A New Iterative Learning Control Method for PWM Inverter Current Regulation

Lazhar Ben-brahim', Mohieddine Benammar' & Mohd A. Alhamad?

University of Qatar, Qatar College of Technology, PO Box 36007, Doha, Qatar

e-mail: I: hr;ihimir2uu.edii.0a; ':niiilhamadii~:aii.edii.an
: nibeiiaiiiniari~~~.uu.edu.o3;

uses the learned patterns and the actual-current errors to

Abstract- AC servomotor speed or current controller produce the proper output. This output is superposed
based on PI control and/or optimal control, can not with the PI current controller to overcome cyclical
eliminate the cyclical fluctuations of speed or current when
subject to periodic disturbances. PWM inverters output disturbances. This control technique is applied to PWM
waveforms are distorted by dead-time effect, which is inverter-driven AC drive systems which operate at
cyclical Fype disturbances. Conventional dead-time variable frequency. As a result, an improved output
compensation methods based on feedforward techniques, current waveforms of the PWM inverter are obtained for a
using current reference polarity, do not resolve these effects wide range of operating frequency and load.
around zero current crossing area. A new current
regulation method based on iterative learning control
technique is proposed in order to reduce the distortions 11. CURRENT DISTORTIONS ANALYSIS
caused by both the dead-time and the zero crossing
problems. PWM inverter output currents are distorted by the
Keywords-Iterative learning control, Repetitive deadtime and zero current clamping effects.
control, P W M ,Deadtime, AC drives
A. Dead-time Distortions Analvsis
The system used in this study is shown in Fig.l(a). To
I. INTRODUCTION simplify the analysis a single-phase system is used as
shown in Fig. I (h). This Figure consists of a leg of one
PWM Inverters are widely used in AC motor drives
phase of the three-phase PWM inverter, where power
and UPS. In inverters, time delay must be inserted in
transistors or GTOs can be used as switching devices.
switching signals to prevent a short circuit in the DC link.
Although, this time delay guarantees safe operation of the
inverter, it causes a serious distortion in the output ,I-
voltages. It results in a momentary loss of control, and
the output voltage deviates from the reference voltage. ;
:
Since this is repeated for evely switching operation, its
effect may become significant. This is known as the dead- :
time effect. This effect is still apparent even with the j
recently developed fast switching devices such as
MOSFET, IGBT and others. The zero crossing ;
phenomenon, which appears with the dead-time effect, is
still not fully understood and not well resolved. Several (4 (b)
techniques for dead-time compensation were proposed ,,+-----------------. \ *
[I]-[7]. These approaches succeeded in eliminating the ; g, ...
effect of dead-time hut not of the current zero crossing :
v........,.3 I1:'
\ '
..,...>',

phenomenon. New optimal approaches to eliminate I g, ,,,,,.

:I
simultaneously the zero crossing and the dead-time effects
::!I g" -
El
......>
.
:a

.. ..
I
~

have been proposed in [8-IO]. In this paper, a new current

regulation based on repetitive learning control technique j
is proposed. The new iterative learning controller uses a :
vzJ;T T> .
. .

.
!..................
, >;
i' ......
modified repetitive control theory to perform the learning : v.=vo., .....
process. The current feedback based learning technique *) ..v
generates suitable pattems for compensating the deadtime ------ (C) ----------------------*
(4
and zero-crossing effects and helps the PI controller to
cancel the cyclical fluctuations caused by these effects. Fig. I Dead-time and zero crossing Phenomenon
(a)Thrcc-phasc PWM invcrtcrandload,
These compensating patterns are function of the (b) single-phase systcm,
operating frequency and the load current of the PWM . . dcad-timc cffcct.
(c)
inverter. The learning process can be carried out off-line (d) zero crossing effect
and/or on-line. During the control, the learning controller

