A Simple Feed Forward Controller for
Stand-Alone Wind-Driven
Permanent Magnet Synchronous Generator
K.Vijayakumar, R.Karthigaivel and N.Kumaresan
Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering
National Institute of Technology
Tiruchirappalli, India
krishna4vijay@gmail.com, 407107001@nitt.edu,
nkumar@nitt.edu
Abstract— A simple feed forward controller for wind-driven
Permanent Magnet Synchronous Generator (PMSG) has been
proposed using low cost opamps and a MOSFET inverter. The
controller automatically adjusts the pulse widths of the inverter
to maintain a constant ac voltage of desired frequency despite the
variations in the voltage and frequency of PMSG output. A
prototype of the system has been built by fabricating the
controller, an uncontrolled diode bridge and a single-phase
MOSFET inverter. The controller has been tested on a 4-pole,
three-phase, 110V, 5kW, 1500 rpm PMSG driven by a wind
turbine in dynamic conditions. The results of the experimental
study are furnished in the paper.
Keywords- PMSG, Feed forward controller, PWM inverter,
wind energy electric conversion system, power converters
I. INTRODUCTION
It is well known that the design and development of
renewable energy sources is strongly encouraged now-a-days
due to fast depletion of conventional energy sources and the
environmental pollution caused by them. Among various
renewable energy sources, wind energy electric conversion
system can produce significant quantum of electrical power
output, in locations identified with fairly high/moderate wind
velocity over most part of the year. Further such wind energy
electric conversion systems require a suitable electrical
generator to be interfaced with the wind turbine. Induction
generators are the most widely used machines in wind
applications.
However, with the advent of high power density permanent
magnets, the synchronous generators can be built with a very
high power density magnets compared to wound rotor type
resulting in the elimination of an external dc supply for
excitation, the slip rings and brushes. Unlike induction
generator, PMSG does not require any excitation capacitors for
building up of voltage. Though the existing rating of PMSG is
relatively smaller, higher rating machines are being designed
[1]-[2]. In addition, for the same output, the PMSG will operate
at a higher power factor because of the absence of the
magnetizing current and will be more efficient than the
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induction generator. Due to these advantages, for stand-alone
wind energy application, the PMSG is being increasingly used
at present.
The disadvantage, however, is that the excitation cannot be
varied and hence the output voltage of the wind-driven PMSG
will vary in amplitude and frequency due to fluctuating wind.
This problem is overcome by using a power electronic
interface between wind energy system and the utility or the
isolated load. In these schemes, diode bridge rectifier followed
by dc-dc converter or and inverter has been used. Incorporating
an extra dc-dc converter makes the system complex and
expensive [3]. It must be mentioned here that all control
techniques for maintaining a constant voltage at output side of
the inverter in wind-driven PMSG so far have been based on
feedback signals from load side [4]-[5].
In the present paper, a feed forward controller employing
PWM inverter for maintaining a constant RMS voltage at load
side of wind-driven stand-alone PMSG has been proposed. By
employing the feed forward control loop, the complexities of
handling the PWM ac output in the feedback loop are also
eliminated. The dc signal is directly handled through a voltage
transducer arrangement.
II. PROPOSED SYSTEM CONFIGURATION
The block diagram schematic of the proposed wind energy
conversion scheme is shown in Fig.1. It consists of wind
turbine driving a PMSG interfaced to the stand-alone load
through a power electronic interface. The output voltage of the
PMSG varies in amplitude and frequency due to wind
fluctuations. Hence, the variable frequency, variable magnitude
ac voltage available at the PMSG terminals is first rectified
using diode bridge rectifier and the dc power is then converted
to ac power using the PWM inverter and transferred to the
stand-alone load. The controller used here is a feed forward
controller which adjusts the width of PWM pulses of the
inverter to maintain a constant ac output across load terminals.
In such a controller, whenever there is a change in the dc
voltage, corrective action can be taken immediately to cancel
the deviation in the output of the inverter from the reference
point. A feedback controller is not preferred because
continuous variation of the dc voltage will make the system
oscillatory and a robust feedback controller would be difficult
to develop [6].
VV-VF Variable dc
Diode
bridge
PMSG
rectifier
Wind
turbine
Feed forward
VF
control
Fig.1 The schematic of the proposed wind energy conversion scheme
A. Power circuit of inverter
The bridge configuration of a voltage source, single-phase
MOSFET inverter is shown in Fig.2. It has been fabricated
using four MOSFETs (IRF250) and each MOSFET is fired
using separate gate drive circuit (G.D.). To protect the
MOSFET against dv/dt, polarized snubber circuit consisting of
a diode, a 10 W, 75 Ÿ resistor and a 1.05μF, 25V capacitor are
connected across the drain and source terminals of the
MOSFETs. The dc input to the inverter, vdc is the rectified
output of the diode bridge which is a variable voltage. The
required constant RMS output voltage is given as reference
voltage VR to the controller. Based on the variable dc input
voltage and the reference voltage, the controller adjusts the
width of the PWM pulses it generates to the MOSFETs. Hence
a constant ac output is fed to the load.
idc S1 S4
Rs Ds
G.D. G.D.
Cs
iac vac
vdc Load
S3 S2
Rs Ds
G.D. G.D.
Cs
Fig.2 Single-phase MOSFET bridge inverter
vdc and idc : instantaneous input dc voltage and current
vac and iac : instantaneous output ac voltage and current
B. Control circuit of inverter
The overall schematic of control circuit is shown in Fig.3. In
a feed forward control, the principal factors affecting the
system, along with the reference point, are used in computing
the correct pulse width. The feed forward voltage, VF, is
derived from the variable input dc voltage through an
appropriate voltage transducer network. The reference voltage,
VR, which represents the desired constant ac voltage at the
output of the inverter is derived from a +5V supply through a
10 kŸ preset in series with 1kŸ resistor. The reference voltage,
VR and the feed forward voltage, VF, are given as inputs to a
difference amplifier, the output of which is given to the second
stage. The second stage consists of the proportional-integral
stage, with G as the gain of the proportional stage. The third
stage is the summing amplifier, which gives an output voltage
corresponding to the sum of the proportional and integral
signals. The output of summing amplifier is given to a second
difference amplifier which compares it with the reference
Constant ac
voltage, VR, and produces the control voltage, VC.
PWM
inverter
Load
VC = VR + G (VF −VR) + (RC)-1œ (VF − VR) dt (1)
Pulse
The control voltage is modulated with a triangular wave
VR (carrier) in a comparator to generate the PWM pulses for the
inverter. The frequency of the triangular wave is selected as
400 Hz so that in a cycle of 50 Hz, 4 pulses will be present in
each half cycle of the output. From (1), it can be seen that, as
the feed forward voltage, VF increases, the control voltage, VC
also increases and vice-versa. As the control voltage increases,
the width of the pulses will decrease and so will the RMS
voltage at the output of the inverter. Similarly, a decrease in the
control voltage will increase the width of the pulses and
increase the RMS output voltage of the inverter. Thus the RMS
value of the output voltage is maintained constant.
A square wave of 50 Hz is used to gate the pulses to the
respective pair of MOSFETs in the inverter. This is achieved
using NOT and AND gates. An AND gate compares the output
of the comparator with that of the square wave generator and
the output is used to trigger MOSFETs S1 and S2. A second
AND gate compares the output of the square wave generator
passed through a NOT gate and the comparator output. This
output is used to trigger MOSFETs S3 and S4. If there is a
sudden increase in the feed forward voltage, VF such that the
Rs Ds control voltage, VC is greater than the peak voltage of the
triangular waveform, then the output of the comparator
Cs becomes zero. This will block the pulses to the inverter and the
load is protected from excessive high voltage during such
periods.
Rs Ds A square wave of 50 Hz was initially generated using a 555
IC and the carrier wave of 400 Hz was produced employing an
Cs opamp circuit. However, it was observed that there was no
synchronism between these waveforms as the two circuits were
independently working (Fig.4). As a result, uniformity of
getting 4 pulses per half cycle at the output waveform will be
lost.
In order to overcome this problem, the square wave of
50 Hz frequency has been obtained from the intermediate stage
of triangular wave generator through a signal conditioning
circuit. The signal conditioning circuit consists of a level
translator and a 3-bit ripple counter. The level translator
converts the 400 Hz square wave output of ±15V to a 0 to 5V
signal and the counter divides the frequency of this clock pulse
by 8 to give a 50Hz pulse output. Both the triangular and
square waveforms are in perfect synchronism now (Fig.5).
III. EXPERIMENTAL INVESTICATION
The experimental setup of the feed forward closed loop
scheme consists of a three-phase, 4 pole PMSG driven by a
wind turbine, an uncontrolled diode bridge rectifier, a single-
phase multiple pulse PWM inverter and a controller to generate
 22k 10k 10k

10k
22k 4.7k 10k 10k 10k
VF
741 741 741 741 741
22k 10k 10k 5V
+5V 22k 4.7k 10k 10k
10k
1k
400Hz 50Hz S1,S2
0.01μF
VR
100k
10k
741 Integrator Mod-8
using 741 Counter S3,S4
4.7k 400Hz 400Hz
Square wave Level
using 741 Translator

Fig.3 Schematic of overall control circuit

this a reference voltage of appropriate magnitude was set and

the feedback signal was derived in the forward path (dc
voltage) using an appropriate voltage transducer (LEM)
network. The voltage transducer is designed in such a way that
a maximum of 5V will be obtained as feed-forward voltage
when a dc voltage of 200V appears at the input of the inverter.
Reference value corresponding to an output voltage of 55V
was set and the output RMS voltage was maintained constant at
the above value of 55V.

Fig.4 Square wave and Triangular wave without synchronization

voltage axis : Triangular wave : 2.7 V/div, Square wave : 2.0 V/div and time
axis : 5 ms/div.

Fig.5 Square wave and Triangular wave with synchronization

voltage axis : Triangular wave : 1.6 V/div, Square wave : 2.0 V/div and time
axis : 5 ms/div. Fig.6 The experimental wind turbine

The waveform acquiring time used in oscilloscope for

a PWM pulses to the MOSFETs. The prototype wind-driven
PMSG installed at the Electrical Engineering department of
NIT Tiruchirappalli is shown in Fig. 6. The prototype wind
turbine is used to study the performance of the proposed
scheme under actual wind conditions.
Variable magnitude ac voltage available at the PMSG
terminals was first rectified using diode bridge rectifier and the
variable dc voltage was applied as input to the inverter through
a capacitor filter of 1000μF/400V and a resistive load of 50 ȍ
was connected at the output of the inverter. The gate pulses
were applied to the MOSFETs in the inverter via gate drive
circuits. The gains of the P and I controller were chosen by trial
and error method for getting the required ac output voltage. For
experimentation is 50 seconds. The dynamic input dc and
output ac voltage and current waveforms in the actual wind
condition are shown in Fig.7 and Fig.8. The output of diode
rectifier is varying due to wind fluctuations. It is observed that
the peak value of ac output of inverter waveform follows the dc
input voltage. But, the width of the pulses per half cycle
increases or decreases with respect to desired ac output voltage.
Fig.9 shows the enlarged portion of one complete cycle at
starting condition. In this, voltage and current are in phase due
to the resistive nature of load and width of the pulse is 0.90
msec. In sample period, the wind velocity is low at starting and
high at ending which means dc voltage is varying from low to
high. Fig.10 shows the enlarged portion of one complete cycle
at ending condition. In this, the width of the pulse is reduced to
0.78 msec because to maintain the same RMS voltage at the TABLE I
output with the increased input dc voltage, the pulse width has VARIATION OF PULSE WIDTH FOR DIFFERENT INPUT VOLTAGES

to decrease. Table I presents the experimental results pertaining Vdc,V Vac (RMS), V Pulse width, msec
to a required output voltage of 55V. 57.0 54.3 0.90
68.0 55.0 0.86
80.0 55.0 0.80
90.0 54.8 0.78
vdc
IV. CONCLUSIONS
0 A simple feed forward controller suitable for wind energy
idc conversion system employing discrete components such as
opamps and logic gates has been constructed. A single-phase
MOSFET bridge inverter fed from a wind-driven PMSG is
0 used to obtain a desired ac voltage of fixed frequency to supply
an isolated load despite changing wind velocities. The
Fig.7 Overall observation of dc voltage developed controller automatically adjusts the width of the
voltage axis : 50 V/div, current axis : 1 A/div and time axis : 5 s/div pulses of the inverter by sensing the variable dc voltage input
to the inverter. The inverter has been fabricated using IRF250
MOSFETs rated for 200 V, 30A. Experiments have been
vac conducted on a 4-pole, three-phase, 110V, 5kW, 1500 rpm
PMSG driven by a wind turbine of 167 rpm through a gear
0 box. The successful working of the controller has been
demonstrated by obtaining a desired ac output voltage of 55V
at 50 Hz for varying wind conditions. The variable dc input
voltage and the ac output voltage waveforms under dynamic
conditions have been captured using digital storage
iac oscilloscope and are presented in the paper. It has been
0
observed that the pulse width is adjusted automatically to
sample period maintain the RMS ac output constant. As a further work, the
proposed feed forward controller can be implemented using
Fig.8 Overall observation of ac voltage
voltage axis : 50 V/div, current axis : 5 A/div and time axis : 5 s/div SPWM technique.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors wish to thank TEQIP, a Govt of India program
vac
for providing the wind turbine installation for testing of the
0 controller under dynamic conditions. The authors also thank
NaMPET, an initiative of DIT, Govt of India for providing
fund for infrastructure development of Power Controllers
research laboratory.

iac REFERENCES
0
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