Active Rectifier Based Harmonic Compensator for a Direct Torque Controlled Induction Motor Drive

ABSTRACT

Harmonic mitigation is a key issue in industrial as well as commercial drive applications. The wide use of non-linear loads causes significant power quality degradation in power distribution networks. The main objective of this work is to design an active front end rectifier for harmonic compensation. Active filter is used as drive front end so that it can act as a harmonic compensator and also AC to DC converter. This work proposes a dual purpose drive that can be used as a conventional drive and also to cancel out harmonics in line. Inverter in the drive is controlled by using conventional switching table based direct torque controller for induction motor control. Induction motor based on direct torque control (DTC) was implemented by connecting the inverter to the DC link of the active rectifier in order to transfer the power to induction motor through active rectifier DC link. DTC with five-level torque controller was used to minimize torque ripples. A complete simulation model is developed using MATLAB/Simulink in order to test the performance of the proposed harmonic compensator. Results shows effective harmonic compensation at front end and the current THD is 3.2% which is well below IEEE-519 Standard. The active rectifier based harmonic compensator for a DTC drive with the five-level torque controller was simulated and it was found that the torque ripples are comparably reduced with a switching table based DTC of induction motor drive.

Keywords:

• Harmonic compensator
• Active rectifier
• Total Harmonic Distortion
• Torque comparator
• Direct torque control
• Induction Motor

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sweety Jose Paul

Sweety Jose Paul graduated BE degree from Bharathiar University in the year 1998 and ME from Anna University in the year 2004. She had been teaching for the past 16 years and presently working as assistant professor in Electrical and Electronics Engineering Department at PSG College of Technology Coimbatore, India. She is currently doing research and her research areas include PWM techniques, power converters, electric drives, and sensorless control.

Email: [email protected]

Jovitha Jerome

Dr Jovitha Jerome received BE degree in 1979 from Madras University, India and ME degree from Bharathiar University, India. She obtained DEng from the Asian Institute of Technology, Bangkok, Thailand. She has been teaching for 32 years at reputed institutions like the Government College of Technology, Coimbatore Institute of Technology, Coimbatore, India, and Sirindhorn International Institute of Technology, Bangkok, Thailand. Presently, she is professor and head of Instrumentation and Control Systems Engineering Department at PSG College of Technology, Coimbatore, India. Her research interests include distribution automation, power systems management, and virtual instrumentation.

Email: [email protected]

Sudheerkumarreddy Kakani

Sudheerkumarreddy Kakani obtained B.E. degree from Jawaharlal Nehru University, Andhra Pradesh, India. He is pursuing ME Power Electronics and Drives at PSG College of Technology, Coimbatore, India. His areas of interest are motor controller tuning and design and hardware design of power converters.

Email: [email protected]