A STUDY OF ACTIVE POWER FILTERS USING QUAD-SERIES VOLTAGE-SOURCE
PWM CONVERTERS FOR HARMONIC COMPENSATION
F.Z.PENG, H.AKAGI, A.NABAE
The Technological University of Nagaoka
Nagaoka,940-2l,Japan
ABSTRACT
An active power filter using quad-series vol-
tage-source PWM converters is used to suppress ac
harmonics by injecting PWM modulated currents to
the ac side. In this paper, the calculation cir-
cuits for the harmonic currents to be injected, the
compensation characteristics, and the capacity of
the dc capacitor are discussed. A new control cir-
cuit for the dc capacitor voltage is proposed.
These discussions focus on transient states and are
on the basis of the instantaneous reactive power
theory. Finally, a passive LC filter is designed to
remove the switching voltage and current ripples
caused by the PWM converters at the ac side. Some
experiments to illustrate the details of the study
are shown.
INTRODUCTION
To suppress harmonics produced by power con-
verters (such as rectifiers, inverters and cy-
cloconverters ), active power filters that are
usually connected as shunt filters in power systems
have been researched and developed [l,2,3) . In this
case, the active power filter must operate as an
ideal current source, and inject the harmonic cur-
rents into the ac side to cancel the harmonic cur-
rent of loads.
The control circuits of the active power fil-
ter using quad-series vol tage-source PWM 'converters
consist of three parts, namely, the current control
circuit of the PWM converters, the calculation cir-
cuit for the harmonic current references, and the
control circuit for the dc capacitor voltage. The
calculation circuit for the harmonic current
references produces reference signals for the cur-
rent control circuit of the PWM converters, and
dominates directly the compensation characteristics
of the active power filter. Since the PWM conver-
ters operate in a self-sufficient manner from the
energy storage element - the dc capacitor without a
dc source the control circuit for the dc
capacitor voltage is important for the operation of
the PWM converters.
A lot of control schemes for PWM converters
have been studied[4,S]. With advances of static
power converters in applications, and with
sophisticated PWM control technology, an active
204
0275-9306187/0000-0204 $1. 00 @) 1987 IEEE
power filter using static power converters is able
to generate specified harmonic waves. Most of the
papers published on active power filters have
treated the compensation characteristics in steady
state b,2,3]. In steady state, the calculation cir-
cuit for the harmonic currents is simple, and com-
pensation characteristics of the active power fil-
ter can be ideally attained. However, in transient
states, such as those caused by fluctuating loads
and cycloconverter loads including subharmonic and
superharmonic currents, the design of the harmonic
current calculation circuit becomes difficult,
which affects significantly both the compensation
characteristics and the voltage of the dc
capacitor.
This paper focuses on the harmonic current
calculation circuit and the control circuit for the
dc capacitor voltage. Turning attention to tran-
sient states, the instantaneous reactive power
theory[6] is applied to the design of the harmonic
current calculation circuit (that is, the calcula-
tion circuit for fand q*), and the control circuit
for the dc capacitor voltage. The calculation cir-
cuit for the harmonic currents and the residual
characteristics of harmonics at the source side are
discussed. Also a new control circuit for the dc
capacitor voltage is proposed. The validity of the
control circuit is confirmed experimentally.
In an active power filter consisting of swit-
ching devices, the switching rate is limited, and
switching voltage and current ripples at the ac
terminals (abbreviated to "switching ripples" in
the following) occur inevitably. A passive LC fil-
ter used to suppress the switching ripples is
designed and the experimental results are shown.
ACTIVE POWER FILTER SYSTEM
AND COMPENSATION PRINCIPLE
Fig.l shows a basic compensation principle of
active power filters. The 6-pulse rectifier con-
nected at the ac lines is considered as a harmonic
current source. The injected currents icu, icv and
icw are controlled so as to cancel the harmonic
currents of the load (that is, the harmonic compo-
nents of iLu, iLv and iLw).
Fig.2 shows the configuration of the active
power filter. The main power circuit is composed
of quadruple voltage-source PWM converters. The
converter is a conventional three-phase bridge con-
verter, as shown in Fig.3.

