Harvesting energy from ultra-low-power vibration energy sources typically employs a rectifier circuit as the first power conditioning stage. The Schottky diode has a 0.15 V - 0.2 V threshold voltage and can not extract energy efficiently at low voltage. Other technologies such as MOSFET bridge or active diode are designed to minimize the voltage drop to reduce the conduction loss. However, these designs require either additional power supplies to operate comparators or have a larger threshold turn-on voltage than Schottky. Therefore, most rectifiers have an unresponsive or significant low-efficiency zone when the input power is low. This dissertation will elaborate on a backward diode based self-powered micro-circuit diode that will operate in the extremely weak or low alternating source applications, where the existing approaches offer poor outcomes. This proposed micro-circuit diode was compared to a Schottky diode in several experiment setup. The micro-circuit based half-wave rectifier circuit harvested 3.1 mV DC at a 239.5 Ohm load when the input magnitude is 50 mV while the Schottky diode was unable to convert this ultra-low AC power. This dissertation also provides the analysis of two alternating sources, the oscillatory electromagnetic generator and the piezoelectric energy harvester, to conduct experiments in a more realistic context. The micro-circuit diode shows excellent advantages in electromagnetic generator experiment, the micro-circuit based half-wave rectifier circuit harvested 5.16 mV DC at a 0.5 kOhm load when the input magnitude is 40 mV. However, due to the large leakage current in negative resistance region, this micro-circuit is unable to show advantages in piezoelectric energy harvester applications.

This thesis introduces a new method especially designed to control the instantaneous power in voltage sourced converters operating under unbalanced conditions, including positive, negative and zero sequence content. A transformation technique, labelled mno transformation, was developed to enable the decomposition of the total instantaneous power flowing on three-phase transmission topologies into constant and oscillating terms. It is applied to three-wire and four-wire schemes, especially accommodating zero sequence unlike previous approaches. Classical and modern electric power theories are presented, particularly focusing on their definitions for adverse AC scenarios. The main mathematical transformations conceived to analyze such situations are summarized, showing their respective advantages and disadvantages. An enhanced instantaneous power theory is introduced. The novel proposed power equations, named mno instantaneous power components, expands the application of the p-q theory, which is attached to the αβ0 transformation. The mno instantaneous power theory is applied to develop an innovative power control method for grid connected voltage sourced converters in order to minimize power oscillations during adverse AC scenarios, particularly with zero sequence content. The method permits to sustain constant instantaneous three-phase power during unbalanced conditions by controlling independently the constant and the oscillating terms related to the instantaneous power. The effectiveness of the proposed control approach and the proposed power conditioning scheme was demonstrated using electromagnetic transient simulation of a VSC connected to an AC system. / May 2017

Dans les dernières années, le respect de l’environnement est devenu une des grandes préoccupations des clients du secteur automobile. Les constructeurs cherchent à réduire les émissions carbones de ses produits et les véhicules hybrides ou purement électriques apparaissent comme une alternative viable aux véhicules thermiques. Un des éléments importants de la réussite de la commercialisation des véhicules électriques est la recharge de la batterie qui peut être effectuée par différents moyens, avec des chargeurs embarqués/débarqués, à domicile ou sur la voie-publique. Dans ce domaine un système de charge performant doit notamment être robuste vis-à-vis des contraintes extérieures( perturbations réseaux, impédances de ligne, charges de plusieurs véhicules en même temps), avoir un bon rendement entre la puissance puisée à la prise et celle délivrée à la batterie, maitriser les courants harmoniques rejetés sur le réseau électrique (respect des différentes contraintes réglementaires liées aux perturbations émises). Pour répondre à ces exigences les travaux de cette thèse proposent des commandes innovantes des convertisseurs de puissance contenus dans les chargeurs électriques. Dans un premier temps, la modélisation des convertisseurs de puissance est réalisée en moyenne à la période de commutation et en moyenne généralisée pour d´écrire le processus de génération des harmoniques des courants et tensions des convertisseurs. Des lois de commande non-linéaire fondées sur la théorie de stabilité au sens de Lyapunov sont proposées de fac¸on à induire un comportement en boucle fermée satisfaisant les exigences souhaitées pour les convertisseurs de puissance. La partie commande est complétée par une partie d’observation nécessaire pour l’estimation des signaux non-mesurés et pour l’extraction harmonique. Enfin dans la dernière partie de la thèse, les différentes stratégies de commande sont validées par rapport aux exigences via une co-simulation en reproduisant l’architecture de logiciel model in the loop utilisée dans l’industrie / In the last few years the question of respecting the environment became a central concern of car users. The electric cars respond to the public trend of reducing the toxic emissions of conventional cars. The success of electric cars depends on the charging of the batteries, charging done either at home or on the public domain.The charging system has to respond to the following performance criteria:-robustness to exterior constraints: network perturbations, line impedance, multiple simultaneous charging of vehicles.-a good efficiency for the power transfer between the received power and the power delivered to the battery.-respecting the power distributer constrains for network harmonic pollution.These three points impose the need for efficient control laws for the battery charger. In this context, the power converters (AC / DC - DC / DC) are key components in electrical chargers , an improved control law of these elements can provide a better level of performance for the charger.This work is a continuation of previous work that resulted in several theses with CIFRE funding, in collaboration with Renault in the context of the electric car (but not only):- From an industrial viewpoint, the doctoral student will draw on the expertise, experience and Renault's test facilities in the field of electric traction in the automotive transport.- From an academic point of view the work will benefit from the skills of the working group 'System control’ within the L2S laboratory, in the field of multi-physics modelling, design of control laws and optimization.Supervision will be provided by:- Emmanuel Godoy (Professor, HDR, advisor) and Dominique Beauvois (professor, co-director) of the academic point of view.- Pedro Kvieska (Engineer, Doctor, Ecole Centrale de Nantes) for industrial management within Renault.Objectives of the thesisThe first two years of thesis work will focus on methodological studies of dedicated control laws. During the third year the work will be focused on the implementation of the proposed architectures and control strategies by: implementing of the new control strategies as prototypes on test bench and on the transferability of the proposed control approaches.A big part of the last year will naturally be devoted to the writing of the doctoral thesis and the preparation of the defence.

This dissertation presents various systematic design techniques for photovoltaic (PV) source simulators to serve as a convenient tool for the dynamic performance evaluation of solar power conditioning systems and their maximum power point tracking algorithms. A well-designed PV source simulator should accurately emulate the static and the dynamic characteristic of actual PV generator. Four major design features should be adopted in any PV source simulator: (i) high power-stage efficiency, (ii) fast transient response-time, (iii) output impedance matching with actual PV generator, and (iv) precise reference generation technique. Throughout this research, two different PV source simulator systems are designed, modeled, and experimentally verified. The design of the first system focuses mainly on creating new reference generation techniques where the PV equivalent circuit is used to precisely generate the current-voltage reference curves. A novel technique is proposed and implemented with analog components to simplify the reference signal generator and to avoid computation time delays in digital controllers. A two-stage LC output filter is implemented with the switching power-stage to push the resonant frequency higher and thus allowing a higher control-loop bandwidth design while keeping the same switching ripple attenuation as in the conventional one-stage LC output filter. With typical control techniques, the output impedance of the proposed simulator did not  match the closed-loop output impedance of actual PV generator due to the double resonant peaks of the two-stage LC output filter. Design procedures for both control and power-stage circuits are explained. Experimental results verify the steady-state and transient performance of the proposed PV source simulator at around 2.7 kW output. The design concept of the first simulator system is enhanced with a new type of PV source simulator that incorporates the advantages of both analog and digital based simulators. This simulator is characterized with high power-stage efficiency and fast transient response-time. The proposed system includes a novel three-phase ac-dc dual boost rectifier cascaded with a three-phase dc-dc interleaved buck converter. The selected power-stage topology is highly reliable and efficient. Moreover, the multi-phase dc-dc converter helps improve system transient response-time though producing low output ripple, which makes it adequate for PV source simulators. The simulator circuitry emulates precisely the static and the dynamic characteristic of actual PV generator under different environmental conditions including different irradiance and temperature levels. Additionally, the system allows for the creation of the partial shading effect on PV characteristic. This dissertation investigates the dynamic performance of commercial and non-commercial solar power conditioning systems using the proposed simulator in steady-state and transient conditions. Closed-loop output impedance of the proposed simulator is verified at different operating conditions. The impedance profile --magnitude and phase- matches the output impedance of actual PV generator closely. Mathematical modeling and experimental validation of the proposed system is thoroughly presented based on a 2.0 kW hardware prototype. The proposed simulator efficiency including the active-front-end rectifier and the converter stages at the maximum power point is 96.4%. / Ph. D.