With the increased interest in applying Power Factor Correction (PFC) to off-line AC-DC converters, the field of integrated, single-stage PFC converter development has attracted wide attention. Considering the tens of millions of low-to-medium power supplies manufactured each year for today's rechargeable equipment, the expected reduction in cost by utilizing advanced technologies is significant. To date, only a few single-stage topologies have made it to the market due to the inherit limitations in this structure. The high voltage and current stresses on the components led to reduced efficiency and an increased failure rate. In addition, the component prices tend to increase with increased electrical and thermal requirements, jeopardizing the overarching goal of price reduction. The absence of dedicated control circuitry for each stage complicates the power balance in these converters, often resulting in an oversized bus capacitance. These factors have impeded widespread acceptance of these new techniques by manufacturers, and as such single stage PFC has remained largely a drawing board concept. This dissertation will present an in-depth study of innovative solutions that address these problems directly, rather than proposing more topologies with the same type of issues. The direct energy transfer concept is analyzed and presented as a promising solution for the majority of the single-stage PFC converter limitations. Three topologies are presented and analyzed based on this innovative structure. To complete the picture, the dynamics of a variety of single-stage converters can be analyzed using a proposed switched transformer model.

Fossil fuel consumption throughout the world is drawing attention to the need for alternative energy sources to provide for the large demand for energy. It is becoming more apparent everyday that fossil fuels are unreliable sources of energy due to the volatile pricing of such commodities as well as the toll that these energy sources take on the environment. Fossil fuels are non-renewable sources of energy that when burned to create energy produce bi-products that are extremely harmful to the global environment. Today, renewable energy sources such as wind and solar energy are playing larger roles as sources of electricity and are providing new jobs as well as research opportunities both in academia and in industry. It is for this reason that wind turbine energy harvesting is the topic of this thesis and how the efficiency of wind turbine power conversion systems can be improved to become a more viable source of energy. Large wind turbines, along with their power conversion electronics, exist today for the sole purpose of serving a large population of consumers with "green" electricity. Unfortunately, systems designed for low power wind turbines do not utilize advanced methods of maximizing energy draw from wind turbines both from hardware and software point of views. This theses is presents a method of efficient energy extraction and conversion from low power wind turbines to charge lead ac id batteries.

Due to increasing concerns on the power quality, power factor correction (PFC) has become an important issue in light-emitting diode (LED) lighting applications. A boost converter is one of the most well-known PFC topologies, due to its simple circuitry, simple control scheme and small number of passive components. Even though a boost converter is recognized as a typical PFC converter, its output voltage must be higher than its input voltage. This feature is disadvantageous because the device requires an additional buck-stage for LED lighting systems. As an alternative to the boost converter, a single-ended primary-inductor converter (SEPIC) allows output voltage to be lower or higher than the input voltage. Thus, the SEPIC converter is gaining popularity as a LED driver because it does not require additional power conversion stage. However, designing a controller to meet stability requirements and international standards is quite challenging for SEPIC converters. Additionally, if the digital controller is adopted for its built-in communication features, creating a digitally controlled SEPIC converter would be even more challenging. This thesis focuses on the state-space averaging modeling of the SEPIC PFC converter and the design of controllers based on both analog and digital controls with precise modeling. The proposed SEPIC converter incorporates RC damping circuits to avoid the instability, and thus the entire SEPIC converter becomes a 5th order system. Such a high-order system model was derived mathematically and verified with circuit simulator modeling. After verification of the circuit model, the controller was designed with analog transfer functions and converted to and the discrete domain for digital controller implementation. A 150-W single-switch bridgeless SEPIC PFC converter prototype was built accordingly to verify the design. In addition to the current loop controller design for stability, a feed-forward compensator for is introduced and derived for better waveform quality. Simulation results and experiment results are also presented to verify the complete controller with feed-forward compensation. The Texas Instruments (TI) digital signal processor (DSP) TMS320F28335 was adopted for digital controller implementation. For comparison purpose, the TI UC3854 controller was implemented to verify the analog controller design results. / Master of Science

