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A Hybrid Genetic Algorithm for Selective Harmonic Elimination PWM AC/AC

Converter Control

Article  in  Electrical Engineering · March 2007

DOI: 10.1007/s00202-006-0003-9

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Electr Eng (2007) 89: 285–291
DOI 10.1007/s00202-006-0003-9
O R I G I NA L PA P E R
Mohamed S. A. Dahidah · M. V. C. Rao
A hybrid genetic algorithm for selective harmonic elimination PWM
AC/AC converter control
Received: 10 May 2005 / Accepted: 19 November 2005 / Published online: 14 March 2006
© Springer-Verlag 2006
Abstract This paper presents an optimal solution for elim-
inating pre-specified orders of harmonics from the output
waveform of AC/AC converter. The main challenge of solv-
ing the associated nonlinear equations, which are transcen-
dental in nature and therefore have multiple solutions, is the
convergence and therefore an initial point selected consid-
erably close to the exact solution is required. The paper
discusses an efficient hybrid real coded genetic algorithm
(HRCGA) that reduces significantly the computational bur-
den resulting in a fast convergence. An objective function
describing a measure of effectiveness of eliminating selected
orders of harmonics, while controlling the fundamental is
derived and a comparison of different operating points is re-
ported. It is observed that the modulation index can reach
unity value. The theoretical findings are verified through sim-
ulation results using the PSIM software package.
Keywords Genetic algorithms · Selective harmonic elim-
ination (SHE) · Pulse width modulation (PWM) · AC/AC
converter
1 Introduction
The developments recently achieved in the field of power
electronics made it possible to improve the performance of
electrical system utilities. Some of the advantages offered by
using such devices are fast response, compactness and low
power demands of control circuitry. On the other hand, con-
trol by switching is often accompanied by extra losses due to
time harmonics presented in output voltage waveform, which
leads to poor power factor. An AC voltage regulator is used as
one of the power electronics system to control an output AC
M. S. A. Dahidah (B) · M. V. C. Rao
Faculty of Engineering and Technology,
Multimedia University,
75450, Ayer Keroh Lama-Melaka, Malaysia
E-mails: mohamed.dahidah@mmu.edu.my; mdahidah@yahoo.com
Tel.: +606–2523176
Fax: +606–2316552
voltage due to its simplicity and the ability of controlling large
amount of power economically [1]. The pulse-width modula-
tion (PWM) AC chopper has been suggested as an alternative
to conventional AC regulator due to improved power factor
and the possibility of eliminating low -order harmonics with
a wide voltage control range.
The harmonic elimination methods which introduced to
AC converters are similar to those employed in PWM invert-
ers or in AC to DC converters. The common characteristic of
the selective harmonic elimination–pulse–width modulation
(SHE–PWM) method is that the waveform analysis is per-
formed using Fourier theory. Sets of nonlinear transcendental
equations are then derived, and the solution is obtained using
an iterative procedure, mostly by Newton–Raphson method
[2]. This method is derivative-dependent and may end in
local optima; further, a judicious choice of the initial values
alone will guarantee convergence [3]. Another approach uses
Walsh functions [4] where solving linear equations, instead
of solving nonlinear transcendental equations, optimizes the
switching angles.
A number of cost functions have been studied in the
literature such as eliminating selected harmonics [2–6], min-
imizing THD [6] or minimizing motor losses [7]. All above-
mentioned methods are off-line techniques that suffer from
the requirement of the large memory to accompany the differ-
ent operating points.
The on-line real-time elimination techniques, which are
outside the scope of this paper, are presented in several pub-
lications where nonlinear curves of the nonlinear transcen-
dental equations are replaced with piecewise representations,
with each curve made up of one or more straight line segments
[7]. It also has been reported in [8] that by using accurate mod-
eling techniques it is possible to define an analytic expression
describing the law governing the switching angles of PWM
that is implemented using microprocessors or digital signal
processing (DSP) [8].
In contrast, microprocessor-based techniques require a
large memory, whereas most of the computational effort of
the microprocessor is spent on tedious timing tasks associated
with the generation of the switching signals for individual
286 M. S. A. Dahidah and M. V. C. Rao

