IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS. VOL. 26. NO. 6.

NOVEMBERIDECEMBER 1990

983

A New Approach to Harmonic Compensation in Power Systems-A Combined System of Shunt Passive and Series Active Filters
Absfract-A new approach to compensate for harmonics in power systems is proposed. It is a combined system of a shunt passive filter and a small rated series active filter. The compensation principle is descibed, and some interesting filtering characteristics are discussed in detail theoretically. Excellent practicability and validity to compensate for harmonics in power systems are demonstrated experimentally.
~NTRODUCTION

*
VF(

= UL

Background
ARMONIC interference problems generated by bulk thyristor converters become increasingly serious as they are widely used in industrial applications and transmission/distribution systems. So far, shunt passive filters have hitherto been used to suppress harmonics in power systems. However, shunt passive filters have many problems to discourage their applications. As shown in Fig. 1, a shunt passive filter exhibits lower impedance at a tuned harmonic frequency than the source impedance to reduce the harmonic currents flowing into the source. In principle, filtering characteristics of the shunt passive filter are determined by the impedance ratio of the source and the shunt passive filter. Therefore the shunt passive filter has the following problems.

Fig. 1.

Basic principle of shunt passive filter

+I

i) The source impednace, which is not accurately known and varies with the system configuration, strongly Fig. 2 . Basic principle of shunt active filter. influences filtering characteristics of the shunt passive filter. To solve the preceding problems of the shunt passive filter, ii) The shunt passive filter acts as a current sink to the shunt active filters using PWM inverters have been studied harmonic voltage included in the source voltage, U,,,. and developed in recent years. The basic principle of shunt In the worst case, the shunt passive filter falls in series active filters was originally presented by H. Sasaki and T. resonance with the source impedance. Machida in 1971 [l]. As shown in Fig. 2, a shunt active filter iii) A t a specific frequency ( fo = 1/2s is controlled in such a way as to actively shape the source J <, + L,)c,), an antiresonance or parallel reso- current, i s , into sinusoid by injecting the compensating curL nance occurs between the source impedance and the rent, i This is considered the archetype of shunt active , . shunt passive filter, which is the so-called harmonic- filters. Since a linear amplifier was used to generate the amplifying phenomenon. compensating current, its realization is unreasonable due to low efficiency. In 1976, L. Gyugyi and E. C. Strycula [2] Paper IPCSD 90-25, approved by the Industrial Power Converter Commit- presented a family of shunt and series active filters, and tee of the Industry Applications Society for presentation at the 1988 Industry established the concept of the active filters consisting of Applications Society for presentation at the 1988 Industry Applications PWM inverters using power transistors [2]. However, no Society Annual Meeting, Pittsburgh, PA, October 2 - 7 . Manuscript released for publication March 22, 1990. attention has been paid to series active filters and no experiThe authors are with the Nagaoka University of Technology, Nagaoka, mental result has been shown in any papers, because there is 940-21, Japan. no available way to shape the source current into sinusoid. IEEE Log Number 9038516.
0093-9994/90/1100-0983$01 .OO 0 1990 IEEE

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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS, VOL. 26, NO. 6, NOVEMBERIDECEMBER 1990

Series Active Filter (0.45kVA)

r I I I I I
I

I&,
I I I
I

Harmoiiic-Producing Load (ZOkVA)

I I I
I

I
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ I

5th

7th

High-Pass

I Shunt Passive Filter(l0kVA)

L

II
I

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _2

V F u UFu UFw

isu isu isw

Fig. 3. Circuit configuration of combined system.

In the beginning, shunt active filters were proposed to suppress the harmonics generated by large rated thyristor converters and inverters used in HVDC transmission systems. However, they could not be realized in real power systems because high-power high-speed switching devices were unavailable in the 1970s. Then N. Mohan et al. [3] presented a practical means for injecting the compensating current, which was implemented by using naturally commutated thyristor inverters with a specially designed passive circuit to reduce the fundamental voltage rating of the shunt active filter. However, the thyristor inverters generate undesirable high-order harmonics, which thus discourages their practicability. With remarkable development and advances in switching speed and capacity of power semiconductor devices in the 1980s, shunt active filters using PWM inverters have been studied, with a focus on their practical applications in real power systems [4]-[ll]. At the same time, the following problems of shunt active filters have been pointed out, delaying their practical uses [5], [7]. i) It is difficult to realize a large rated PWM inverter with rapid current response and low loss for use as a main circuit of shunt active filters. ii) The initial cost is high as compared with that of shunt passive filters, and shunt active filters are inferior in efficiency to shunt passive filters. iii) Injected currents by shunt active filters may flow into shunt passive filters and capacitors connected on the power system [ 131.

