog input, of the analog to digital module; also the output of the zero crossing detector circuit is applied to the external interrupt of the microcontroller. According to the inputs, and based on the assemble program, installed in the PIC, the controller give the order to a specific MOSFETs through the driving
ISBN:978-988-17012-6-8

IV. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS Fig. (6) shows the experimental results of the proposed series active power filter supply voltage and current before filtering (we observe the current and the voltage of the load without any filtration). Fig. (7) shows the experimental results of the proposed series active power filter supply voltage and current after filtration. The current after filter approaches the sinusoidal shape, it is in-phase with the supply voltage, and that proves the validity of the proposed filter. Similarly, in Fig. (8) and (9) we show the variation of the load current before and after filtration by adjusting the variable potentiometer of the current sensor. We can use this controller for different type and values of non-linear load currents. The reference current is 0.9 A peak the fundamental of the load current. Note: during experiment we measure i across 2.2 series resistor then the exact value of the maximum obtained when we divide by the scale which is 2.22
TABLE 1 PARAMETERS OF THE SAPF 110v Supply voltage vs Frequency f 50Hz Load resistor R 33 Load capacitor C 40 f Limiter L 100mH Filter capacitance Cdc 2000 f

V. CONCLUSION The proposed single-phase series active power filter, of Fig. (10), reduces effectively the voltage total harmonic distortion and providing better power quality than it is available on the mains. Referring to Fig. (13) and (14) for the total harmonic content before and after compensation we

WCECS 2009

Proceedings of the World Congress on Engineering and Computer Science 2009 Vol I WCECS 2009, October 20-22, 2009, San Francisco, USA

can conclude that the total harmonic distortion decreases by 25-30%. Within a certain limits, it is also capable of correcting fundamental voltage amplitude as in Fig. (7) the voltage of the main becomes totally sinusoidal while in Fig. (6) the distortion in the main voltage is very clear. Although the tested series compensator was a single-phase version, it may be easily adapted to a three-phase system. A series active power filter, working as a sinusoidal current source, in phase with the mains voltage, has been developed and tested. The amplitude of the fundamental current in the series filter is controlled through the microcontroller or PIC16f788 between the load voltage and a pre-established reference. The control allows an effective correction of power factor, harmonic distortion, and load voltage regulation and reaching its steady state in about two cycles of the fundamental. Compared with other methods of control for a series filter, this method is simpler to implement, because it is only required to generate a sinusoidal current, in phase with the mains voltage, the amplitude of which is controlled through the proposed cheep circuit [8], [9].
i (1v/div) V (50v/div)

Hall Effect current sensor Zero cross to the Pic to -

To the driving circuit Non-linear load

To inverter bridge

Fig. 10 Proposed SAPF

ISR

10ms/div
R=33 , C=40 f

Turn off all transistors Change the edge state for the next interrupt Change the firing for this new half cycle Clear the interrupt flag Set the lookup table to 0

Fig. 6 Source Voltage and Line Current of Uncompensated Circuit

i

t = 250s delay
Starts A/D converter Starts the timer

5m s/div

R= 3 3 , C =40 f

no

End of conversion

Fig. 7 Source Voltage and Source Current After compensation

Increment lookup table Call the reference value for this current Sample from lookup table

yes
R = 33 , C= 2 5 f

Actual < reference

no

Switch on transistors according to the stored firing information

Fig. 8 Source Voltage and Line Current of Uncompensated Circuit

Switch off all transistors to force the current to flow through the appropriate diodes

no

Timer finished??

R=33 , C=25 f

yes no
Lookup table finished??

Fig. 9 Source Voltage and Source Current of Compensated Circuit

yes
Turn off all transistors

Fig. 11 Flow Chart of ISR

ISBN:978-988-17012-6-8

WCECS 2009

Proceedings of the World Congress on Engineering and Computer Science 2009 Vol I WCECS 2009, October 20-22, 2009, San Francisco, USA
15v

R1
1M 4 4 1M 1 2 2 3 3 LM324 1 1k 500K

BR1
1 1

POT

CURRENT SENSOR

R2
1 10k 2

J1

Current (A)

D3
-15v 2W01G 1M130ZS5

to MCU Hall effect input

12v 5v
7805 1 470uf VI D N G 2 VO 3 470uf

+ -

Fig. 14 Non linear Load Harmonics of the Compensated System

220nf

220nf

PHASE 5V NEUTRAL

Frequency (kHz) Fig. 14 Load Harmonics of compensated System

RB0 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 15 16 17 18 23 24 25 26 19 20 21 22 27 28 29 30

