672 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 45, NO.

4, AUGUST 1998

Letters to the Editor

A Digital Control Technique for a
Single-Phase PWM Inverter

K. S. Low

Abstract—This paper describes the closed-loop control of a single-phase

pulsewidth modulated (PWM) inverter using the generalized predictive
control (GPC) algorithm. This approach determines the desired switching
signals by minimizing a cost function that reduces the tracking error
and the control signals. Experimental results have demonstrated that the
prototype system performs well.
Index Terms—Digital control, pulsewidth modulated inverters.
Fig. 1. The overall experimental setup.
I. INTRODUCTION
Uninterruptible power supplies (UPS’s) are used in many industrial its derivative, i.e.,

z(t) = VV_oo
systems to reduce power line disturbances and interruption. For
critical loads, such as communication systems in the airport, medical : (1)
equipment in the hospital, workstations in the computer centers, etc.,
a highly reliable and stable voltage supply is required. One of the Then, the system in Fig. 1 can be modeled using the following
important mechanisms of the UPS is to convert the dc voltage of the second-order state-space model:
battery to sinusoidal ac output through an inverter LC filter block. z_ (t) = az(t) + bu(t) + h(t) (2)
y(t) = cz(t)
To achieve the desired dynamic response and attain good robustness
with respect to disturbances or parameter variations, various advanced (3)
control techniques have been applied to control the inverter [1]–[4]. where

a = 0 01 01r b = 01
In this letter, we propose a new approach using the generalized
predictive control (GPC) scheme. The main characteristic of the ; ;
proposed control scheme is that it employs the receding-horizon LC L LC
0
strategy [5]. Based on the system model, the GPC scheme predicts
the output of the plant over a time horizon based on the assumption h(t) = 0 1 dio rio
0 LC ; c = [1 0]:
about future controller output sequences. An appropriate sequence
C dt
of the control signals is then calculated to reduce the tracking error In (2), u is the input voltage and io is the output current. By treating
by minimizing a quadratic cost function. This process is repeated the disturbance as an unmeasurable variable, the discrete-time state
for every sample interval. Thus, new information can be updated at model of the system can be expressed as
every sampling interval. Due to this approach, it gives good rejection
against modeling errors and disturbances.
1z(kT + t) = G1z(kT ) + H1u(kT ) (4)
The GPC scheme has been used successfully in many applications, where T is the sampling time of the system, k is the discrete-time
especially in the process control industries, such as steel casting, index, and
glass processing, oil refinery, pulp and paper industries, etc. In this T
letter, we explore its application in the control of the inverter. Some G=eaT ; H= ea d :
0
b(5)
experimental results of a prototype system are demonstrated.
1 is the difference operator, such that
II. THE MODEL OF THE SYSTEM 1z(kT ) = z(kT ) 0 z(kT 0 T ) (6)
The block diagram of the system is shown in Fig. 1. It consists of a 1u(kT ) = u(kT ) 0 u(kT 0 T ): (7)
single-phase full-bridge inverter with an LC output filter. The inverter
To eliminate steady-state error, the system (4) is augmented to the
switching sequence is controlled by a digital signal processor (DSP),
following new system:
1z(kT + T ) = G 0 1z(kT ) + H0 1u(kT ):
such that the output voltage follows the desired sinusoidal waveform.
The resistor r in the circuit is the equivalent series resistor (ESR) of
the inductor. The ESR of the capacitor is neglected in the circuit, as Vo (kT ) c 1 Vo (kT 0 T )
(8)

it is small. Define the state variables as the output voltage Vo and Define

Manuscript received April 21, 1997; revised September 24, 1997. Abstract X(kT ) = Vo1(kTz(kT0 )T ) :
published on the Internet May 1, 1998.
The author is with the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Then, (8) can be expressed as
X(kT + T ) = GX(kT ) + H1u(kT )
Nanyang Technological University, Singapore 639798.
Publisher Item Identifier S 0278-0046(98)05690-1. (9)
0278–0046/98$10.00  1998 IEEE
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 45, NO. 4, AUGUST 1998 673