Fig. 1 a Circuit of Pulse-width modulation (PWM) AC converter. b Output voltage

phases of the inverter. The application of neural-network in the PWM form at the load terminals. By the proper choice
technology has been adapted to allow construction of a simple of PWM switching angles, the fundamental component can
microprocessorless PWM that realizes optimal switching be controlled and a selected low order of harmonics can be
angles for the inverters, for any value of the modulation eliminated.
index [9]. Setting up N switching angles per-quarter cycle allow the
The objective of this paper is to introduce a minimization elimination of (N − 1) low-order harmonics and the remain-
technique assisted with a hybrid genetic algorithm in order to ing angle is used to control the fundamental component.
reduce the computational burden associated with the nonlin- Consider for example, an output voltage of AC converter
ear transcendental equations of the SHE–PWM method. An with N = 5 pulses perquarter cycle as in the case of Fig. 1b.
accurate solution is guaranteed even for a number of switch- Fourier series can easily express the general output voltage
ing angles that is higher than other techniques would be able of the inverter as follows:
to calculate for a given computational effort. The proposed ∞

algorithm could calculate angles even beyond the point where vo (ωt) = An cos nωt + Bn sin nωt (1)
other methods fail to converge and hence it seems to be a n=1
promising method for applications when overmodulation is
required. It is observed that the modulation index can reach Owing to the PWM waveform characteristics of odd function
unity without resulting in failure of convergence. symmetry and halfwave symmetry, the output voltage can be
reduced to:
∞

2 Circuit analysis and problem formulation vo (ωt) = Bn sin nωt (2)
n=1,3,5,...
The basic power circuit of a PWM AC converter that consists
of two bi-directional switches (SW1 and SW2 ) is illustrated where, Bn is the Fourier coefficient
in Fig. 1a. The series connected switch (SW1 ) regulates the Hence, one can write the magnitude of the harmonic com-
power delivered to the load, and the parallel switch (SW2 ) ponents including the fundamental as:
provides the freewheeling path to discharge the stored energy  
2
5
sin 2αi
when the series one is turned off [1]. When a switching func- B1 = 1 − (−1) αi −
i
(3)
tion shown in Fig. 1b, is applied, the output voltage appears π 2
i=1
A hybrid genetic algorithm
5  
2  sin(n − 1)αi sin(n + 1)αi
Bn = − (4)
π n−1 n+1
i=1
where n = 3, 5, . . . , 2N − 1, N is the number of switching
angles per-quarter cycle (i.e. N = 5 in this case), and αi is
the ith switching angle.
An objective function describing a measure of effective-
ness of eliminating selected order of harmonics by controlling
the fundamental, i.e. eliminating low order of harmonics is
specified as
F(α1 , α2 , . . . , α N )
= (B1 − m i )2 + B32 + B52 + · · · + Bn2 (5)
where m i is the modulation index which is defined as m i =
(V1 /Vm ), noting that V1 and Vm are the values of the funda-
mental component and the peak of the input voltage, respec-
tively
Minimizing (5), that is subject to the constraint of (6),
the optimal switching angles are generated and consequently
selected harmonics are eliminated. These switching angles
are generated for different values of modulation index and
then stored in look-up tables to be used to control the con-
verter for certain operating point.
 π
0 ≤ α1 ≤ α2 ≤ · · · ≤ α N ≤ (6)
2 such that the value of (t, d x) approaches zero as t increases.
3 Genetic algorithm
The genetic algorithm (GA) is a search mechanism based
on the principle of natural selection and population genetics,
which is transformed by three genetic operators: selection,
crossover and mutation. Each string (chromosome) has a pos-
sible solution to the problem being optimized and each bit (or
group of bits) represent a value or some variable of the prob-
lem (gene). These solutions are classified by an evaluation
function, giving better values, or fitness, to better solutions.
Each solution must be evaluated by the fitness function to
produce a value. In selection, a number of selected exact
copies of chromosomes in the current population become a
part of the offspring. In crossover, randomly selected subsec-
tions of two individual chromosomes are swapped to produce
the offspring. In mutation, randomly selected genes in chro-
mosomes are altered by a probability equal to the specified
mutation rate.
3.1 Simple crossover
This kind of crossover operation is analogous to that of the
binary implementation. The basic one is one-cut point cross-
over. Let two parents be x = [x1 , x2 , . . . , xn ] and y =
[y1 , y2 , . . . , yn ]. They are crossed after the kth position; the
resulting offsprings are given by;
x  = [x1 , x2 , . . . , xk , yk+1 , yk+2 , . . . , yn ]

