Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / Hydraulic wind power transfer systems deliver the captured energy by the blades to the generators differently. In the conventional systems this task is carried out by a gearbox or an intermediate medium. New generation of wind power systems transfer the captured energy by means of high-pressure hydraulic fluids. A hydraulic pump is connected to the blades shaft at a high distance from the ground, in nacelle, to pressurize a hydraulic flow down to ground level equipment through hoses. Multiple wind turbines can also pressurize a flow sending to a single hose toward the generator. The pressurized flow carries a large amount of energy which will be transferred to the mechanical energy by a hydraulic motor. Finally, a generator is connected to the hydraulic motor to generate electrical power. This hydraulic system runs under two main disturbances, wind speed fluctuations and load variations. Intermittent nature of the wind applies a fluctuating torque on the hydraulic pump shaft. Also, variations of the consumed electrical power by the grid cause a considerable load disturbance on the system. This thesis studies the hydraulic wind power transfer systems. To get a better understanding, a mathematical model of the system is developed and studied utilizing the governing equations for every single hydraulic component in the system. The mathematical model embodies nonlinearities which are inherited from the hydraulic components such as check valves, proportional valves, pressure relief valves, etc. An experimental prototype of the hydraulic wind power transfer systems is designed and implemented to study the dynamic behavior and operation of the system. The provided nonlinear mathematical model is then validated by experimental result from the prototype. Moreover, this thesis develops a control system for the hydraulic wind power transfer systems. To maintain a fixed frequency electrical voltage by the system, the generator should remain at a constant rotational speed. The fluctuating wind speed from the upstream, and the load variations from the downstream apply considerable disturbances on the system. A controller is designed and implemented to regulate the flow in the proportional valve and as a consequence the generator maintains its constant speed compensating for load and wind turbine disturbances. The control system is applied to the mathematical model as well as the experimental prototype by utilizing MATLAB/Simulink and dSPACE 1104 fast prototyping hardware and the results are compared.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / This thesis presents a converter topology for photovoltaic panels. This topology minimizes the number of switching devices used, thereby reducing power losses that arise from high frequency switching operations. The control strategy is implemented using a simple micro-controller that implements the proportional plus integral control. All the control loops are closed feedback loops hence minimizing error instantaneously and adjusting efficiently to system variations. The energy management between three components, namely, the photovoltaic panel, a battery and a DC link for a microgrid, is shown distributed over three modes. These modes are dependent on the irradiance from the sunlight. All three modes are simulated. The maximum power point tracking of the system plays a crucial role in this configuration, as it is one of the main challenges tackled by the control system. Various methods of MPPT are discussed, and the Perturb and Observe method is employed and is described in detail. Experimental results are shown for the maximum power point tracking of this system with a scaled down version of the panel's actual capability.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / The substantial increase demand for electrical energy requires high efficient apparatus dealing with energy conversion. Several technologies have been suggested to implement power supplies with higher efficiency, such as multilevel and interleaved converters. This thesis proposes an energy conversion unit with an optimized number of output voltage levels per number of switches nL=nS. The proposed five-level four-switch per phase converter has nL=nS=5/4 which is by far the best relationship among the converters presented in technical literature. A comprehensive literature review on existing five-level converter topologies is done to compare the proposed topology with conventional multilevel converters. The most important characteristics of the proposed configuration are: (i) reduced number of semiconductor devices, while keeping a high number of levels at the output converter side, (ii) only one DC source without any need to balance capacitor voltages, (iii) high efficiency, (iv) there is no dead-time requirement for the converters operation, (v) leg isolation procedure with lower stress for the DC-link capacitor. Single-phase and three-phase version of the proposed converter is presented in this thesis. Details regarding the operation of the configuration and modulation strategy are presented, as well as the comparison between the proposed converter and the conventional ones. Simulated results are presented to validate the theoretical expectations. In addition a fault tolerant converter based on proposed topology for micro-grid systems is presented. A hybrid pulse-width-modulation for the pre-fault operation and transition from the pre-fault to post-fault operation will be discussed. Selected steady-state and transient results are demonstrated to validate the theoretical modeling.