R2
100k

R3 U1
1 6 5 2 4 4N25 22pf 10k

R1
10k

PIC16F877
22pf 13 14 1 OSC1/CLKIN OSC2/CLKOUT MCLR/Vpp/THV RB1 RB2 RB3/PGM RA0/AN0 RB4 RA1/AN1 RB5 RA2/AN2/VREFRB6/PGC RA3/AN3/VREF+ RB7/PGD RA4/T 0CKI RA5/AN4/SS RC0/T 1OSO/T1CKI RC1/T 1OSI/CCP2 RE0/AN5/RD RE1/AN6/WR RE2/AN7/CS RC2/CCP1 RC3/SCK/SCL RC4/SDI/SDA RC5/SDO RC6/T X/CK RC7/RX/DT RD0/PSP0 RD1/PSP1 RD2/PSP2 RD3/PSP3 RD4/PSP4 RD5/PSP5 RD6/PSP6 RD7/PSP7

4MHZ
2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
1 2 3 4 5

ZERO CROSSING

MCU_A MCU_B MCU_C MCU_D GND

The author would like to thank Prof. Amer El-zwawe for their help in this work. The authors are grateful to HCU University for the great help in all steps.
REFERENCES

MOSFET DRIVER

1 2

H-E GND

[1] [2]

HALL-EFFECT
3 2

12V 5V MC U _ A GND

J1
1 2 3 4 C ON N - H 4 1 330

U1
6 5 2 7 4 OPTOC OU PL ER - N PN 9 10 6 1k 5 4

Q1
IR F740

[3]
404 9 11 12

PH ASE

N EU TR AL

12V 5V MC U _B GND

J2
1 2 3 4 C ON N - H 4

U3 R3
330 1 6 5 2 3 4 OPTOC OU PL ER - N PN 5 4 2 1k 14 15

Q2
IR F740

[4]

404 9 7 6

[5]
Q3
IR F740

12V 5V MC U _C GND

J3
1 2 3 4 C ON N - H 4

U5 R5
330 1 6 5 2 11 4 OPTOC OU PL ER - N PN 14 404 9 3 2 15 12 1k 9 10

[6]

J4
12V 5V MC U _D GND
1 2 3 4 C ON N - H 4

U6 R7
330 1 6 5 2 7 4 OPTOC OU PL ER - N PN 9 404 9 10 6 1k 5 4

Q4
IR F740

[7] [8]

Fig. 12 Over All Control Schematic Diagram [9]

[10]

[11]

[12]

Frequency (kHz)
Fig. 13 Load Harmonics of Uncompensated System

[13]

H. Akagi, New Trends in Active Filters for Power Conditioning, IEEE Trans. Ind. Appl. 1996, 32, (6), pp. 1312-1322. Afonso, J., and et.al, Active Filters with Control Based on the pqTheory IEEE Industrial Electronics Society Newsletter, Vol.47, No.3,pp. 5-11, 2000. Magureanu R., Ambrosii S., Creanga D., Staicu C., Radut V. (2002) Unity power factor rectifiers andactive power filters for industrial applications, Proceedings National Conference on Electrical Drives,Galati. A.M. Massoud, S. J. Finney, B. W. Williams, Review of harmonic current extraction techniques for an active power filter IEEE international conference on harmonics and quality of power 2004: 154-159 Katsumi Nishida, Md. Rukonuzzaman and Mutsuo Nakaoka. A novelsingle-phase shunt active power filter with adaptive neural network based harmonic detection IEEJ Trans. LA, 2005; Vol. 125, N0. 1: 9A current limiter based on an active current power filter Vazquez, N. Rico, D. Hernandez, C. Rodriguez, E. Orosco, R. Arau, J. Power Electronics Congress, 2008. CIEP 2008. 11th IEEE International Publication no. 5, pp. 51-55 Aug. 2008 M.Rashid. Power Electronics Circuits, Devices and Applications. Pearson Prentice Hall, 2003. V. B. Sriram, S. SenGupta and A. Patra, "Indirect current control of a single-phase voltage-sourced boost-type bridge converter operated in the rectifier mode," IEEE Trans. Power Electron., vol.18, no. 5, pp. 1130-1137, Sep. 2003. M. Basu, S. P. Das and G. K. Dubey, "Parallel converter scheme for high-power active power filters," IEE Proc. Electr. Power Appl.,vol. 151, no. 4, pp. 460-466, July 2004. Y. S. Kim, J. S. Kim and S. H. Ko, Three-PhaseThree-Wire Series Active Power Filter, which Compensates for Harmonics and Reactive Power,IEE proc. Electr. Power Appl., Vol, 151, no. 3, May 2004, pp. 276-282. S. P. Litrn, P. Salmern, J. R. Vzquez and R. S.Herrera, Different control strategies applied toseries active filters, in Proc. ICREPQ, May, 2007 M. Joo Seplveda, Joo L. Afonso and Jlio S. Martins, A Series Active Filter Controlled by Personal Computer, International Conference on Renewable Energy and Power Quality (ICREPQ03), Vigo, Spain, 9-12 April 2003. J. Jerzy and F. Ralph, Voltage waveshape improvement by means of hybrid active power filter, in Proc. IEEE ICHPS VI, Bologna, Italy, Sept. 2123, 1994, pp. 250255.

(Modified on 15-9-2009 and the modifications include 1- The personal details at the footnote 2- The description of figure 13)

ISBN:978-988-17012-6-8

WCECS 2009