y = [y1 , y2 , . . . , yk , xk+1 , xk+2 , . . . , xn ]
The further extensions of one-point crossover are
multi-cut-point, and uniform crossover.
287
3.2 Arithmetic crossover
The basic concept of this kind of operator is borrowed from
the convex set theory [10]. Simple arithmetic operators are
defined as the combination of two vectors (chromosomes)
given as:
x  = λx + (1 − λ)y (9)
x  = (1 − λ)x + λy (10)
where λ is a uniformly distributed random variable between
zero and one.
3.3 Dynamic mutation
Michaelewicz [10] proposed the mutation operator also called
nonuniform mutation. It is designed for fine-tuning capabil-
ities aimed at achieving high precision. For a given parent
x, if the element xk of it is selected for mutation, the result-
ing offspring is x  = [x1 . . . xk . . . xn ], where xk is randomly
selected from the two possible choices;
xk = xk + (t, xkU − xk ) or xk = xk − (t, xk − xkL ) (11)
The function (t, d x)returns a value in the range [0, d x]
This property causes the operator to search the space uniform
initially (when t is small) and very locally at later stages. The
function (t, d x) is given by;
  d
(t, d x) = d x · r · 1 − t T (12)
where r is a random number from [0,1]. T is the maximal gen-
eration number and d is a parameter determining the degree
of nonuniformity (usually assumed as 2).
3.4 Solution acceleration technique
The convergence of the real coded GA can be accelerated
greatly by assuming that the best solution in the population
is closest to the global optimum. If it is true, then searching
the solution spacing this neighborhood will produce solu-
tions to the global optimum. This can be accomplished by
remapping the population after each competition stage in the
GA algorithm so that all solutions are moved a random dis-
tance towards the best solution at that generation. This results
in more solutions in the neighborhood of the minimum and
hence allows a more thorough search of its surrounds [4].
Mathematically, the solution-acceleration technique can
be described as:
x  = xb + r (xb − x) (13)
where xb = best solution vector (best individual) in the pop-
ulation,
(7)
x = solution vector (individual) to be remapped,
(8) x  = remapped solution vector, and
r = uniformly distributed random number between zero and
one.
288 M. S. A. Dahidah and M. V. C. Rao