As shown in Fig.2, the control circuits of the

active power filter consist of the current control
circuit for the PWM converters, the calculation ~ r----,--t-----{ !J.
circuit for the harmonic currents within the larger 3rt> 200V
dashed line, and the control circuit for the dc lieu
50Hz
capacitor voltage within the smaller dashed line.
These circuits are designed on the basis of the in- t
stantaneous reactive power theory, which can be ex- 'td
plained as follows. I
The phase voltages eU,ev,ew and the load cur- Active Power Filter(Fig.21
rents iLu,iLv,iLw are transformed into the a S
orthogonal coordinates according to the following Fig.l Basic compensation principle
expressions, respectively:

[::]=~[~
-1/2
.)3/2
-1/2
-.)3/2
J[ e
u

::
] (1)

[i =~ [I ] [i.
LU
LQ -1/2 -1/2
] .)3/2 -.)3/2 IL, ] . (2)
IL6 3 0 IL",-

From Eqs.(1),(2), the instantaneous real power

PL and instantaneous reactive power qL on the load
side are expressed by

(3)

Let PL' PL and PL be the dc component, low

frequency component caused by fluctuation of load
(the frequency of PL is less than that of the
source), and harmonic component of PL, respec-
tively, so

(4)

Similarly,

(5)
Fig.2 Active power filter configuration
The calculation circuit for the compensation
reference currents (i~u, i~v and i~w) performs in-
version of Eqs.(3) and (2) to give

itU]
[it:: ~
ii: = 2 [I
-1/2
-1/2
o ]
.)3/2
-.)3/2
(6)

Here, Pav is the instantaneous real power necessary

to adjust the voltage of the dc capacitor to the
reference value, and p*, q*are given by the cal-
culation circuit for p*and q*, which should be the
harmonic components of PL and qL' i.e.

p*= Ih (7)

Apart from the calculation circuit for the p* Fig.3 PWM converter
and q* and the control circuit for the de
capacitor voltage, all the above-mentioned calcula-