Power electronics building blocks (PEBBs) are standardized building blocks used to integrate power electronics systems. The PEBB approach can achieve low cost, high redundancy, high reliability, high flexibility and easy maintenance for large-scale power electronics systems. This thesis presents the implementation of a 100kW PEBB-based soft-switched bus regulator for an 800V DC distributed power system. The zero current transition (ZCT) soft-switching technique is used to improve the performance of the bus regulator by minimizing switching loss and improving overall efficiency. PEBB modules and a digital control building block are the subsystems of the DC bus regulator. This thesis addresses the design issues at subsystem and system levels. These include: operational principles and design of ZCT PEBB modules; design and implementation of the digital control block, based on DSP and EPLD; and modeling and control design of the DC bus regulator. There are several considerations when using the ZCT soft-switching technique in three-phase applications: the timing of the auxiliary switch gate signals must be arranged differently; there are low-frequency harmonics caused by the pulse width limits; and there is high thermal stress on the resonant capacitors. These issues are resolved by utilizing the sensed phase current information and the design freedom in the PWM modulator. A PWM modulation technique is proposed that can considerably reduce the switching events and further remove the associated loss while keeping THD low. Reduced switching events alleviate the thermal issue of the resonant capacitors. The same modulation technique can avoid the low-frequency harmonics caused by the pulse width limits and double the sampling frequency. The phase current information is used to deal with the control timing issue of the auxiliary switches and to control the three-phase soft-switching operation in order to achieve better efficiency. Additionally, the phase current information is used to implement dead time compensation to reduce THD. The soft-switched DC bus regulator has been tested up to a 100kW power level with 20kHz switching frequency. Experimental results demonstrate that high performance of the DC bus regulator is accomplished in terms of wide control bandwidth, low THD, unity power factor, high efficiency and high power density. / Master of Science

Η παρούσα διπλωματική εργασία πραγματεύεται το σχεδιασμό και την υλοποίηση της διάταξης φόρτισης συσσωρευτών ενός μικρού ηλεκτροκίνητου οχήματος. Αυτή η διάταξη έχει ονομαστική ισχύ 1kW και αποτελεί το μέσο που συνδέει τους συσσωρευτές με το δίκτυο παροχής ενέργειας. Η εκπόνηση της εργασίας πραγματοποιήθηκε στο Εργαστήριο Ηλεκτρομηχανικής Μετατροπής Ενέργειας του Τμήματος Ηλεκτρολόγων Μηχανικών και Τεχνολογίας Υπολογιστών της Πολυτεχνικής Σχολής του Πανεπιστημίου Πατρών. Σκοπός είναι η υλοποίηση ενός φορτιστή ο οποίος πρέπει να έχει υψηλό βαθμό απόδοσης και ταυτόχρονα να προσφέρει ασφάλεια στο χρήστη. Ωστόσο, βασική επιδίωξη είναι να μην επιβαρύνει το δίκτυο με την έγχυση ανώτερων αρμονικών. Έτσι, στη σχεδίαση συμπεριλαμβάνεται η εφαρμογή τεχνικής Διόρθωσης του Συντελεστή Ισχύος (Power Factor Correction). Χρησιμοποιείται ηλεκτρονικός μετατροπέας ισχύος τύπου Flyback (υποβιβασμού-ανύψωσης) με ενεργό κύκλωμα καταστολής υπερτάσεων (Snubber) και μετασχηματιστή απομόνωσης. Αρχικά, παρουσιάζονται τα οφέλη της ηλεκτροκίνησης. Κατόπιν, πραγματοποιείται η θεωρητική ανάλυση και μελέτη της βαθμίδας φόρτισης, για κατανόηση και επιβεβαίωση της ορθής λειτουργίας της διάταξης. Στη συνέχεια, παρουσιάζεται αναλυτικά η διαδικασία σχεδιασμού του φορτιστή. Έτσι, καθορίζονται οι προδιαγραφές και τα χαρακτηριστικά του, ο οποίος πρόκειται να χρησιμοποιηθεί για τους συσσωρευτές του ηλεκτρικού οχήματος «Buggy» του Εργαστηρίου. Το επόμενο βήμα αποτελεί η προσομοίωση της υπό μελέτη διάταξης στο λογισμικό προσομοίωσης κυκλωμάτων Simulink του Matlab. Με τον τρόπο αυτό επιτυγχάνεται επιβεβαίωση της θεωρητικής ανάλυσης που προηγήθηκε. Τέλος, παρουσιάζεται το πρακτικό σκέλος της εργασίας, που εκπονήθηκε στα πλαίσια του προγράμματος «Πρακτικής Άσκησης Φοιτητών του Τμήματος Ηλεκτρολόγων Μηχανικών και Τεχνολογίας Υπολογιστών», στις βιομηχανικές εγκαταστάσεις της εταιρίας APTRONIC HELLAS, η οποία εξειδικεύεται στην παροχή προσαρμοσμένων λύσεων στα ηλεκτρονικά ισχύος. Πέρα από την εξοικείωση με το εργασιακό περιβάλλον, πραγματοποιήθηκε το σχηματικό και το τυπωμένο κύκλωμα του φορτιστή στο λογισμικό Zuken Cadstar. / The present diploma thesis deals with the design and implementation of a charger which is used for the batteries of a small electric vehicle. This device has nominal power of 1kW and is the medium that connects the batteries to the power grid. This work was developed in the Laboratory of Electromechanical Energy Conversion at the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science of the Polytechnic School in the University of Patras. The objective is to implement a charger which has high efficiency and simultaneously provides safety to the user. However, it is crucial not to overload the network by injecting higher harmonics. Thus, the design included the application of a Power Factor Correction Technique. The Power Electronic Converter which is used is a Flyback Topology (Buck-Boost Converter). Moreover, it disposes of an active surge suppression circuit (Snubber) and isolation transformer. Initially, the benefits of electrification are analysed. Then, the theoretical analysis of this device is provided so that its proper function is guaranteed. In addition, the design process of the charger is presented in detail. Consequently, all the specifications and features for the charger, which will be used for the batteries of the electric vehicle «Buggy» of the Laboratory, are determined. The next step in this thesis is the simulation of the device with Simulink of Matlab. In this way, the theoretical analysis is confirmed. Finally, the practical part of the work is presented. It was carried out during an Internship in APTRONIC HELLAS (a Phoenix Contact Company). Many projects are conducted at the industrial facilities of this company, which specializes in providing solutions in Power Electronics. Besides work experience, a schematic and a printed circuit for the charger was designed in Zuken Cadstar.

Resumo: Este trabalho trata do desenvolvimento e implementação de um sistema de iluminação fluorescente com gerenciamento automático baseado em reatores eletrônicos aplicados a múltiplas lâmpadas fluorescentes. O foco desta pesquisa é direcionado ao desenvolvimento de uma plataforma automática de gerenciamento e supervisão, propiciando o controle de luminosidade, acionamento remoto e também acionamentos programáveis de acordo com o expediente de trabalho do local e condições de iluminação natural do ambiente, além de prover aumento de vida útil das lâmpadas fluorescentes, em função de protocolo proposto para préaquecimento e ignição. Foram acoplados ao sistema sensores de luminosidade e de presença, permitindo a obtenção dos dados necessários para a atuação automática. O controle por calha das lâmpadas fluorescentes é feito por um microcontrolador AtMega8 da ATMEL, o qual é responsável pela automação do sistema. A plataforma de gerenciamento e monitoração utiliza um microcomputador para que seja executado o aplicativo desenvolvido, o qual provê uma interface amigável ao usuário. Assim, um protocolo de comunicação foi desenvolvido para que haja uma comunicação de dados confiável, oferecendo robustez e alta confiabilidade ao controle do sistema de iluminação. Para o processamento dos dados, foi utilizado o barramento serial de comunicação full duplex com padrão RS232 e RS485 com transmissão assíncrona. Adicionalmente, o sistema funciona no sistema mestre-escravo, sendo o microcomputador responsável por enviar endereçamentos e ordens de ação aos microcontroladores, os quais identificam os endereçamentos e dados, executam a ação programada e envia dado de monitoramento ao microcomputador, quando requisitado pelo usuário. / Abstract: In this work, the development and implementation of an illumination fluorescent system with automatic management based on electronic ballast applied to multiple fluorescent lamps are presented. This research is directed in the development of the management and supervision of an automatic platform, allowing the control of luminosity, the remote actuation and also the programmable actuation according with the local business work and conditions of natural light of the environment. In addition, the ballast will provide the increase in the average lifetime for fluorescent lamps, considering a proposed protocol to pre-heating and ignition. The automatic actuation of the system is allowed by the coupling, of the luminosity and presence sensors. The control of fluorescent lamps by channel is executed by an ATMEL's AtMega8 microcontroller, which is responsible for the system automation. The management and monitoring platform uses a microcomputer with purpose to execute the implemented application, which will provide a friendly interface to the user. Thus, a protocol of communication was developed to allow a reliable communication of data, providing robustness and high reliability to the control of lighting system. Considering the processing of data acquired, was used a Serial Bus of communication with full duplex standard RS232 and RS485, with asynchronous transmission. Additionally, the system works in the master-slave mode, and the microcomputer is responsible for sending addresses and orders of action to microcontrollers, which identify and address data, in order to perform the programmed action to it, and in order to send data to the microcomputer, when requested by the user. / Orientador: Carlos Alberto Canesin / Coorientador: Fábio Toshiaki Wakabayashi / Banca: Falcondes Jose Mendes de Seixas / Banca: Ricardo Nederson do Prado / Mestre

Firstly, this thesis investigates the electrical power harmonics in an attempt to utilize harmonic current and its distortion power in a novel idea to reconvert the distortion power into useful power. This is done, in order to feed different DC or AC loads in single and three-phase power system by using passive or active filters and accordingly, develop a new topology of hybrid active power filter (HAPF). In addition, this circuit can be considered as a power factor corrector (PFC) because it reduces the total harmonic distortion (THD) and improves the power factor (PF). Secondly, this thesis works on a new design of active power factor correction (APFC) circuit presenting two circuits with the same design principle: the first design consists of two active switches without an external complex control circuit, while the second design contains a single active switch with an additional control circuit. The main contribution of this circuit is 98% reduction of the inductor's value used in the newly proposed PFC circuit in comparison with the conventional boost converter which may lead to a huge reduction in size, weight and the cost of the new PFC circuit. Also, the active switches depend on a carefully designed switching pattern that results in an elimination of the third order harmonic from the input source current which decreases the value of total current harmonic distortion (THDI) to (14%) and improves the input PF to (0.99). Consequently, the simplicity of the design without requiring a complex control circuit and without a snubber circuit plus the minimum size of inductor, gives the newly proposed circuit the superiority on other PFC circuits. Thirdly, this research aims to describe the distortion power through submitting two novel power terms called effective active power (Pef ) & reactive power (Qef ) terms with a new power diagram called Right-Angled Power Triangle (RAPT) Diagram. In addition, a novel de nition of total apparent power (St) has been submitted in order to illustrate the physical meaning of (St) in non-sinusoidal systems. The new RAPT Diagram is based on the orthogonality law and depends on geometrical summation to describe the relationship between different aspects (apparent-active-reactive) of power, and different components (total-fundamental distortion), drawing a bridge to connect the time domain with the frequency domain in a two-dimensional diagram.

In this thesis a two-stage AC/DC/DC power converter is designed and implemented. The AC/DC input stage of the converter consists of the two&amp / #8211 / phase interleaved boost topology employing the average current mode control principle. The output stage consists of a zero voltage switching phase shifted full bridge (ZVS&amp / #8211 / PS&amp / #8211 / FB) DC/DC converter. For the input stage, main design goals are obtaining high input power factor, low input current distortion, and well regulated output dc voltage, and obtaining these attributes in a power converter with high power density. For the input stage, the interleaved structure has been chosen in order to obtain reduced line current ripple and EMI, reduced power component stresses, and improved power density. The control of the pre&amp / #8211 / regulator is provided by utilizing a new commercial monolithic integrated circuit, which provides interleaved continuous conduction mode power factor correction (PFC). The output stage is formed by utilizing the available prototype hardware of a ZVS&amp / #8211 / PS&amp / #8211 / FB DC/DC converter and mainly the system integration and controller design and implementation studies have been conducted. The converter small signal model is derived and utilizing its transfer function and employing voltage loop control, the output voltage regulator has been designed. The output voltage controller is implemented utilizing a digital signal processor (DSP). Integrating the AC/DC preregulator and DC/DC converter, a laboratory AC/DC/DC converter system with high overall performance has been obtained. The overall system performance has been verified via computer simulations and experimental results obtained from laboratory prototype.