1460
To turn on transistor X, Transistor U should he off and if
the turn on speed is faster than the turn off speed, a DC
link short-circuit will occur, therefore a delay time or
dead-time is inserted for safety. Although this dead-time
is very short, it causes considerable distortions in the
output waveforms (Fig. 1(c)). To analyse the distortions
caused by the dead-time, we assume the following:
1. The turn off time of the switching device is
neglected.
2. The switching frequency is greater than the
fundamental frequency.
3. Current ripples are neglected
Under the above assumptions, the dead-time effect can
be analysed quantitatively. These assumptions will
facilitate the understanding of the compensation
techniques. Let n, be the number of pulses per period
caused by the dead-time. This number depends on the
switching frequency of the inverter and is expressed by
the relation:
wheref, is the carrier or switching frequency, andfis the
operating frequency of the inverter. The average deviation
voltage Avdl0,caused by the cumulative effect of the dead-
time pulses, is given by
where T , is the dead-time, T, is the carrier period, and Vdc
is the DC link voltage. This average distortions is shown
in Fig.2. As the sign of the deviation depends on current
polarity, the average voltage distortion caused by the
dead-time is given by:
T
AV& = v,
-2 x ssn( f") (3)
7,
The conventional dead-time compensation method is
based on equation (3). For simplicity, and as illustrated in
Fig.2, this compensation uses the current reference to
compensate for the dead-time effect instead of the actual
current as follows, [7].
T , x sgn(i,')
vue' = vu' + A V ~ , *= vu* + -
(4)
Tc
The conventional compensation described so far
performs well when current references are tracking the
current references without significant ripples. For high
power drive systems, the presence of significant current
ripples around zero-zone will lead to several zero-
crossings of the actual current (change of current polarity)
while the reference current polarity is changed only once.
This makes the conventional compensation method in (4)
1461
improper and distortions around the current zero-crossing
arise [7].
I I
Fig.2 Deadtime effect and compensation
B. Zero current crossing distortions analysis
Consider the single-phase system shown in Fig.1 (b),
during the dead-time, if the current is crossing the zero
level, the current will clamp to zero and remains there for
the rest of the dead-time period as shown in Fig. l(d).
During this period of clamping the point 24 is floating, in
other words the phase U is open as both switches, U and
X are off. The clamping of current to zero forces the
voltage through the load to clamp from Vdcto the hack-
emf of the same phase, e,,,
Avlco = Vdc- e u (5)
As the distortion occur during the current clamping time
T,, the average distortion during a sampling period is
given by
In this way, the voltage and current distortions caused by
the zero current crossing can be estimated from the
reference voltage and the hack-emf during the dead time.
Although the phenomenon of zero-clamping occurs for a
very short period, T',, for high power drive systems, the
current has significant ripples and this will lead to several
zero-crossing of the actual current and with each zero-
crossing the clamping may happen, resulting in more
distortions in the voltage and the current.
The above single phase analysis can be easily extended to
the three-phase case. Unlike the single-phase, in the three
phases system, the neutral point is floating and its value
depends on inverter legs switching states.
111. PROPOSED LEARNING CONTROL
The conventional method of dead-time compensation uses
the polarity of the reference current to cancel the dead-
time effect. However, the effect depends on the polarity of
the actual current. If the current ripples are significant, the
reference current and the actual current polarity will he
different. This mismatch of polarity occurs around zero
current. At the crossing of zero current, this disturbance consist of frequency components, of 2 n d L
compensation is not effective. and of no other components.
A proposed method based on learning control is used to disturbance
compensate the dead-time and the zero-clamping effects. j repetitive controller
Learning control is an iterative process to generate the
optimal system input so that the system output is as close
reference I I Plant i~,
as possible to the desired output. As the dead-time and the
zero-clamping effects are repetitive in nature, the
proposed learning method is based on repetitive
control,[9].

A . Repetitive contrul Fig. 3: Basic repetitive control system

The repetitive control [ I l l is effective when the same
amount of distortion appears repetitively at constant
intervals. This control assumes that a distortion similar to
that appeared in the previous output cycle will also occur Q
in the next cycle, and generates a compensating signal to .-2E
offset the possible distortions. Fig.3 shows the principal
configuration of repetitive control which is an iterative
2
7
control type. The controller containing a delay in a
feedback path, is the key component. The length L of
delay time, e?, should be exactly equal to the period of
the input or/and disturbance signal. Since the transfer 0.1
1 TO 100
function of the repetitive controller is Fig. 4 MngniNde frequency response of a repetitive controller

B. Proposed controller
the gain curve shows infinite peaks at frequencies of
2nw
- ( n = + I , k 2 , ...), as e -L* equals I for this condition
L
and the loop gain (transfer function in (8)) is m, as shown
in the bode plot of repetitive controller in Fig. 4. It is
known that, when the loop gain is m, the input-output
error becomes zero. In another words, the output of Fig.3,
in its steady state, is equal to the input, if the input and
Although repetitive control is characterized by its
accuracy even when the plant G(s) is not known (the only
requirement is a closed-loop stability), it has some
disadvantages. One of the drawbacks of the repetitive
control is the requirement of a fixed period L of the
reference/disturbance signals. Therefore, a repetitive
control is not useful when the period of inpuUdisturbance
signal varies with time. For ac motor drive systems, the

1 controller

Fig. 5: Angle domain based iterative learning control

1462
dead-time disturbance frequency changes linearly with the Table I. Digital simulations were carried out to generate
operating frequency of the inverter. Therefore the above the appropriate compensating deadtime signals. To better
repetitive control as it is, is not useful for dead-time understand the effect of the learning controller,
compensation. However, it is worth noting that the dead- simulations results using only the PI controller are
time is repetitive not in time domain but in angle domain. illustrated in Fig. 6. The current waveforms, depicted in
Therefore, the time domain repetitive controller is the Figure, contain significant oscillations.
transformed into angle domain repetitive controller. Table I : Simulation parameters
As the PI controller can not compensate for a cyclical
disturbances such as the deadtime, a learning algorithm Load resistance
based on the angle-domain repetitive control is pluged in
parallel with the PI regulator to create a proper dead-time
compensating voltage. Using the rotor angle and motor
currents, the learning algorithm forces the actual currents
to track the reference currents. As a result the
compensation for the dead-time as well as the zero-
crossing phenomenon is realized using the new current
controller. This shows the limitation of PI controller in eliminating
Figure 5 shows an extra iterative learning controller non dc disturbances. Note that the d-q axis currents
inserted in parallel with the conventional PI current should be constant at steady state. However, the
controller. oscillations in d-q current signals shown in Fig.6 are due
For three-phase systems, the d-q coordinate to the deadtime effect. Conventional method of deadtime
transformation transforms a fundamental AC signals into compensation derive a proper compensating d-q voltage
DC signals. As a result, PI controller can be used to signals. These signals are superposed to the PI controller
achieve a zero steady state error in response to step output signal to reduce the oscillations in the current.
command. The learning control and the PI current
controller shown in Fig. 5 are both implemented in the
synchronously rotating reference frame model (d-q axis).

--
The transformation from U-v-w to d-q axis is given by:

" 2 n *7 n I" 0 ** n 1. n*

where 0 is the synchronous rotating angle of the motor. Fig. 6: Current conuol using PI controller

The inverse transformation is:

sin0 - c o s 0
+sin8 yvc5 o s 8
];[I
The learning controller is also implemented in the d-q
(IO)
Learning current controller is introduced and the
oscillations in the d-q currents are greatly reduced as
shown in Fig.7. As shown in this figure, when the
learning starts the errors between the reference currents
and the actual currents decrease with time. As The
leaming process progress the d-q currents converge to the
reference currents without the need to generate a proper
deadtime compensating signal.
coordinate. GRis a learning gain. Using the error between
the reference currents (id*, iq*) and the actual current (id,
m
iq), the PI controller compensates for non cyclical 1"

disturbances while the learning controller compensates for 8

cyclical fluctuations by generating a proper compensating 6
d-q voltage patterns. These patterns depend on the
operating frequency and current of the drive system. 4
These patterns are stored and then used for future 2
compensation. n

I d
IV. SIMULATIONS
Fig. 7: Lcaming proccss rcsponsc

Simulations were carried out to verify the proposed

When a good level of convergence is achieved, the
methods. An RL load with a'hack-emf is used for the
learning process is ended and the learned compensating
simulations. Data used for simulations are given in signals are recorded.

1463
 Fig. 8 shows the expanded d-q cument waveforms using
the proposed learning controller along with the PI
controller at the end of learning process. Significant
oscillations in the current waveforms are suppressed.
Fig. 9(a)&(b) show the simulation results without any
i . . - I
dead-time compensation. if,, Id and Iq current waveforms
are depicted in the simulation Figures. Fig. 9(c)&(d) show
I
5.1 5.32 IJI 5.J6 5.J8
I
5.J the current waveforms using the conventional
rlmrhl
compensation method. In this Figure the zero-crossing
Fig. 8: Current control using PI+ learning controller phenomenon is apparent. Fig. 9[e)&(f) show the proposed
method .based on the on-line combination of the PI
15
controller and the proposed learning controller. This
10
shows that the proposed method improves the current
5
0
waveforms by eliminating the effect caused by the zero-
-5
crossing phenomena.
-10 The proposed learning controller is carried out at an
-15b 0 05 01 0 15
I
02
angle-domain sampling rate. As a result, it performs well
ame(s) at various operating Gequencies as shown in Fig. 10. This
Figure depicts the current waveforms for a frequency step
change. Note that the current tracks the reference current
and the peak current errors disappear faster than the
oscillating errors. The learning controller takes few cycles
to cancel the oscillating errors.
30 . . . . . .. . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . 1
15
i,fA) 0
-15

0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2

~immslsl

15-
10
id(.) 5 . .
i

7 . 7
. .

.
.i

. I.
.

,
, .

. '. . . . . . . ..

01 0 15 02
I"(*)

0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2

Iime(s1

2t
0 i
-2 b 0.05 0.1
1;iMS)
0.15
I
0.2 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3
Fig. 9: Simulation results at opcrating frequcncy time(s)
/=/OH; at no load

..
* io) & /b): PI cvnrrol
(C) & (4: PI Conlloli con"e"ri"n"lde"d-rr,nr"~ comp.

(e) & 0): PI control+ Ir"mmg conrro1

Fig. 11: Current rcsponsc for a current step input

In order to make the proposed learning controller faster, a

learning can be made off-line for different values of

1464
operating frequency,fand load current iy. These patterns
are recorded and stored in memory. During the on-line n.nI I,=OA
operation, the drive system operating frequency and load 0.02
current are detected and the corresponding stored pattern a
is selected and superposed to the PI current controller
-n.nz
output. Periodic on-line relearning may be carried out to
account for slow drifts in the system or disturbance -u.n~
environment.
A sample of pattems, ,representing d-axis dead-time
compensating voltage vcd, are generated as shown in
Fig.12. The pattems are recorded at a frequency of 15Hz
and for different values of load (torque) current,, iq

V. CONCLUSION
n.od &=SA
A proposed method for dead-time and zero current 0.02
clamping compensation based on learning control, is U
described in this paper. The elimination of the zero -n.oz
current clamping effect in a voltage-fed PWM inverter
was achieved. Digital simulation were carried out to
verify the proposed scheme. The simulation has shown
that the current waveforms output by the inverters were
improved when using the proposed method.

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