Three-Phase Voltage Source Converters (VSCs) are finding widespread applications in grid integrated power conversion systems. The control systems of such VSCs are in an increasing number of these applications required to operate during voltage disturbances and unbalanced conditions. Control systems designed for grid side voltagesensor- less operation are at the same time becoming attractive due to the continuous drive for cost reduction and increased reliability of VSCs, but are not commonly applied for operation during unbalanced conditions. Methods for voltage-sensor-less grid synchronization and control of VSCs under unbalanced grid voltage conditions will therefore be the main focus of this Thesis. Estimation methods based on the concept of Virtual Flux, considering the integral of the converter voltage in analogy to the flux of an electric machine, are among the simplest and most well known techniques for achieving voltage-sensor-less grid synchronization. Most of the established techniques for Virtual Flux estimation are, however, either sensitive to grid frequency variations or they are not easily adaptable for operation under unbalanced grid voltage conditions. This Thesis addresses both these issues by proposing a simple approach for Virtual Flux estimation by utilizing a frequency-adaptive filter based on a Second Order Generalized Integrator (SOGI). The proposed approach can be used to achieve on-line frequency-adaptive varieties of conventional strategies for Virtual Flux estimation. The main advantage is, however, that the SOGI-based Virtual Flux estimation can be arranged in a structure that achieves inherent symmetrical component sequence separation under unbalanced conditions. The proposed method for Virtual Flux estimation can be used as a general basis for voltage-sensor-less grid synchronization and control during unbalanced conditions. In this Thesis, the estimated Virtual Flux signals are used to develop a flexible strategy for control of active and reactive power flow, formulated as generalized equations for current reference calculation. A simple, but general, implementation is therefore achieved, where the control objective and the power flow characteristics can be selected according to the requirements of any particular application. Thus, the same control structure can be used to achieve for instance balanced sinusoidal currents or elimination of double frequency active power oscillations during unbalanced conditions. In case of voltage sags, current references corresponding to a specified active or reactive power flow might exceed the current capability of the converter. The limits for active and reactive power transfer during unbalanced conditions have therefore been analyzed, and generalized strategies for current reference calculation when operating under current limitations have been derived. The specified objectives for active and reactive power flow characteristics can therefore be maintained during unbalanced grid conditions, while the average active and reactive power flow is limited to keep the current references within safe values. All concepts and techniques proposed in this Thesis have been verified by simulations and laboratory experiments. The SOGI-based method for Virtual Flux estimation and the strategies for active and reactive power control with current limitation can also be easily adapted for a wide range of applications and can be combined with various types of inner loop control structures. Therefore, the proposed approach can potentially be used as a general basis for Virtual Flux-based voltage-sensor-less operation of VSCs under unbalanced grid voltage conditions.

This thesis presented a sensor-less permanent magnet synchronous motor (PMSM) driver for controlling air-conditioner rotary compressor speed. In this thesis, a quasi-sine pulse-width modulation (PWM) driving method was proposed. Furthermore, the current feedback control scheme and rotor magnet pole position detection were included. The system structure was implemented by using a digital signal processing (DSP) platform. The proposed driving scheme was compared with the square-wave driving without current feedback and six-step square-wave driving method with current feedback. Moreover, the passive and shunt semi-active power factor correction (PFC) technique were researched for the air-conditioner application. Experimental results demonstrated that the system power factor could be improved by the proposed shunt semi-active PFC method. Besides, the proposed sensor-less quasi-sine PWM driving method implemented in an air-conditioner compressor driver was capable of reducing the magnitude of rotational speed ripples, compressor vibration, and system power consumption.

Gràcies als avenços de l'electrònica de potència, la microelectrònica i la teoria de control s'ha generalitzat l'ús dels controls vectorials del motor d'inducció en aplicacions industrials. Les prestacions d'aquests controls són funció directa del grau de certesa en el coneixement, en tot moment, de la posició del flux a l'interior de la màquina. En conseqüència, és molt important , no solament el coneixement de la velocitat del rotor, sinó el de la posició d'aquest. En moltes de les aplicacions industrials el desig principal és eliminar el sensor de velocitat però en cap cas es desitja disminuir les prestacions dinàmiques del sistema d'accionament del motor. L'interès d'aquests accionaments sense sensor "Sensorless" és doble, cal que el sistema pugui controlar el més ampli rang possible de velocitats i, a més, tenir una ràpida resposta.De l'estudi dels diferents sistemes d'estimació s'extreu que els sistemes amb major resolució són més complexos i més difícils d'implementar i, per tant, industrialment menys viables. Els sistemes complexos necessiten un coneixement exacte dels paràmetres del motor i són molt influenciables per les seves variacions, per això necessiten rutines d'estimació de paràmetres. Finalment, els sistemes més simples són fàcils d'implementar però tenen una pitjor resposta dinàmica Els objectius plantejats en aquesta tesi són:1) Desenvolupar i validar un estimador de velocitat per a una regulació Sensorless.2) Tancar el llaç de velocitat amb un control vectorial.3) Implementar el sistema tenint en compte la seva viabilitat pràctica.En aquesta tesi es proposa implementar un sistema de control de la velocitat d'un motor d'inducció sense sensor de velocitat (Sistema sensorless) de baix cost. Per estimar la velocitat es proposa la idea de millorar la resposta dinàmica d'un estimador de velocitat en règim permanent. Per a l'estimació de velocitat, s'implementen dos estimadors de velocitat treballant en paral·lel: l'estimador en règim permanent i l'estimador en règim transitori. Per tal d'obtenir el bo i millor d'ambdós estimadors, es realitza un promig intel·ligent de les dues velocitats estimades mitjançant un sistema basat en lògica "fuzzy". Aquest sistema "fuzzy" intel·ligent, és capaç d'obtenir la relació òptima de promitjat entre les dues estimacions en funció del punt de treball del motor; punt de treball que ve determinat per la velocitat del motor i el nivell o grau de règim permanent. Per tancar el llaç de control de la velocitat amb la velocitat estimada es proposa la utilització d'un sistema de control de parell FAM i un regulador PI.L'estimador en règim transitori ofereix una velocitat estimada que difícilment és pot fer servir degut al soroll que conté, si no es realitza un procés de filtrat. Aquest soroll és conseqüència dels derivadors, de la divisió que incorpora l'algoritme d'estimació i del soroll provinent del corrent del motor. S'ha dissenyat un filtre adaptatiu (fuzzy), que en funció del punt de treball del motor, varia la seva freqüència de tall òptima. Així, s'estableix un equilibri entre el retard degut a un filtrat fort i l'excés d'arrissada que implica un filtrat massa suau. Les variables que proporcionen la informació del punt de treball per seleccionar la freqüència de tall són la pròpia velocitat estimada i la derivada d'un corrent proporcional al parell (obtingut amb l'algoritme de l'estimador en règim permanent); és a dir el nivell de règim permanent. El sistema fuzzy en conjunt s'ha dissenyat el més simple possible en pro de la viabilitat de la seva futura implementació.Per estalviar la mesura directa de la tensió del motor s'ha dissenyat un model de l'inversor a implementar.L'accionament del motor d'inducció implementat tanca el llaç de velocitat mitjançant un control vectorial emprant la velocitat estimada de l'estimador proposat en aquesta tesi. / Due to the improvements on power electronics, microelectronics and control theory, vector control of the induction motors has gained importance and its usage has grown in industrial applications. Vector controls are good induction motor drives because of its motor torque accuracy and its excellent dynamic performance. However, it is well known that this good performance depends on the knowledge of the position of the motor flux. Consequently, it is really important to know not only the rotor speed but also its exact position. Therefore, it is difficult to have a good performance with a vector control without measuring the position of the rotor, which is usually measured by encoders, etc. The usage of encoders increases the price of the drive.The main aim in many industrial applications is to avoid implementing a speed sensor in the motor because either this sensor can't be implemented in the system or a low cost system is desired. Nevertheless, the system must keep all its properties of dynamic behaviour and good performance. So the development of a sensorless induction motor drive is nowadays a wide field of research. The interest of sensorless systems is double; the system must be able to control the widest range of speed and must have a fast dynamic response. There are several classifications about sensorless systems but the most generic one is the classification that shows the difference between low cost and high cost systems. The first ones have a low cost but a low performance, whilst the second ones have a high performance but the drive has a high cost.In this thesis a low cost sensorless induction motor drive is presented. A sensorless speed estimator has been developed, the speed loop has been closed by means of a vector control and the implementation has taken in consideration its further viability. To obtain the estimated speed two estimators work at the same time. A fuzzy system filters the response of one of them in order to get a better response. The same fuzzy system makes an intelligent weighed average between the responses of both estimators to get the final estimated speed. The final response is better than the separately responses of both estimators. The value of the motor voltage is needed to estimate the speed, so a model of the inverter is presented to avoid the use of any voltage measurement over the motor. Finally, the proposed system has been experimentally tested and the results validate all algorithms and the thesis proposals.

abstract: The dissertation encompasses the transformer-less single phase PV inverters for both the string and microinverter applications. Two of the major challenge with such inverters include the presence of high-frequency common mode leakage current and double line frequency power decoupling with reliable capacitors without compromising converter power density. Two solutions are presented in this dissertation: half-bridge voltage swing (HBVS) and dynamic dc link (DDCL) inverters both of which completely eliminates the ground current through topological improvement. In addition, through active power decoupling technique, the capacitance requirement is reduced for both, thus achieving an all film-capacitor based solution with higher reliability. Also both the approaches are capable of supporting a wide range of power factor. Moreover, wide band-gap devices (both SiC and GaN) are used for implementing their hardware prototypes. It enables the switching frequency to be high without compromising on the converter efficiency. Also it allows a reduced magnetic component size, further enabling a high power density solution, with power density far beyond the state-of-the art solutions. Additionally, for the transformer-less microinverter application, another challenge is to achieve a very high gain DC-DC stage with a simultaneous high conversion efficiency. An extended duty ratio (EDR) boost converter which is a hybrid of switched capacitors and interleaved inductor technique, has been implemented for this purpose. It offers higher converter efficiency as most of the switches encounter lower voltage stress directly impacting switching loss; the input current being shared among all the interleaved converters (inherent sharing only in a limited duty ratio), the inductor conduction loss is reduced by a factor of the number of phases. Further, the EDR boost converter has been studied for both discontinuous conduction mode (DCM) operations and operations with wide input/output voltage range in continuous conduction mode (CCM). A current sharing between its interleaved input phases is studied in detail to show that inherent sharing is possible for only in a limited duty ratio span, and modification of the duty ratio scheme is proposed to ensure equal current sharing over all the operating range for 3 phase EDR boost. All the analysis are validated with experimental results. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Electrical Engineering 2017

Monitoring the mechanical integrity of critical structures is extremely important, as mechanical defects can potentially have adverse impacts on their safe operability throughout their service life. Structural defects can be detected by using active structural health monitoring (SHM) approaches, in which a given structure is excited with harmonic mechanical waves generated by actuators. The response of the structure is then collected using sensor(s) and is analyzed for possible defects, with various active SHM approaches available for analyzing the response of a structure to single- or multi-frequency harmonic excitations. In order to identify the appropriate excitation frequency, however, the majority of such methods require a priori knowledge of the characteristics of the defects under consideration. This makes the whole enterprise of detecting structural defects logically circular, as there is usually limited a priori information about the characteristics and the locations of defects that are yet to be detected. Furthermore, the majority of SHM techniques rely on sensors for response collection, with the very same sensors also prone to structural damage. The Surface Response to Excitation (SuRE) method is a broadband frequency method that has high sensitivity to different types of defects, but it requires a baseline. In this study, initially, theoretical justification was provided for the validity of the SuRE method and it was implemented for detection of internal and external defects in pipes. Then, the Comprehensive Heterodyne Effect Based Inspection (CHEBI) method was developed based on the SuRE method to eliminate the need for any baseline. Unlike traditional approaches, the CHEBI method requires no a priori knowledge of defect characteristics for the selection of the excitation frequency. In addition, the proposed heterodyne effect-based approach constitutes the very first sensor-less smart monitoring technique, in which the emergence of mechanical defect(s) triggers an audible alarm in the structure with the defect. Finally, a novel compact phased array (CPA) method was developed for locating defects using only three transducers. The CPA approach provides an image of most probable defected areas in the structure in three steps. The techniques developed in this study were used to detect and/or locate different types of mechanical damages in structures with various geometries.