Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Trends in Electronics and Informatics (ICOEI 2020)

IEEE Xplore Part Number: CFP20J32-ART; ISBN: 978-1-7281-5518-0

Droop Characteristics based High Speed Traction

Power Supply system using Modular Multilevel
Converter
Venkatasupura Vemulapati Dr.Y.N.Vijayakumar Dr. N.Visali
Research Scholar Professor Principal
Sri Venkateswara College of JNTUA College of Engineering,
JNTUA College of Engineering
Engineering & Technology Kalikiri, India
Anantapur, India
Chittoor, India
Supura.v.v@gmail.com

Dynamics simulations cover power flow reversal and

Abstract— The AC voltage and current imbalance that occurs in
the traction system while sudden connection and disconnection of
the traction in the single phase supply with transformer interfacing
is a serious power quality issue. This paper delivers an alternate
topology for the continuous and steady-state supply of power to the
AC traction system. The MMC based converter system with the
DC link is connected to the self-synchronizing inverters at the AC
traction side. MATLAB SimulinkTM based simulation is carried
out and the droop characteristic based control of the traction side
inverter is developed and the results are found to be satisfactory
for the traction drive. The specification of the Indian scenario is
considered for the simulation thus carried out and results obtained
are discussed.
Keywords—Multimodule converter, droop characteristics, self-
synchronizing inverters, AC traction system
I. INTRODUCTION
The improvement in the power electronics converter and the
required improvement in the power quality issues in the AC
traction system reckons new research dimensions in the new AC
traction topology. Reference [1] presents a voltage balancing
technique with a 4 level model for both simulations (offline) and
experimentation. Reference [2] also presents a 4 level converter
and simulations. Reference [3] uses off-line simulations with a
4 level converter and experiments with a 2 level version to test a
new control technique. Dynamics cases study the response to a
change in DC voltage command and activation/deactivation of
capacitor voltage balancing control. Reference [4] uses off-line
simulation to study a back-to-back system with one AC side as
a two-phase system and the other one as a three-phase system,
both with 11 modules per leg.
in commanded DC voltage. Reference [5] tests the effect
of a change changes in the load phase angle on the
harmonics of a system containing 10 levels using off-line
simulation. Reference
[6] presents the results of simulations of a 6 level MMC
placed in a back-to-back configuration, with simulations
of changes in real and reactive power on each end, change
in DC voltage levels as well as a single phase-fault study.
Reference [7],[12] investigates the MMC in its STATCOM
configuration, based on simulations in PSIM and actual
experiments. The MMC model used for simulations
contains 22 levels; the experiment was limited to a single
level. Reference [8],[11]describes a module voltage
balancing technique and uses a 4-level physical converter
to test its effectiveness. Reference [9],[10] presents an
actual converter built for experiments consisting of up to
17 modules per level, which represents the largest
experimental device reported in the literature.
Proposed Topology with Droop Characteristic
Control:
The overall implementation of the proposed topology
for the single phase traction drive is as given in Figure 1.
The Three-phase supply from the substation is converted
into DC power by using the MMC based converter and
the DC link voltage controller is used to maintain the
constant DC link voltage. The droop controlled technique
which maintains synchronism with the two substation
inverters is of prime importance since the power quality
issues due to the interruption of the connection and
disconnection is avoided. The inverters belonging to two
substations are controlled using the droop characteristic
control thus developing an interruption-free single phase
AC drive system. The complete block diagram of the
substation is as given in Figure 2. The traction line which
is common for both the droop controlled inverter is
continuously supplied from the single phase AC voltage
uninterruptedly. While at the same time the voltage
amplitude and the phase angle are maintained. The droop
controller which maintains

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 Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Trends in Electronics and Informatics (ICOEI 2020)
IEEE Xplore Part Number: CFP20J32-ART; ISBN: 978-1-7281-5518-0

Figure 1. The substation side MMC converter with Inverter Topology

Figure 2. The overall block diagram of the proposed droop controlled topology

Figure 3 shows the droop characteristics block
diagram of one of the two inverters connected in the traction
considered. The high-frequency switching noise is attenuated
using the LCL filter in the output of the inverter. The output
power is calculated from the direct and quadrature component
of the voltage and current from the LCL filter output. The real
and reactive power after sent through the low pass filter is given
to the droop controller. As the parallel inverters have to
maintain the voltage and frequency for obtaining the self-
synchronization the voltage and frequency are obtained using
the real and reactive power generated from the inverter output
after filtering. And this voltage and the frequency are
compared with the reference voltage and frequency that has to
be obtained to attain synchronization with the other inverter.

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 Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Trends in Electronics and Informatics (ICOEI 2020)
IEEE Xplore Part Number: CFP20J32-ART; ISBN: 978-1-7281-5518-0

Figure 3. Self-synchronizing parallel inverter with droop characteristics

The difference in the voltage and the frequency of the measured nonlinear equations is linearized by using a steady-state instant
and the reference entity is given to the PI controller to obtain in the average model.
the reference current in the output filter inductor. These
reference currents are passed through PI controllers to obtain 1. Power Calculation:
the voltage at the input of the LCL filter. The output of the The voltage and the current in the DQ axis are used
inverter is connected to the bus through the coupling inductor for calculating the instantaneous real (p) and reactive
(q) power from the output of the inverter.
of the filter. The resistor Rd the damping resistor which would
help in attaining the damping in the inverter output for the
3
resonant frequency. The DQ based PLL is used to find the = ( + ) … … … … … (1)
frequency by forcing the direct axis component to zero in the 2
voltage. The same PLL also provides the angle of the voltage 3
which is utilized for the orthogonal transformations in the = ( − ) … … … … … (2)
current controller and the current and voltage measurement 2
Filtered real (P) and reactive power (Q) is obtained
from the inverter output before the coupling inductor. There is
from the instantaneous power using the low pass filter
an individual reference frame for each one of the inverters
having the corner frequency .
which will control the synchronization at their end.

II. TATE SPACE FORM MODELING OF =

+
THE DROOP CONTROLLED INVERTER
⇒ ̇=− + 1.5 ( ̇ + ) … …. (3)
Modification from the conventional PLL is applied in the Droop
controlled self-synchronization of the autonomous inverter.
The PLL applied here can find the frequency as well as the =
angle to which the inverter has to get synchronized. The +
controllers as shown in Figure 2 is defined using a ̇
⇒ ̇=− + 1.5 ( − ) … …. (4)
mathematical equation.

A. Non-Linear Inverter Model Equations:
The average is modeled using Matlab /Simulink while
the corresponding mathematical model is defined in this
section. The average model which is defined using the
2. Voltage and Frequency Estimation Using Droop
Characteristics:
The droop characteristics as obtained from
power and angular frequency (P-ω) curve (a) and the

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Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Trends in Electronics and Informatics (ICOEI 2020)
IEEE Xplore Part Number: CFP20J32-ART; ISBN: 978-1-7281-5518-0

Reactive power and voltage (Q-V) curve (b) is PLL the d axis voltage is locked to zero. The PLL is
depicted in Figure 3. The slope of these curves acts as used for each of the DER and is defined in Figure 4.
the constants that are used to obtain the reference
frequency and voltage magnitude of the inverter.
Further calculation of the reference voltage and angle
is carried out using the slope of these curves.

Figure4. PLL for a DER

From the PLL block diagram, it can be observed that
the direct axis voltage is forced to zero.
̇ , = , − , , … … … (7)
̇ =− , … … … … … … (8)
=̇ … … … . (9)
= 377 − , ,
+ , … … . . (10)
(a)
B. Voltage Controllers:
PI controller is used to generating the direct and the
quadrature axis component of the currents in the line.
The variables of the controller are angular frequency
from the PLL and the q axis voltage. The reference
generation is as shown in figure 5.

(b)
Figure 3. Droop Characteristics, (a) (P-ω) curve and
(b) (Q-V) curve (a)

The droop equations are the main source of

generating the frequency and the voltage from the
slope found from the (P-ω) and (Q-V) curve which is
denoted by m and n respectively and is defined as
1− 2
=
2− 1
1− 2
and = .
1− 2
The reference angular frequency is obtained from the
equation (b)
∗ = − … … … … … (5) Figure 5. Voltage Controller (a) direct axis
∗ = − … … … … (6) voltage-current reference (b) quadrature axis
current
reference
,
= − ∗;

3. Phase Locked Loop (PLL): ∗ = , + , ̇ … … … … … . . (11)

The actual frequency during the autonomous ̇ = ∗ − ;
condition of the Microgrid has to be developed using ∗ =
, + , ̇ … … … …. (12)
the PLL. The d axis component of the voltage across
the capacitor in the LCL filter is utilized for PLL C. Current Controller:
generation. As the d axis component is used for the
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Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Trends in Electronics and Informatics (ICOEI 2020)
IEEE Xplore Part Number: CFP20J32-ART; ISBN: 978-1-7281-5518-0

The reference line current and the current measured D.LCL Filter:
from the line after LCL filter is given to a pair of PI The command voltage generated from the current
controller for both the direct and the quadrature axis controllers is considered to be entering the LCL filter.
current component which acts as the current The two inductors and with its parasitic
controller. The reference voltage generated is as resistance and is mentioned in the LCL filter. The
shown in Figure 6 and equations (13) and (14).
filter capacitor along with the damping resistor is
Another pair of PI controllers are used for the current
controller which gets the command from the inductor is connected as part of the LCL filter. The
currents ( ∗ ) to provide the control voltages ∗ .
Equation governing the filter characteristics of the
These values are corresponding to the inverter output LCL filter is as shown below,
voltage that occurs before the LCL filter.
1
̇ ̇ = (− + + )

+ … … … … … . . (15)
1
̇̇ = (− + − )

− … … … … … . . (16)
1
̇ = (− + − )

(a) − … … … … … . . (17)
1
̇ = (− + − )

− … … … … … . . (18) ( −
1
̇ = )+ + (

− ) … … … … … . . (19)
1 ( − )+ + (
(b) ̇ =
Figure 6. Current Controllers − ) … … … … … . . (20)
The average model of the above-said model is
∗ =− + , (∗− ) developed in the Matlab-Simulink model and the
performance is evaluated accordingly.
+ , ( ∗− ) … … (13)
∗ ∗−
= + , ( )

+ , ( ∗− ) … . . (14) III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION:

The voltage commands are generated according to the
equations defined in the equation (13) and (14).
The Indian scenario in railway traction system is
having the transformer connected from the
transmission line with 132KV/27KV as the rating
which is replaced with the MMC in the simulation
carried out. The power rating of the traction system is
fixed to 30MW.

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Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Trends in Electronics and Informatics (ICOEI 2020)
IEEE Xplore Part Number: CFP20J32-ART; ISBN: 978-1-7281-5518-0

(a)

(b)
Figure 7. Parallel Inverter Output Voltage (a) Voltage Waveform (b) Zoomed Voltage Waveform

Figure 8 DC link Voltage and MMC module Voltage

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Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Trends in Electronics and Informatics (ICOEI 2020)
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(a)

(b)

Figure 9 (a) Grid voltage and Current (b) Grid voltage and Current Zoomed.

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 Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Trends in Electronics and Informatics (ICOEI 2020)
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Conclusion:
The 25KV single phase based AC traction system
with the droop based single phase inverter controlled
topology is discussed and the results are inferred. The
proposed topology with the droop characteristics has
maintained the DC link voltage constant and also due to
the droop characteristics the voltage at the AC traction
side for both the inverters are said to be satisfactory.
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