4 Hybrid genetic algorithm implementation 4.2 Phase-2 (direct search optimization method) algorithm

In general, local search techniques have the advantage of
solving the problem quickly, though their results are very
much dependent on the initial starting point; therefore they
can be easily trapped in a local optimum. On the other hand,
genetic algorithm samples a large search space, climbs many
peaks in parallel, and is likely to lead search towards the
most promising area. However, GA difficulties in a fining–
tuning of local search; it spends most of the time competing
between different hills, rather than improving the solution
along a single hill that the optimal point locates. Hence using
the advantage of both the local and GA techniques, the search
algorithm can be improved both effectively and efficiently
[4,10].
The proposed hybrid genetic algorithm combines a stan-
dard real coded GA and the second phase of conventional
search technique. Real coded GA takes the place of the first
phase of the search providing the potential near optimum
solution, and phase-2 of a search technique using optimiza-
tion by direct search and systematic reduction of the size of
search region. Phase-2 algorithm is applied to rapidly gen-
erate a precise solution under the assumption that the evo-
lutionary search has generated a solution near the global
optimum.
4.1 Phase-1 (real coded) algorithm
After the phase-1 is halted, satisfying the halting condition
described in the previous section, optimization by direct
search and systematic reduction of the size of search region
method is employed in the phase-2. In the light of the solution
accuracy, the success rate, and the computation time, the best
vector obtained from the phase-1 is used as an initial point
for the phase-2.
The optimization procedure based on direct search and
systematic reduction in search region is found effective in
solving various problems in the field of nonlinear program-
ming [10,11]. This direct search optimization procedure is
implemented as follows:
1. The best solution vector obtained from the first phase of
the hybrid algorithm is used as an initial point α(0) for
phase-2 and an initial range vector is defined as
R(0) = RMF × Range (14)
where Range is defined as the difference between the
upper and lower bounds (the upper and lower bounds for
each switching angle here are π/2 and 0, respectively)
and RMF is a range multiplication factor. The value of
RMF varies between 0.0 and 1.0.
2. N S trail solution vectors around α(0) are generated using
following relationship,
αi = α(0) + α(0) ·∗ rand(1, n) (15)
∗
where, αi is the ith trail solution vector, (· ) represents
element-by-element multiplication operation, and rand

Michaelewicz [10] indicates that for real valued numerical

Table 1 Hybrid genetic algorithm parameters
optimization problems floating-point representation outper-
form binary representations because they are more consis- Phase-1 Phase-2
tent, more precise and lead to faster execution. For most Population size (N P ) = 80 No. of trails (N S ) = 80
application of genetic algorithms to constrained optimiza- Max. no. of generations = 300 Max. no. of generations = 300
tion problems, the real coding technique is used to repre- Crossover probability = 0.2 Range reduction factor = 0.01
sent a solution to a given problem. Hence, real coded Mutation probability = 0.06 Range = 0.5
β = 0.3
algorithm is considered as phase-1 [4] and it is implemented
as follows:
100

1. A population of N P trail solution is initialized. Each solu-

tion is taken as a real valued vector with their dimensions 80 α3
Switching angles (degrees)

corresponding to the number of variables (α1 , α2 , . . . ,

α N ). The initial components of αi are selected in accor-
dance with a uniform distribution ranging between 0 60 α2
and 1.
2. The fitness score for each solution vector αi is evaluated,
after converting each solution into corresponding switch- 40
ing instants αa using upper and lower bounds. α1
3. Roulette wheel based selection method is used to produce
N P offspring from parents. 20
4. Arithmetic crossover and non-uniform mutation opera-
tors are applied to offspring to generate next generation
0
parents. 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1
5. The algorithm proceeds to step 2, unless the best solution Modulation index ( mi )
does not change for a pre-specified interval of genera-
tions. Fig. 2 Switching angles versus modulation index (N = 3)
A hybrid genetic algorithm 289

Fig. 3 The spectrum of the output waveform (case I)

100
α5
80
Switching angles ( degrees)

α4
60

α3
40
α2

20 α1

0
0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1
Modulation index (m i )
Fig. 4 Switching angles versus modulation index (N = 5)

(1, n) is a random vector, whose element value varies

from – 0.5 to 0.5. 5 Results and discussion
3. For each feasible trail solution vector find objective func-
tion value and find the trail solution set, which minimizes To verify the validity of the proposed algorithm, a program
F(α) and equate it to α(0) as follows: was developed using the software package MATLAB 6.0
[12]. The program is run for a number of independent trials
α(0) = αbest (16) on Pentium-IV computer operating at 1.4 GHz clock speed.
The parameters of GA such as crossover and mutation prob-
where αbest is the trail solution set with minimum F(α).
ability, population size and number of generations are usu-
4. Reduce the range by an amount given by R(0) = R(0) ∗
ally selected as common values given in the literature or by
(1 − β). Where β is the range reduction factor, whose
means of a trial and error process to achieve the best solution
typical value is 0.05.
set [3]. The parameters thus selected for the implementation
5. The algorithm proceeds to step 2, unless the best solution
of HRCGA are tabulated in Table 1.
does not change for a pre-specified interval of genera-
tions.
290 M. S. A. Dahidah and M. V. C. Rao