As is known, filtering characteristics of a shunt passive filter partially depend on the source impedance, which is not accurately known and is predominantly inductive. The impedance of the shunt passive filter should be lower than the source impedance at a turned frequency to provide the attentuation required. Hence the higher the source impedance, the better the filtering characteristics. However, the source impedance should exhibit a negligible amount of impedance at the fundamental frequency so that it does not cause any appreciable fundamental voltage drop. These two requirements, which contradict each other, can be satisfied only by inserting an active impedance in series with the ac source. Also, series and parallel resonances in the shunt passive filter, which are partially caused by the inductive source impedance, can be eliminated by inserting an active impedance. The active impedance can be implemented by a series active filter using voltage-source PWM inverters. Hence a new approach, which combines the use of a shunt passive filter and a small rated series active filter, is the answer to the question.

SYSTEM CONFIGURATION
Fig. 3 shows a system configuration of the proposed approach to harmonic compensation, which is an experimental circuit developed in this paper. Fig. 4 shows a detailed circuit of a series active filter on a per-phase base. A passive filter consisting of a 5th- and 7th-tuned LC filter and a high-pass filter is shunted with a three-phase six-pulse thyristor converter of rating 20 kVA, which is considered a typical harmonic-producing load. The circuit constants of the shunt passive filter of rating 10 kVA are shown in Table I. Three single-phase voltage-source PWM inverters of rating 0.45 kVA are inserted in series with the source impedance through three single-phase current transformers (CTs; turns ratio = 1:20), thus forming a series active filter. A single-phase diode rectifier of rating 50 VA is connected on the dc side of

A New Approach to Harmonic Compensation

Conventional shunt passive and active filters have the aforementioned problems, which make their practical applications difficult. Therefore a basic question is asked: Is there an approach to solve the problems of shunt passive filters and those of shunt active filters?

PENG et al.: HARMONIC COMPENSATION IN POWER SYSTEMS

985

Source r - - - i
I

Load
I

LJ m I

:CT

I 1 I Fig. 6. Equivalent circuit for fundamental frequency.

I I

1 1

Fig. 4. Detailed circuit configuration of series active filter on per-phase base.

I Fig. 7.

Equivalent circuit for harmonic frequencies.

harmonics. The control scheme will be discussed later. For the fundamental and harmonics, application of the law of superposition to Fig. 5 gives us two equivalent circuits, as shown in Figs. 6 and 7, respectively. Here, Vsf is the source I I I fundamental voltage and I L f is the load fundamental current Fig. 5. Equivalent circuit on per-phase base for Fig. 3 in Fig. 6 , while VSh is the source harmonic voltage and I L h is the load harmonic current in Fig. 7. As is seen in Fig. 6 , TABLE I CIRCUIT CONSTANTS THE SHUNT OF PASSIVE FILTER the shunt passive filter behaves as a capacitor for power factor improvement, but the series active filter does not play C = 340 pF Q = 14 5th L = 1.20mH C = 170 pF Q = 14 7th L = 1.20 mH any role. Fig. 7 shows that the series active filter acts as a C = 300pF R = 3 Q HPF L = 0.26 mH harmonic isolator between the source and load. To demonstrate the compensation principle of the comthe inverters, supplying the energy corresponding to the bined system, some important equations are derived on the switching and conducting losses in the inverters. The purpose basis of Fig. 7. of the CTs is not only to isolate the PWM inverters from the power system, but also to match the voltage and current Source Harmonic Current: ZSh rating of the PWM inverters with that of the power system. The harmonic current flowing in the source, which is The function of the series active filter is not to directly produced by both the load harmonic current ZLh and the compensate for the harmonics of the rectifier, but to improve source harmonic voltage V S h , is given as follows: the filtering characteristics of the shunt passive filter and to solve the problems of the shunt passive filter used alone. In other words, the series active filter acts not as a harmonic compensator but as a harmonic isolator. Hence the required rating of the series active filter is much smaller than that of a conventional shunt active filter. Here, Z , is the amplitude of Z,, and Z , is that of Z,. COMPENSATION PRINCIPLE The first term on the right side of (I) means that the series Assuming for simplicitys sake that the voltage-source active filter acts as a damping resistance, which can PWM inverter is an ideal controllable voltage source uc, Fig. eliminate the parallel resonance between the shunt passive 3 is represented on a per-phase base by Fig. 5 . The three- filter and the source impedance, while the second term means phase thyristor converter is also assumed to be a current that the series active filter acts as a blocking resistance, source i, due to. the presence of sufficient inductance on the which can prevent the harmonic current produced by the dc side. Here, Z , is the equivalent impedance of the shunt source harmonic voltage from flowing into the shunt passive passive filter, the constants of which are shown in Table I, filter. If the resistance K is much larger than the source impedance, variations in the source impedance have no effect and Z, is the source impedance. The series active filter is controlled in such a way as to on the filtering characteristics of the shunt passive filter, thus present zero impedance to the external circuit at the funda- reducing the source harmonic current to zero, as shown in mental frequency and a high resistance K to source or load (2).