205
tion circuits consist of analog multipliers,
dividers and operational amplifiers without any
time-constant elements. The calculation circuit for
p*and q*is composed of high-pass filters to obtain
PL and qL' The control circuit for the dc capacitor
voltage regulates the average value of the voltage
to the reference value.
CALCULATION CIRCUIT FOR p*AND q*AND
RESIDUAL CHARACTERISTICS OF HARMONICS
As mentioned above, the calculation circuit
for p*and q*is a kernel of the calculation circuit
for the harmonic currents, and usually consists of
high-pass filters. To extract PL from p and qL
from qL' two types of high-pass filter (HPFY can be
used, as shown in Fig.4. The A-Type HPF contains a
Butterworth low-pass filter (BLPF), and is given by
transfer function
Ga (s)=l-G' (s) (8)
here G'(S) is the transfer function of the BLPF.
The B-Type HPF is a Butterworth high-pass fil-
ter (BHPF) and its transfer function is denoted
by Gb(S).
A-Type (Ga(s
PL (qt.!
+
Low-Pass Filter
(Butterworth I
G' (s)
* cuit of p*and q*.
High-Pass Filter
(Butterworth)
~
(q )
Fig.4 Calculation circuit for p* and q*
To eliminate the dominant harmonic currents
the 5th, 7th and 13th harmonics of the ac currents
of the rectifier - let G'(S) and Gb(S) be 5th-order
BLPF and BHPF, respectively, with cutoff frequency
fo = 150Hz (the source frequency = 50Hz).
The residual harmonic characteristics (ab-
breviated to "residual characteristics" ) of the
compensated ac line currents can be defined via
R( s)=l-G( s) (9)
206
where G(s) is the transfer function of the calcula-
tion circuit for p* and q*.
For the A-Type and B-Type HPF, Ra(s) and Rb(s)
are
(10)
11'l.01'l
I
/ -
\.I'll'l
IRal
.11'l
. I'll
.1 1fl. I'l
fIfo
Fig.5 Residual characteristics
The magnitudes of Ra(s) and Rb(s) are shown in
Fig.5. From Fig.5, it is obvious that the residual
characteristics of the A-Type HPF are far superior
to those of the B-Type HPF. The magnitude of Rb(s)
is found to exceed 1 in the frequency range fo -
3fo (that is 150 - 450 Hz). That means the active
power filter increases the harmonic currents on the
source side by injecting the currents calculated by
the B-Type HPF.
Therefore, when a calculation circuit for ~
and q*is designed, great emphasis must be put on
the residual characteristics. In this system, the
only A-Type HPF can be used as the calculation cir-
RELATION BETWEEN THE A-TYPE CALCULATION
CIRCUIT AND DC CAPACITOR VOLTAGE
For Fluctuating Load
As mentioned above, the A-Type HPF used as the
calculation circuit for ~ and ~ (abbreviated to the
"A-Type calculation circuit") shows good residual
characteristics. However, the A-Type calculation
circuit gives a dull damping characteristic below
cutoff frequency. For a fluctuating load, low fre-
quency components (PL and ilL) occur. When It (qL)
goes through the A-Type calculation circuit, Pt(&L)
cannot be stopped. Therefore, p*can be written ap-
proximately as
(11 )
(q*does not affect the dc capacitor voltage, and is
not discussed here).
 Neglecting the energy stored in the reactors
at the ac side of the PWM converters, the dc
capacitor voltage Vcd(t) at time t can be given as
follows.
where Vcd(O) is the dc capacitor voltage at t=O.
Since PL is a low frequency component, the fluctua-
tions in dc capacitor voltage correspond to the
integral of Pi many times as large as those cor-
responding to the integral of PL for a normal
fluctuating load. However, it is essential to
regulate the fluctuation to a limited range,
because of the conversion efficiency, the compensa-
tion characteristics, and the rated voltage of the
active power filter.
Let the required capacitance of the dc
capacitor be Cdo, for the filter to compensate the
component PL and to regulate the voltage to a
limi ted range. When the component p L (1et {>L be a
sinusoid of frequency f) exists in PL' the required
capacitance Cd should be
(13)
where IGa(jw)! is the magnitude of the A-Type cal-
culation circuit and fo is its cutoff frequency.
Assume f = 10 Hz
Cd = 6. 5C do (14 )
Therefore, to suppress the voltage fluctua-
tion, the required capacitance must be increased by
6.5 Cdo.
For Step Changing Load
In some cases, a load has a sudden change,
such as disconnection from the ac line.
For the A-Type calculation circuit Ga(s), when
PL has a step change from P L to PL+t>PL , the voltage
changes to Vcd(m)
(15 )
where Vco is the initial value of the voltage,
Wo(m)=F..mo Ga(s)/s
Eq.(15) shows. that the voltage rises when t>P L
negative, i.e. when the load steps down.
If the maximum permissible value of the vol-
tage is (l+e)Vco, the capacitance required for a
step increment t> It. is
-2t> P LWo(CO)
e (2+e )Vc20 (16)
where e is a negative value for t>PL>O, and a posi-
tive value for t>PL<O. For the experimental system,
given Vco=200 v , e=0.25, t>PL=-20 kW , then Cd' is
6800 uF. In other words, if the capacitance is
less than 6800 uF , over voltage occurs for the
step change, t>PL=-20 kW .
CONTROL CIRCUIT FOR DC CAPACITOR VOLTAGE
AND EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
Suppression of Voltage Fluctuation.
As mentioned above, a control circuit for the
dc capacitor voltage is essential to suppress the
voltage fluctuation without increasing the rating
of the dc capacitor. The integral control circuit
shown in Fig.6(a) is usually adopted to regulate
the average voltage of Vcd to the reference value
Vcd* . The integral control circuit consists of a
large time constant T and gain K, and controls the
average dc capacitor voltage, so as to compensate
the voltage drop due to the loss of the active
power filter. The time constant T and the gain K
determine the response of the control circuit. Con-
sidering the compensation characteristics of the
active power filter, T can not be selected to be a
small value. For the experimental system, T and K
are set to be 1.5s and 30, respectively.
When the rectifier fluctuates as follows
id=50+30sin(20~t) (A) (17)
the experimental results are shown in Fig.7(a),
with the use of the integral control circuit. The
dc capacitor voltage Vcd fluctuations correspond to
the load fluctuations.
Fig.6(b) shows a new control circuit for the
dc capacitor voltage, which is derived from
Eq.(12). The calculation circuit for t>p, shown in
Fig.6(b), performs the following calculations:
(18)
(19)
where Vcd is the average voltage of Vcd, \Tcd is the
low frequency component corresponding to
sample period. 'Pi' T is
Let the initial voltage Vcd(O) be the
reference voltage Vcd*, so Eq.(lB) can be written
as
is
T~e block diagram of the calculation circuit for t>p
(~.e. t>p(KT is shown in Fig.B, here T=3.3 ms and
12-bit digital calculations are performed.
Fig.7(b) shows the experimental results with
the new control circuit, for the same conditions as
Fig.7(a). Comparing the results of the integral
circuit with those of the new control circuit, the
voltage fluctuation in the latter was reduced to
1/3 of that in the former. Also, the compensation
207
 K
l+Ts

(a) Integral control circuit (b) New control circuit

Fig.6 Control circuit for dc capacitor voltage

Fig.8 Black diagram of'" p calculation circuit

characteristics of the latter were improved. ac line pollution as the harmonics of the rec-
Therefore, the new control circuit is valid for tifier. It is desirable to suppress the switching
suppression of the voltage fluctuation. ripples by an LC filter.

Step Response Design of LC Filter.