Fig. 5 The spectrum of the output waveform (case II)

0.25

0.2 Case I (N = 3)
HLF (p.u.)

0.15

0.1

0.05
Case II (N = 5)

0
0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1
Modulation index (mi )
Fig. 6 Harmonic loss factor (HLF) variations versus modulation index

The program is run for different values of modulation
index as well as different number of pulses per quarter cycle
of the output voltage including odd and even numbers. The
calculated switching angles are then simulated using the soft-
ware package PSIM [13]. The results are presented in the
following sections.
5.1 Case I: eliminating the 3rd and 5th harmonic
In this case, three switching angles per quarter cycle (N = 3)
are considered. The fundamental component was maintained
at 0.75 p.u. Figure 2 shows the calculated switching angles for
the entire range of modulation indices (0.02 ≤ m i ≤ 0.99).
Fig. 3 illustrates the spectrum of the output voltage wave-
form where the absence of 3rd and 5th harmonics is clearly
evident.
5.2 Case II: eliminating the 3rd, 5th, 7th, and 9th harmonics
Five switching angles per quarter cycle (N = 5) are chosen
in this case that is aimed to eliminate the 3rd, 5th, 7th, and
9th order of harmonics while maintaining the fundamental
component at 0.60 p.u. The solution sets for the switching
angles for the entire range of modulation indices are illus-
trated in Fig. 4 & 5. With reference to Fig. 5, it can be clearly
seen that the selected harmonics are totally eliminated. It is
worth noting that the first significant harmonic in this case
A hybrid genetic algorithm
(i.e. 11th harmonic) is relatively high, as the fundamental is
pulled down.
5.3 Performance index
In order to indicate the usefulness and effectiveness of the
proposed technique, a quality factor has to be chosen. Several
quality factors have been reported in [2] such as Harmonic
loss factor (HLF), second order distortion factor (DF2 ) and
total harmonic distortion (THD). With the fact that most of
the loads under consideration here are induction motors; The
harmonic equivalent circuit of an induction machine can be
assumed to be its total leakage reactance at the harmonic
frequency, hence HLF is considered in this paper. The HLF,
which is proportional to total rms harmonic current, can be
defined by (17). For practical reasons, the HLF is calculated
up to 31st order of harmonics.

291
to converge if higher pulses per quarter-wave are sought. It
is also proved to be an appropriate technique when an over-
modulation operation is demanded since it still finds the solu-
tion for modulation index as high as unity. In order to prove
the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed method,
the algorithm is tested with different operating points/cases
including three- and fine-pulse per quarter waveforms. The
harmonic loss factor (HLF) was chosen as performance in-
dex for optimality and is calculated for different operating
points. Good agreement between the theoretical findings and
the simulation results is achieved.
Acknowledgements The authors gratefully acknowledge the support
of Multimedia University (MMU) for this work.
References
31  2
1
 Vn
HLF = p.u. (17)
V1 n Trans Power Electron 5(2):191–200
n=2
where V1 and Vn are the amplitudes of the fundamental and
the nth harmonics, respectively. Furthermore, this factor is
calculated for both case I and case II and for the whole range
of the modulation index as depicted in Fig. 6. As it can be
obviously seen from Fig. 6, a poor HLF is obtained when the
converter is operated at low modulation index. However, at
higher modulation index, the HLF improve tremendously. On
the other hand, the higher the number of pulses per-quarter
cycle the lower the HLF is. However, the switching losses
would be increased if higher number of pulses are consid-
ered.
6 Conclusion
A method to generate optimal switching angles in order to
eliminate a certain order of harmonics is introduced in this
paper. A two phase genetic algorithm, namely the real-coded
and direct search is proposed to overcome the computational
burden and to ensure the accuracy of the calculated angles.
The algorithm was developed using MATLAB software and
is run for a number of times independently to ensure the
feasibility and the quality of the solution. This method was
found to be superior to conventional techniques that may fail
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