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IEEE TRANSACTIONS I3N INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS, VOL. 26, NO. 6, NOVEMBERIDECEMBER 1990

Output Voltage of Series Active Filter: Vc

The output voltage of the series active filter, which is equal to the harmonic voltage appearing across resistance K in Fig. 7, is given by

10

Vc = iFZLh + Vsh

if K 9 z,, z,.

.o
(4)

Equation (4) implies that the voltage rating of the series active filter is given as a vector sum of the first term on the right side, which is inversely proportional to the quality factor of the shunt passive filter, and the second term, which is equal to the source harmonic voltage.

Filter Harmonic Voltage:

VFh

The filter harmonic voltage, which is equal to the harmonic voltage appearing across the shunt passive filter, is given by

2ol 1

K=O

(5)

V F= ~

-2FZLh

if K %

zs, 2 . ,

(6)

.o

Equation (6) tells us that the source harmonic voltage does not appear on the load side because it applies across the series active filter. FILTERING CHARACTERISTICS To illustrate filtering characteristics of the combined system, reference is made to the equivalent circuit in Fig. 7. Application of the law of superposition to Fig. 7 makes the following analysis easy. As a result, the absence or presence of the series active filter produces distinct differences in filtering characteristics.
- 30
Fig. 8.

1
(b) Distribution factor against frequency. (a) L , = 2 % . (b) L , = 5.6%.

Harmonic Current Flowing from Load to Source

Neglecting the harmonic voltage source on the source side in Fig. 7, the load harmonic current divides between the shunt passive filter and the source in proportion to the admittance of the parallel branches, as shown in the term first on the right side of (1). The ratio of the source harmonic current to the load current under the assumption of vsh = 0 is given by

Case of the Shunt Passive Filter. used Alone, i.e., K = 0: It is seen from Fig. 8 that the shunt passive filter falls in parallel resonance with the source impedance at three
frequencies, because the shunt passive filter consists of two

LC filters and a high pass filter. For example, a parallel resonance appears at the 4th harmonic frequency in Fig. 8,
thus amplifying the load harmonic current by 22 dB ( = 13 times). It is difficult, however, to avoid the condition of parallel resonance for a cycloconverter, because it produces harmonic currents having frequencies that vary with the output frequency. Case of the Combined System, i.e., K = I or 2: The series active filter reduces the distribution factor for all the frequencies as compared with the value obtained without it. No amplification occurs in harmonic current at the three resonant frequencies, because the series active filter acts as a damping resistance. The sharpest filtering of the 5th-, 7th-, and higher harmonics is obtained in K = 2.

(7)
The amplitude of (7) is called distribution factor. Figs. 8(a) and 8(b) show how the distribution factor against frequency varies with resistance K for the source inductances Ls = 2% and 5.6% (200-V 20-kVA 50-Hz base), respectively. Here the source resistance is neglected because it is much less than the source reactance. Note that harmonic currents flowing into the source are amplified for all the frequencies at which the distribution factor is more than 0 dB .

