This thesis analyzes unity power factor rectifiers since this type of rectifiers use energy as efficient as possible. Throughout the thesis, some unity power factor rectifier topologies are investigated and some of them selected to investigate in detail. Afterwards, a new single transistor unity power factor rectifier topology is proposed, simulated, implemented and compared with one of the selected unity power factor rectifier topology on the basis of efficiency, total harmonic distortion, input current ripple and output voltage ripple.

Master of Science / Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering / Behrooz Mirafzal / The rise of Wide Band Gap (WBG) devices has brought excitement in the field of Power converters. The WBG based converter can operate at the very high frequency and temperature making them ideal to use in harsh environments. The commercialization of WBG devices such as SiC and GaN MOSFETs has made it interesting for power engineering professionals all over the world. The use of WBG devices capable of operating at high switching frequencies reduces the overall system size dramatically with added benefit of improved power quality at high temperature. The main goal of this thesis is to design and test an AC-DC converter based on a SiC power module. The designed rectifier can be considered an active rectifier equipped with a controller to constantly provide feedback for modification of switching signals to get the desired output voltage. The designed active rectifier converts the varying frequency input power supply into rectified DC voltage while keeping the power factor of the system to unity. This thesis covers elementary information on power supply design, switching schemes and design of the controller. System arrangement will provide more light on the use of Six Channel MOSFET Gate Driver from CREE with the overall experimental setup. The experimental analysis will summarize the behavior of the system where information on achieved rectification, effect on the line currents at the generator and concluding power factor representation is described.

This thesis investigates a novel induction machine topology that uses a rotating power electronic converter. Steady-state and dynamic performance of the topology is studied to understand its operational principle. Furthermore the potential of improving its efficiency and power factor is investigated. The topology is referred to as wound rotor induction machine with rotating power electronic converter (WRIM-RPEC).     The WRIM-RPEC topology offers the possibility to magnetize the induction machine from the rotor side by introducing a reactive voltage in the rotor. Thus, the power factor of the machine can be improved. Constant speed variable load operation can be achieved by setting the frequency of the introduced voltage. Two options of rotor winding and converter configuration in the WRIM-RPEC system are investigated. The wound rotor windings can either be open-ended and fed by a three-phase back-to-back converter or Y-connected and fed by a single three-phase converter. The dc-link in both converter configurations contains only a floating capacitor. These two configurations give different dc-link voltages at the same torque and speed.     Two analytical steady-state models of the topology are developed in this thesis. The first model can be used to analyze the operating condition of the motor at specific speed and torque. Particularly, the operating range of speed and torque of the topology is investigated. The second model is used to analyze variable power factor operation, including unity power factor operation. Analytical calculations and measurements are carried out on a 4-pole, 1.8kW induction machine and the results are compared.      A dynamic mathematic model is then developed for the WRIM-RPEC system for the back-to-back converter configuration. The mathematic model is then applied in Matlab/Simulink to study the dynamic performance of the system including starting, loading and phase-shifting. The simulation results are compared with measurements on the 4-pole, 1.8kW induction machine. Moreover, the simulation model using the existing Simulink blocks are studied to compare with the results obtained from the mathematic model. Furthermore, the dynamic performance of the WRIM-RPEC system with the single converter configuration is investigated. In addition, harmonic spectra analysis is conducted for the stator and rotor currents.     In the last part of the thesis, efficiency improvement is investigated on the 4-pole induction machine when it is assumed to drive a pump load. It is shown that the efficiency can be further improved by decreasing the rotor resistance. Due to space constraints it is however difficult to decrease the rotor resistance in a 4-pole induction machine. An investigation is thus carried out on a standard 12-pole, 17.5kW squirrel-cage induction machine with inherent low power factor. The cage rotor is redesigned to a wound rotor to enable the connection of converter to the rotor windings. An analytical model is developed to design the wound rotor induction machine. The machine performance from calculations is then compared with FEM simulations with good agreement. The analytical model is further used to design several WRIMs with different dimensions and rotor slot numbers. Power factor and efficiency improvement is then explored for these WRIMs. A promising efficiency increase of 6.8% is shown to be achievable. / <p>QC 20161111</p>

Near-field wireless power transfer (WPT) technology facilitates the energy autonomy of heterogeneous systems, significantly augmenting complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect-transistor (CMOS) technology. In low-power wearable devices, existing power conditioning integrated circuits do not maximize the power factor (PF) for rectification and power conversion efficiency (PCE) due to multiple conversion. Additionally, there is no core power management for the entire power flow. The majority of the research focuses on active rectifiers, which reduce the turn-on voltage for rectification. Certain studies target the output voltage regulation via feedback to the transmitter or direct battery charging without power maximization. Firstly, this study investigates a high-power factor WPT front-end circuit that is namely the mono-periodic switching rectifier (MPSR) and implemented in a 0.18µm 1.8V/5V CMOS process. Integrated phase synchronizers are used to align the waveshape of a wirelessly-coupled sinusoidal voltage source in a receiving coil to the corresponding conducting current. Using this approach, the PF can be increased from roughly 0.6 to unity without requiring any wireless or wired feedback to the transmitter. The proposed MPSR can also provide AC-DC rectification, and step up and down the sinusoidal voltage source's peak amplitude using a pulse-width modulator. Measured voltage conversion ratios range between 0.73X and 2X, and the PF can be boosted up to unity. Secondly, the wireless power system-on-chip (WPower-SoC) is proposed and implemented in a 0.18µm 1.8V/3.3V CMOS process. The WPower-SoC integrating power management can provide rectification, output voltage regulation, and battery charging. Additionally, the implementation of feedforward envelope detection (FED) can reduce the variation in a wireless power link and improve load transient responses. Simulated results demonstrate that 5% of the output voltage regulation is improved when an output load changes. Moreover, the FED reduces approximately 40% of the transient response time. Overshoot and undershoot voltages are decreased by 23% and 26.5%, respectively. The measured output voltage regulates at 3.42V and can supply output power up to 342mW. A temperature sensor as part of the power management core remains active when the WPT receivers enter sleep mode to prolong the battery usage time. In the final part of this study, a nano-watt high-accuracy temperature sensing core is implemented in a 0.18µm 1.8V/3.3V CMOS process that can self-compensate the temperature shift without the need for additional compensating techniques that consume extra power.

This thesis presents an optimal method of designing and controlling an oscillating energy harvesting system. Many new and emerging energy harvesting systems, such as the energy harvesting backpack and ocean wave energy harvesting, capture energy normally expelled through mechanical interactions. Often the nature of the system indicates slow system time constants and unsteady AC voltages. This paper reveals a method for achieving maximum energy harvesting from such sources with fast determination of the optimal operating condition. An energy harvesting backpack, which captures energy from the interaction between the user and the spring decoupled load, is presented in this paper. The new control strategy, maximum energy harvesting control (MEHC), is developed and applied to the energy harvesting backpack system to evaluate the improvement of the MEHC over the basic maximum power point tracking algorithm.

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This thesis deals with the modeling, analysis and control of a novel brushlessgenerator for wind power application. The generator is named as rotatingpower electronic brushless doubly-fed induction machine/generator (RPEBDFIM/G). A great advantage of the RPE-BDFIG is that the slip power recoveryis realized in a brushless manner. This is achieved by introducing an additionalmachine termed as exciter together with the rotating power electronicconverters, which are mounted on the shaft of a DFIG. It is shown that theexciter recovers the slip power in a mechanical manner, and delivers it backto the grid. As a result, slip rings and carbon brushes can be eliminated,increasing the robustness of the system, and reducing the maintenance costsand down-time of the turbine. To begin with, the dynamic model of the RPE-BDFIG is developed andanalyzed. Using the dynamic model, the working principle of the generatoris understood and its operation explained. The analysis is carried out atspeeds, ±20% around the synchronous speed of the generator. Moreover, thedynamics of the generator due to external load-torque disturbances are investigated.Additionally, the steady-state model is also derived and analyzed forthe machine, when operating in motor mode. As a next step, the closed-loop control of the generator is considered indetail. The power and speed control of the two machines of the generator andthe dc-link voltage control is designed using internal model control (IMC)principles. It is found that it is possible to maintain the stability of thegenerator against load-torque disturbances from the turbine and the exciter,at the same time maintain a constant dc-link voltage of the rotor converter.The closed-loop control is also implemented and the operation of the generatorwith the control theory is confirmed through experiments.In the third part of the thesis, the impact of grid faults on the behaviourof the generator is investigated. The operation of the generator and its responseis studied during symmetrical and unsymmetrical faults. An approachto successful ride through of the symmetrical faults is presented, using passiveresistive network (PRN). Moreover, in order to limit the electrical and mechanicaloscillations in the generator during unsymmetrical faults, the dualvector control (DVC) is implemented. It is found that DVC to a certain extentcan be used to safeguard the converter against large oscillations in rotorcurrents. Finally, for completeness of the thesis, a preliminary physical design ofthe rotating power electronic converter has been done in a finite elementsoftware called ANSYS. The thermal footprint and the cooling capability,with estimates of the heatsink and fan sizes, are presented. Besides, another variant of a rotating electronic induction machine whichis based on the Lindmark concept and operating in a single-fed mode is also investigated. It’s steady-state model is developed and verified through experiments. / <p>QC 20151006</p>

This thesis deals with the steady-state, dynamic and control aspects of new type of brushless configuration of a doubly-fed induction machine in which the slip rings and carbon brushes are replaced by rotating power electronics and a rotating exciter. The aim is to study the stability of this novel configuration of the generator under mechanical and grid disturbances for wind power applications. The derivation, development and analysis of the steady-state model of the brushless doubly-fed induction machine with a rotating excitor and the power electronic converters mounted on the shaft and rotating with it, is studied. The study is performed at rated power of the generator between ±20% slip range. Moreover unity power factor operation between ±20% speed range is also discussed. Furthermore dynamic modeling and control aspects of the generator are also analyzed. The controllers were designed using Internal Model Control principles and vector control methods were used in order to control the generator in a closed-loop system. It is shown that through the use of proper feedback control, the generator behaves in a stable state both at super-synchronous and sub-synchronous speeds. Moreover Low Voltage Ride Through of the generator during symmetrical and unsymmetrical voltage dips is also investigated. Passive Resistive Network strategy is employed for Low Voltage Ride Through of the generator during symmetrical voltage dips. On the other hand, Extended Vector Control is used in order to control the negative sequence currents during unsymmetrical voltage dips. Suppression of negative sequence currents is important as they cause extra heating in the windings and affects the lifetime of the mechanical and electrical components of the generator and system due to oscillations in power and torque. In addition to the above studies a steady-state model of a single-fed induction machine is also developed and investigated where the rotating exciter is removed and the rotor windings are short-circuited through the two rotating power electronic converters. In this way the slip power circulates in the rotor and with the help of the two rotating electronic converters, rotor current is used to magnetize the induction machine thereby improving the power factor. The steady state model is verified through experimental results. / <p>20120914</p> / Brushless Wind Generator with Rotating Power Electronic Converters