Fig.9 (a) and (b) show the experimental step
response of the integral control and the new con-
trol circuit, where "'PL=-5 kw, Cd=3000 uF ,
Vco=200 v
From Fig.9, Vcd(oo )=225 V, which corresponds
with the calculated value 227 V by Eq.(l5).
It is apparent that the new control circuit
has a good step response, but the maximum voltage
is approximately the same in both scheme.
LC FILTER TO SUPPRESS SWITCHING RIPPLES
The sw~tching ripples caused by operation of
the PWM converters may cause the same problems of
Fig.lO shows a system configuration including
the active power filter, the LC filter to suppress
the switching ripples and the load(rectifier). The
equivalent circuit for the switching ripples is
shown in Fig.ll. An LC filter to suppress switching
ripples must show a low impedance over a wide fre-
quency band. The source impedance and dominant fre-
quency range of switching ripples must be measured
in order to design an LC filter.
For the experimental system, the leakage im-
pedance of the transformer is regarded as the
source impedance, Ls=O.16 mH (2.5 % , 20kVA base).
The frequency of the switching ripples is about 5 -
6 kHz, which is 3 - 4 times as high as the average
switching frequency of the PWM converters.
Let the resonance frequency of the LC filter

208
 L "'""'-,~"""""""",,-O
35mH

Fig.iO Sv~tem configuration

(a) Without LC filter

1
~ I ~~ j, ~

Ls '# "~ ~
0.:
~ f1I
b
.~
o

,~
--' ~
h ~ ~ !~ o
t,:
W ~ VI ~
rJI
~!I
~F' t~ ~ =
Fig.il Equivalent circuit for switching ripples

(b) With LC filter

be 5kHz (fn=5kHz) and the resonance impedance be upper e u : 150V/div

1/5 of the source impedance at the fn (2X
fnLs=wnLs=5 ohm ). The design parameters of the LC lower i su : 100A/div
filter are as follows. time 5ms/div
3Cf = 3xlO uF (5.4 % 7 KVA base)
Lf/3 0.1/3 mH (0.17 % 7 KVA base) Fig.l2 Effect of compensation of LC filter
Rf/3 = 2.5/3 ohm

The characteristic impedance Zo was derived as

CONCLUSION

where wn= 2'tfn = 1/ I~ . The resonance impedance
Zn is obtained as follows
2
Zn=Zo 1/ Ri/9 + Z~ =0. 820hm
and it satisfies the aforementioned requirements.
Generally, a quality factor is selected from 1 - 5.
In this circuit, the quality factor is selected as
0.8, considering the required low impedance over a
wide frequency band.
This paper focused on the transient states,
and discussed two types of calculation circuit for
p* and q* The calculation circuit for p* and q*
having a sharp low-stop HPF was found to exhibit a
dull residual characteristic for harmonics. On the
other hand, the one having a sharp residual charac-
teristic for harmonics was found to be a dull low-
stop HPF, which causes the dc capacitor voltage to
fluctuate under a fluctuating load, so the compen-
sation characteristics are affected.

Effect of Compensation Next, a new control circuit for the dc

Fig.l2 shows the effect of compensation by the
LC filter. Uncompensated phase voltage eu and
source current isu include the switching ripples,
which are suppressed by the LC filter. The effect
of the LC filter is evident.
capacitor voltage, which suppresses the fluctuation
of the voltage, was discussed.
These circuits, based on the instantaneous
reactive power theory, showed excellent charac-
teristics for transient states. It is difficult to
get such characteristics using circuits designed by

209
conventional principles.

Finally, the LC filter to suppress of the

switching ripples is also important, and the LC
filter design example was shown. Its compensation
effect was verified by the experiments.

REFERENCES

(1) H.Kawahira, T.Nakamura, and S.Nakazawa, "Active

power filters," in Proc. JIEE IPEC-Tokyo, 1983,
p.981.
(2) L.Gyugyi and E.C.Strycula, "Active ac power
filter," in Proc. IEEE/IAS Annual Meeting,1976,
p.529.
(3) K.Hayafune et al., "Microcomputer controlled
active power filters," in Proc. IEEE/IES IECON,
1984,p.1221.
(4) J. Hol tz et al. , "Predictive controller for the
stator current control vector of AC machines
fed from a switched voltage source," Inter.
Power.Elect.Conf., pp166S-l675,Tokyo 1983
(5) A.Kawamura and R.Hoft, "Instantaneous feedback
controlled PWM inverter with adaptive hystere-
sis," IEEE Trans. Ind. Appl. Vol.IA-20, No-4,
pp769-775, July/Aug 1984.
(6) H.Akagi, Y.Kanazawa, and A.Nabae, "Instan-
taneous reactive power compensators compr~s~ng
switching devices without energy storage compo-
nents," IEEE Trans. Ind. Appl. Vol.IA-20,p.625,
1984
(7) S.B.Dewan et al., "Design of an input filter
for the six-pulse bridge rectifier," IEEE Trans.
Ind. Appl. Vol.IA-2l, No.5, Sep/Oct.1985.

210
(a) With integral control circuit

(b) With new control circuit

Fig.7 Experimental results

211
case of new control circuit

Fig.9 Step response

212