Harmonic Current Flowing from Source to Shunt Passive Filter Under the assumption of I L h = 0 in Fig. 7, a source
harmonic current flowing into the shunt passive filter is produced by the source harmonic voltage. The source har-

PENG er al.: HARMONIC COMPENSATION IN POWER SYSTEMS

orthogonal coordinates gives the following expressions:

2-

10 0
I

10

According to [12], the instantaneous real power p and the instantaneous imaginary power q can be defined as

15
Fig. 9.

(b) Ratio Z , / Z , against frequency. (a) L , = 2 % . (b) L ,

J , J L

f/f.

Z0
5.6%.

monic current is expressed by the second term on the right side of (1):

Note that the dimension of q is not watt, volt-ampere, or var because vLa * iss and uLB . is, are defined by the product of the instantaneous voltage in one phase and the instantaneous current in the other phase. The harmonic components p , and-q, are extracted from p and q by using a high pass filter. A first-order high pass filter, the cutoff frequency of which is 35 Hz, is used in the following experiment, filtering characteristics in transient states being taken into account. In the calculation circuit of i s h , the following calculations are performed:

Here, 2, = 2 , 2 , K and Z , is a rated impedance, i.e., 2 52 on a 200-V 20-kVA 50-Hz base. Figs. 9(a) and 9(b) show how the ratio Z , / Z , against frequency varies with resistance K for L , = 2% and 5.6%, respectively. Case of K = 0 For example, the shunt passive filter falls : in series resonance with the source impedance at the 4thharmonic frequency in Fig. 9(b). Even if a small amount of harmonic voltage at the resonant frequency is included in the source voltage, the harmonic current flowing in the source and the shunt passive filter will be excessive. The condition of such a series resonance must be avoided, or overheating and failure will occur in the shunt passive filter. Case of K = I or 2: The series active filter increases the ratio Z , / Z o for all the frequencies, as compared with the value obtained without it. No harmonic current flows into the source or the shunt passive filter at the three resonant frequencies, because the series active filter acts as a blocking resistance. CONTROL CIRCUIT To control the series active filter in such a way as to present zero impedance for the fundamental and pure resistance for the harmonics, the reference output voltage of the series active filter is given by

(13)
The reference output voltage given by (9) is compared with a triangle carrier, producing the PWM switching patterns. Here the frequency of the triangle carrier is 15 kHz. Therefore the series active filter operates as a controllable voltage source, while a conventional active filter operates as a controllable current source. Hence a voltage-source PWM inverter is suitable for the series active filter rather than a current-source PWM inverter. The voltage-source PWM inverter used in the series active filter can be protected against overvoltage and overcurrent by the following means. All the power MOSFETs of the upper legs are turned off to release the dc capacitor from the secondary of the CTs, while those of the lower legs are turned on to short the secondary of the CTs through the on-state power MOSFETs and diodes.
OF RATED PASSIVE FILTER TO DESIGN A SMALL SUPPRESS SWITCHING RIPPLES

v$ = Ki,,

(9)

where is, is the source harmonic current, which can be calculated by applying the instantaneous real and imaginary power theory, the so-called p - q theory developed by H. Akagi et al. [12]. Transformation of the phase voltages u L u , u L v , and uLw on the load side and source currents is,,, is,, and is, into a-0

It is important but difficult to design an effective passive filter to suppress the switching ripples of voltage or current generated by shunt active filters, because it is necessary to know the source impedance of the associated power system. In the proposed system, however, the design is simple and the implementation is easy, because the PWM inverter is inserted to the power system through the CT with large turns ratio. As shown in Fig. 4, the purpose of L , (1.0 mH) and Cr(0.33 pF) connected in the secondary of the CT is to suppress the switching voltage ripples caused by the voltage-

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988
L,

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS, VOL. 26. NO. 6. NOVEMBERIDECEMBER 1990

I V,:

25OV

is
1
ZF@

+iL
fiF:lOOA

start
I
1

i n~LW&J/rA~/nW$n 1h

Fig 11.

Experimental waveforms in case of L , = 2 %

(b)
Fig. 10. Equivalent circuit for switching ripples of voltage and current. (a) Equivalent circuit seen from PWM inverter. (b) Equivalent circuit for U,.

source PWM inverter. Power MOSFET's are used in the system, and their switching frequency f s is 15 kHz. Fig. 10(a) shows the equivalent circuit seen from the PWM inverter, and Fig. 10(b) shows the equivalent circuit for the is switching voltage ripple V,. ZpWM the amplitude of the sum of Z, and Z,, which are seen from the secondary of the CT and can be represented as
ZPWM = (.,/.I>'

1 % + GI.