In this dissertation, two high-frequency (HF) transformer isolated single-stage integrated ac-dc converters are proposed for a small scale permanent magnet synchronous generator (PMSG) based wind energy conversion system (WECS). These two types of single-stage integrated ac-dc converters include expected functions of HF isolation, power factor correction (PFC), and output regulation in one single-stage. Fixed-frequency phase-shift control and soft-switching operation are employed in both proposed ac-dc converters. After reviewing the literature and discussing pros and cons of the existing topologies, it is preferred that three identical single-phase single-stage integrated converters with interleaved connection configuration are suitable for the PMSG. For the single-phase converter, two new HF isolated single-stage integrated resonant ac-dc converters with fixed-frequency phase-shift control are proposed. The first proposed circuit is HF isolated single-stage integrated secondary-side controlled ac-dc converter. The other proposed circuit is HF isolated single-stage dual-tank LCL-type series resonant ac-dc converter, which brings better solutions compared to the first converter, such as high power factor and low total harmonic distortion (THD) at the ac input side. Approximate analysis approach and Fourier series methods are used to analyze these two proposed converters. Design examples for each one are given and designed converters are simulated using PSIM simulation package. Two experimental circuits are also built to verify the analysis and simulation. The simulated and experimental results reasonably match the theoretical analysis. Then the proposed HF isolated dual-tank LCL-type series resonant ac-dc converter is used for three-phase interleaved connection in order to satisfy requirements of PMSG based WECS. A design example for this three-phase interleaved configuration is given and simulated for validation under several operating conditions. / Graduate / 0544 / duyimian@uvic.ca

Σκοπός της παρούσας διπλωματικής εργασίας είναι ο σχεδιασμός και η ανάπτυξη προγράμματος ελέγχου του συστήματος ηλεκτρικών παροχών του Εργαστηρίου Ηλεκτρομηχανικής Μετατροπής Ενέργειας, με τη χρήση Προγραμματιζόμενου Λογικού Ελεγκτή. Συγκεκριμένα, κατά τη διάρκεια εκπόνησης της διπλωματικής αυτής εργασίας, αναπτύχθηκε πρόγραμμα ελέγχου ομαλής εκκίνησης ασύγχρονου τριφασικού κινητήρα, με τη βοήθεια ενός ηλεκτρομηχανικού ζεύγους αποτελούμενου από μηχανή συνεχούς ρεύματος, συνδεδεμένης σε κοινό άξονα με σύγχρονη μηχανή. Επιπλέον, αναπτύχθηκε ένα αυτοματοποιημένο πρόγραμμα ελέγχου της ισχύος της σύγχρονης μηχανής του Εργαστηρίου, καθώς και ένα πρόγραμμα για βελτίωση του συντελεστή ισχύος της εγκατάστασης, λειτουργώντας τη σύγχρονη μηχανή, είτε ως γεννήτρια παραλληλισμένη στο δίκτυο, είτε ως κινητήρα εν κενώ. Τέλος, πραγματοποιήθηκαν εκτενείς δοκιμές στα δύο αυτά προγράμματα και γενικότερα στο σύστημα παροχής τάσεων του Εργαστηρίου, με σκοπό την πλήρη ετοιμότητα του για τους εκπαιδευτικούς και εργαστηριακούς σκοπούς για τους οποίους απευθύνεται. / The purpose of this thesis is to design and develop a control system of the Electromechanical Energy Conversion Laboratory, using a Programmable Logic Controller. Specifically, during the preparation of this thesis, a control program three phase asynchronous motor soft-starter has been developed, using a electromechanical couple consisting of machine dc coupled to a common shaft with a sychronous machine. Additionally, an automated program to control power of modern machine workshop as well as a program to improve the power factor of the installation has been developed, using a modern machine, either as a generator , either as a motor.Finally, there have been extensive tests on these two programs and generally in the supply system of the laboratory, in order to the system be totally ready for use.