(a) (a)

(b) (b)
Fig. 2. Experimental result under rated load. (a) Output voltage (vertical: Fig. 3. Experimental result under triac load. (a) Output voltage (vertical:
25 V/div; horizontal: 5 ms/div). (b) Harmonic spectrum of (a) (vertical: 1 25 V/div; horizontal: 5 ms/div). (b) Harmonic spectrum of (a) (vertical: 1
percent/div; horizontal: 100 Hz/div). percent/div; horizontal: 100 Hz/div).

where ^( + )
Denoting Vo kT jT jkT as the prediction of Vo kT jT at ( + )
G = Gc 01 and H = H0 :
time kT; the controller gains can be obtained by minimizing the
following cost function:
N
kVo3 (kT + jT ) 0 V^o(kT + jT jkT )k2 + k1u(kT )k2
The output variable now becomes
Jc =
u(kT ) = CX(kT ) = Vo (kT ) (10) j =1
where (12)
C = [1 0 1]: 1
with respect to u: The parameter Ny in (12) is known as the
prediction horizon. It is defined as the interval over which the
III. CONTROLLER DESIGN tracking error is minimized. The control weighting factor  is used
to penalize excessive control activity and to ensure a numerically
To develop the GPC controller for the inverter, we employ the
well-conditioned algorithm. In this paper, Ny and  are chosen as 25
receding-horizon control strategy. In this strategy, a sequence of
and 1, respectively. Their choices affect the dynamics and robustness
future control signals is calculated by minimizing a cost function
of the system. The selection criteria are beyond the present scope of
defined over a prediction horizon. However, only the first element
this letter.
of the future control signals is applied to the system. At the next
sampling interval, the control calculation is repeated again. In this
letter, we define the control law as IV. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS

1u(kT ) = K1 Vo3 (kT ) + K2 X(kT ) (11)

To investigate the effectiveness of the proposed scheme in con-
trolling the inverter, a DSP board (TMS320C31) is used to realize
where K1 and K2 are the controller gains, and Vo is the reference
3
the controller in real time. The DSP board uses a slave processor
output voltage. TMS320P14, which is capable of generating a 10-b pulsewidth modu-
674 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 45, NO. 4, AUGUST 1998
lated (PWM) waveform with a switching frequency of 25 kHz. As the
controller requires approximately 50 s for execution, the sampling
period is set to 80 s, resulting in two PWM pulses per controller
output. The filter is designed to have a cutoff frequency of 1.8 kHz.
The inverter is designed to produce a sinusoidal voltage of 100 V
(pp) at 50 Hz with a rated current of 5 A (pp). In the experiment,
the dc-link voltage is 60 V. Fig. 2(a) shows the experimental results
of the output voltage under rated load. The corresponding harmonic
spectrum is depicted in Fig. 2(b). The results show that the harmonic
distortion is less than 1%. To study the transient response of the
proposed scheme, a nonlinear load using a triac with rated load is
connected. Experimental results are demonstrated in Fig. 3. In this
case, a firing angle of 60 has been used. Thus, no load is connected
from 0 to 60 and a full load is connected from 60 to 180 .
Similarly, the same loading condition is applied in the negative cycle.
In spite of the rough load condition, the results show that the harmonic
distortion is still less than 2%, and the performance remains good.
V. CONCLUSIONS
A GPC algorithm has been developed to control a single-phase
inverter. The approach uses the receding-horizon strategy. The gains
are obtained by minimizing a cost function, which can be adjusted by
changing the prediction horizon and the control weighting factor. The
experimental results have demonstrated that the proposed controller
performs well under various loading conditions.
REFERENCES
[1] S. L. Jung and Y. Y. Tzou, “Discrete sliding-mode control of a PWM
inverter for sinusoidal output waveform synthesis with optimal sliding
curve,” IEEE Trans. Power Electron., vol. 11, pp. 567–577, July 1996.
[2] M. Carpita and M. Mar.esoni, “Experimental study of a power condition-
ing system using sliding mode control,” IEEE Trans. Power Electron.,
vol. 11, pp. 731–742, Sept. 1996.
[3] A. Kawamura, R. Chuarayapratip, and T. Haneyoshi, “Deadbeat control
of PWM inverter with modified pulse patterns for uninterruptible power
supply,” IEEE Trans. Ind. Electron., vol. 35, pp. 295–300, May 1988.
[4] A. V. Jouanne, P. N. Enjeti, and D. J. Lucas, “DSP control of high-power
UPS systems feeding nonlinear loads,” IEEE Trans. Ind. Electron., vol.
43, pp. 121–125, Feb. 1996.
[5] H. Demircioglu and D. W. Clarke, “Generalized predictive control with
end-point state weighting,” Proc. Inst. Elect. Eng., vol. 140, pt. D, no.
4, pp. 275–282, 1993.
0278–0046/98$10.00  1998 IEEE
On the ZVT-PWM Cúk Converter
Ching-Jung Tseng and Chern-Lin Chen
Abstract— A modified zero-voltage-transition pulsewidth modulation
(ZVT-PWM) Cúk converter is proposed in this letter. Better robustness,
smaller minimum duty ratio, and lower turn-on loss are obtained in
this converter. No additional component is needed compared with the
conventional ZVT-PWM Cúk converter.
Index Terms—Converters, pulsewidth modulation, switching circuits.
I. INTRODUCTION
Various soft-switching techniques have been proposed to reduce
switching losses and EMI noises of pulsewidth modulation (PWM)
converters in recent years. Zero-voltage-transition (ZVT)-PWM con-
verters [1], [2], which achieve zero-voltage switching (ZVS) for both
the transistors and the diodes, while minimizing their voltage and
current stresses, are deemed desirable. However, circuit operations
are easily interfered with by the nonidealities of circuit components.
The minimum duty ratio is also limited by the discharging time of the
resonant inductor. A modified ZVT-PWM Cúk converter is proposed
to improve these disadvantages of the conventional ZVT-PWM Cúk
converter [1], shown in Fig. 1.
II. THE MODIFIED ZVT-PWM CÚK CONVERTER
The circuit diagram and key waveforms of the modified ZVT-
PWM Cúk converter are shown in Fig. 2. The modified converter
differs from the conventional one by connecting the D)2 anode to the
output terminal instead of to the D1 anode. The following benefits
are obtained.
1) Better robustness: In the conventional converter, voltage across
the auxiliary diode D2 is zero when the main diode D1 is
conducting. D1 and D2 are essentially in parallel. D2 may
be easily turned on by small disturbances and, thus, a certain
percentage of current will flow through it. This phenomenon
may generate serious reverse-recovery loss when the auxiliary
switch S2 turns on unless an additional saturable reactor is
placed in series with the resonant inductor. In the modified
ZVT-PWM Cúk converter, D2 is reverse biased by the output
voltage when D1 is conducting. It prevents D2 and Lr from
conducting and, thus, avoids the reverse-recovery loss.
2) Smaller minimum duty ratio: In ZVT-PWM converters, the
minimum duty ratio can be defined as the minimum time ratio
that either S1 or S2 is on. In the conventional ZVT-PWM Cúk
converter, ILr has to discharge to zero before S1 turns off to
prevent D2 and Lr from conducting for the entire switching
period. Otherwise, the same switching loss as mentioned above
will be generated. The minimum duty ratio of the conventional
Manuscript received May 26, 1997; revised February 11, 1998. Abstract
published on the Internet May 1, 1998.
The authors are with the Power Electronics Laboratory, Department of
Electrical Engineering, National Taiwan University, Taipei, 10764 Taiwan,
R.O.C.
Publisher Item Identifier S 0278-0046(98)05691-3.