( 14)

For the combined system, f, = 15 kHz, n 2 / n , = 20, L , = 2 % , and Z, can be calculated from Table I. The following relationship can be obtained
ZpwM =

9.6 kL? 9 1 / { 2 ~ ( f2 ) C , ) s 16 L? 4 2 ~ (f 2 ) L , = 200 L?. s (15)

Note that the frequency of the switching ripples is 2 f s in Figs. 3 and 4. The harmonic currents caused by the switching voltage ripples V , are completely shunted by C,,hardly Fig. 12. Frequency spectra of i s . (a) Before started. (b) After started flowing into the power system. In addition, almost no switching voltage ripples appear in the primary of the CT's, because the V, are reduced to 1/400. PWM inverters was supplemented by a single-phase diode Since the turns ratio of the CT's can be increased to 1:50, rectifier of rating 50 VA. the relationship represented in (15) is still valid, even under Fig. 11 shows the experimental waveforms on the transient the condition of a practical switching frequency of 2-3 kHz. state at the start of the series active filter in the case of The small rated passive filter to suppress the switching L , = 2%. Fig. 12 shows the frequency spectra of the source ripples can simply be designed according to (15). current, before and after the start of the series active filter, under the same conditions as Fig. 11. Before the series active EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS filter was started, not enough filtering effect was obtained, so To demonstrate the practicability and validity of such a that a large amount of harmonic current still remained in the combined system as shown in Figs. 3 and 4, the following source current. However, after the series active filter was experiments were done under the conditions that K = 2 Q , started, the source current became purely sinusoidal, showing the dc voltage of the PWM inverters was 120 V, and the that the series active filter improves the filtering characteriscapacitance of the dc capacitor was 1500 pF. The loss of the tics of the shunt passive filter. In Fig. 11, the rms value of

_____

PENG er al.: HARMONIC COMPENSATION IN POWER SYSTEMS

989

L --yMww/M!d -.
1start

vc:mv

Fig. 13. Experimental waveforms In case of L ,

r V,:250V

5.6%.

f 1,:lOOA

was only 1 % , the source harmonic current reached about 10%before the series active filter was started. After it was started, no harmonic current flowed into the shunt passive filter. In addition, no harmonic voltage appeared at the terminals of the shunt passive filter, because the source harmonic voltage was applied to the series active filter. The total loss of the series active filter was less than 40 W, so it is concluded that the combined system proposed in this paper is far superior in efficiency to conventional shunt active filters. CONCLUSION

In this paper, the combined system of a shunt passive filter and a small rated series active filter was proposed, giving both practical and economical points of view. The compensation principle applied to this system was quite different from vc:20v conventional shunt and series active power filters, thus sucL J d b p ? Iceeding in better filtering characteristics and lower initial and running costs. The required rating of the series active filter is start mainly determined by the quality factor of the shunt passive Fig. 14. Experimental waveforms with no load (ir = 0 ) in case of L s = filter. The quality factor of the shunt passive filter used in this 2%. the voltage applied to the primary of the CTs was 2.5 V, so experiment was 14. Since it is 50-80 for a practical shunt passive filter in power systems, the required rating of the that the VA rating of the series active filter was series active filter will be reduced to less than 1%, as 2.5V x 6 0 A x 3 = 450VA. compared with the rating of a three-phase six-pulse thyristor converter or cycloconverter. It is believed that the combined This was only 2.3%,as compared with that of the load, i.e., system is the most suitable to harmonic compensation for 20 kVA. large rated thyristor converters and cycloconverters. Fig. 13 shows the experimental waveforms in the case of REFERENCES L , = 5.6%. Before the series active filter was started, a parallel resonance at the 4th-harmonic frequency occurred in [ I ] H. Sasaki and T. Machida, A new method to eliminate ac harmonic currents by magnetic compensation-Considerations on basic design, the system. A small amount of the 4th-harmonic current IEEE Trans. Power Appl. Syst., vol. 90, no. 5 , p. 2009, 1971. included in the load current was largely amplified. As a [2] L. Gyugyi and E. C . Strycula, Active ac power filters, is presented at IEEEIIAS Ann. Meeting, 1976, pp. 529. result, severe distortion existed in the source current, is, and [3] N . Mohan et al., Active filters for ac harmonic suppression, the filter voltage, uF, which was not seen in Fig. 11. Howpresented at IEEE/PES Winter Meeting, A77 026-8, 1977. ever, no parallel resonance appeared after the series active [4] H . Kawahira, T. Nakamura, and S. Nakazawa, Active power filters, in Proc. JIEE IPEC-Tokyo, 1983, pp. 981. filter was started. [5] H . Akagi, A. Nabae, and S. Atoh, Control strategy of active power Fig. 14 shows the experimental waveforms with no load in filters using multiple voltage-source PWM converters, IEEE Trans. Ind. Appl., vol. IA-22, no. 3, pp. 460, May/lune 1986. the case of L , = 2%.Although the source harmonic voltage
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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS. VOL. 26, NO. 6, NOVEMBERIDECEMBER 1990

K. Komatsugi and T. Imura, Harmonic current compensator composed of static power converter, presented at IEEE Power Electronics Specialist Conf.,1986, pp. 283. M. Takeda et al., Harmonic Current Compensation with Active Filter, presented at IEEEIIAS Ann. Meeting, pp. 808, 1987. A. Nakajima et al., Development of Active Filter with Series Resonant Circuit presented at IEEE Power Electronics Specialist Conf.,pp. 1168, 1988. r91 M. Kohata et al., Compensator for harmonics and reactive power using static induction thyristors, presented at European Conf. on Power Electronics and Applications, 1987. 1101 F. Z. Peng, H. Akagi, and A. Nabae, A study of active power filter using quad-series voltage-source PWM converters for harmonic compensation, presented at IEEE Power Electronics Specialist Conf., 1987, pp. 204-212. Y . Tanoue, F. Aoyama, and K. Terashima, 5-MVA flicker suppression equipment-A hybrid system of a passive filter and an active filter using GTO thyristors, Toshiba Rev., vol. 43, no. 4, 1988. H. Akagi, Y. Kanazawa, and A. Nabae, Instantaneous reactive power compensators comprising switching devices without energy storage components, IEEE Trans. Ind. Appl., vol. IA-20, pp, 625, 1984. F. Z. Peng, H. Akagi, and A. Nabae, Some considerations on an active power filter using quad-series voltage source PWM converters, JIEE PE-86.154, 1986, (in Japanese).
Fang Zheng Peng was born in Hubei Province, China. le received the B.S. degree from Wuhan University of Hydraulic and Electric Engineering, China, in 1983. He received the M.E. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from Nagaoka University of Technology, Japan, in 1987 and 1990, respectively. He is now working for Toyo Electric Manufacturing Company, Ltd. His research interests are active power filters and hybrid systems of active and passive filters. Dr. Peng is a member of the Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan.

Hirofumi Akagi (M87) was born in Okayama Prefecture, Japan, on August 19, 1951. He received the B.S degree from the Nagoya Institute of Technology, Nagoya, Japan, in 1974, and the M S. and Ph.D. degrees from the Tokyo Institute of Technology, Tokyo, Japan, in 1976 and 1979, respectively, all in electrical engineering. Since 1984 he has been an Associate Professor at Nagaoka University of Technology, Japan. He is engaged in research on ac motor drives, active power filters, and high-frequency inverters. Dr Akagi is a member of the Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan.

Akira Nabae (M79-SM89-F90) was born in Ehime Prefecture, Japan, on September 13, 1924. He received the B.S degree from Tokyo University, Tokyo, Japan, in 1947, and the Dr. Eng. degree from Wasada University, Japan, in 1987. He joined Toshiba Corporation in 1951. From 1951 to 1970 he was engaged in the research and development of rectifier and inverter technology at Tsurumi Works Engineering Department. From 1970 to 1978, he was involved in research and development of power electronics, especially ac drive systems, at the Heavy Apparatus Engineering Laboratory. Also, from 1972 to 1978 he was a nonoccupied Lecturer of Wasada University, Japan. From 1978 to 1990 he was a Professor at Nagaoka University of Technology, Japan. Since 1990, he has been a Professor in the Electronics Engineering Department at Tokyo Institute of Polytechnics, Japan. He is now interested in energy conversion and control systems. Dr. Nabae is a member of the Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan.