Parameter Plane Synthesis and Performance Investigation of
a Three-Phase Three-Level Bidirectional Rectifier
Abdul Hamid Bhat
Electrical Engineering Department
National Institute of Technology Srinagar
bhatdee@nitsri.net
Abstract- In this paper, parameter plane synthesis of a three-
phase neutral-point clamped bidirectional rectifier has been
performed. The converter involves one outer-loop PI voltage
controller and two inner-loop PI current controllers for the
closed-loop control. D-partition technique has been employed
for the precise design of the voltage controller. An experimental
prototype of the converter has been developed and the
experimental investigation of the converter performance in
closed loop has been carried out. DSP DS1104 of dSPACE has
been used for real-time implementation of the designed
controller. The converter gives a very good performance in
steady-state and dynamic state (for rectification as well as
inversion modes of operation) using the designed controller
parameters.
Index Terms- Adjustable-speed drives (ASDs), Improved power
quality converters (IPQCs), Voltage-oriented control (VOC),
dSPACE, Neutral-point clamped converter (NPC).
I. INTRODUCTION
The rapid growth of AC adjustable-speed drives (ASDs)
in industry exacerbates the problem of harmonic pollution of
the power system caused by commonly used front-end diode
and SCR-based rectifiers. The three-phase improved power
quality converters (IPQCs) constitute the best solution to this
power quality problem with an additional advantage of the
bidirectional power flow. Various control techniques have
been reported in the literature [1-4] however; the voltage
oriented control (VOC) technique is still in common use
because of the established theoretical concepts and the
advantages like fixed switching frequency, application of
advanced PWM strategies, and insensitivity to line
inductance.
The performance of a three-phase neutral-point clamped
rectifier largely depends on the quality of applied current
control strategy. Although the development of PWM current
control methods is still in progress, the current-controlled
techniques can be classified in two main groups, linear and
non-linear controllers [2]. Linear control schemes have
clearly separated current error compensation and voltage
modulation parts as compared to the non-linear controllers.
This concept allows to exploit the advantages of open-loop
modulators like SPWM, SVPWM, etc., which give a
constant switching frequency, well-defined harmonic
spectrum, and optimum switching pattern. Also, fully
independent design of the overall control structure as well as
open-loop testing of the converter and load can be easily
performed. A linear current controller can be carried out in
either stationary or synchronous rotating frames. The
performance of a current-controlled voltage-regulated PWM
rectifier in stationary and synchronously rotating reference
1
Nitin Langer
Electrical Engineering Department
Model institute of Engineering & Technology
nitin.ee@mietjammu.in
frames shows that the synchronously rotating PI current
controller has zero steady-state error and very good steady-
state accuracy, while the stationary PI current controller
results in an inherent tracking (amplitude and phase) error
even in the steady state [3]. These synchronously rotating
inner PI current controller and outer PI voltage regulator
need to be designed.
The main motivation of this work is to design the outer-
loop PI voltage regulator [5-6] using D-partitioning
technique in order to regulate the output voltage under load
perturbations. The parameter plane synthesis method (D-
partition technique) [7-9] is used for finding the region in the
parameter plane which ensures stable operation of converter.
Outer-loop PI voltage controller has been designed using
this technique. Inner-loop PI current controllers can also be
designed using the same procedure. The performance of the
three-phase NPC rectifier has been investigated based on
designed controller parameters (Kp and Ki) which ensure
regulation of load voltage under different operating
conditions.
II. SYSTEM MODELING AND DESCRIPTION
The three-phase NPC rectifier [10-17] as shown in Fig. 1
provides smooth powering and regeneration capability with
twelve semiconductor power switches. Its current regulators
can control the power factor close to unity and the boost
inductance L limits the magnitude of the input current ripple,
thus reducing harmonics and it also serves as an energy-
storage device to allow the overall converter circuit to act as
a boost rectifier. Now, the input three-phase voltage supply
can be written as,
v a  V cost 
 2 
v b  V cos t   
 3 
 2 
v c  V cos t    (1)
 3 
where V and  are the peak phase voltage and angular
frequency of the power source.
The voltage oriented control scheme for the three-phase
NPC rectifier [4] is shown in Fig. 2(a) and the coordinates
for the rectifier control scheme are shown in Fig. 2(b). The
Voltage Oriented Control (VOC) technique is still in
common use because of the established theoretical concepts
and advantages like fixed switching frequency, application
of advanced PWM strategies and insensitivity to line
inductance. Thus in this paper VOC has been employed for
the control of three-phase neutral-point clamped converter.
 i1 Io

Ta1 Da1 Tb1 Db1 Tc1 Dc1

Vc1
C1
D2 Tb2 D4 D6

Ta2 D Tc2 Dc2

Da2 b2

Va R L Vo
A a
va L
Vb R L O
B o A
b
vb io D
Vc R L c
C vc
Tb1'

Ta 1' Da1' Db1' Tc1' Dc1'

C2
Vc2

D3 D5
D1

Ta2' Da2' Tb 2' Db2' Tc 2'

Dc2'

i2

(a)
Fig. 1 Three-level diode-clamped bidirectional rectifier

Now, assuming the source resistance to be negligible and

considering the equivalent circuit diagram of three-phase
NPC rectifier, shown in Fig. 3(a), the voltage equations in
the stationary a-b-c reference frame are given as
di a
va  L  va '
dt
di
vb  L b  vb '
dt
di
vc  L c  vc ' (2)
dt
where L is the boost inductance; va, vb and vc are the
input phase voltages; va’, vb’ and vc’ are the voltages (b)
reflected on the input side of the rectifier and ia, ib and ic are Fig. 2 (a) Block diagram of voltage-oriented control scheme
the source currents drawn by rectifier from the source. The (b) Coordinates for three-phase NPC synchronous rectifier
coordinate transformation from the stationary a-b-c to the
stationary α-β
d-axis current id, the d-axis reference current id* is generated
reference frame is obtained as: from the proportional and integral (PI) type outer-loop
voltage controller for the output voltage regulation, as shown
di 
v  L  v
' in Fig. 2(a).And the input voltages in the synchronously
dt rotating frame are expressed as
di  vd  V
v  L  v
'
(3)
dt vq  0 (5)
The coordinate transformation from stationary α-β frame
to the synchronous d-q frame, which is rotating with an Since the power supplied from the input is given as,
angular frequency  , can be obtained as follows:
di
S
3
2

vdi d  vqi q  (6)
v d  L d  Liq  v d '
dt Thus active and reactive power is given by using
equation (5) in (6)
di q
vq  L  Lid  vq ' (4)
dt P
3
Vi d 
It is desirable to make the q-axis current iq zero for the 2
unity power factor operation of the NPC converter. In that
case, the q-axis current iq is controlled with the zero
3

Q  vqiq  0
2
 (7)
reference current iq*= 0. Power is directly proportional to the

2
 controllability as follows:
di d
0L  v d
dt
di q
0L  v q (11)
dt
Thus the overall current controller equation (9) in the
synchronous d-q reference frame relaxes the burden of the PI
(a)
current controllers and improves the input current waveform.
Fig. 3(b) shows the decoupled control diagram for the
synchronous NPC rectifier.
III. BASIC CONCEPT OF D-PARTITION TECHNIQUE
The partition of the coefficient space of a characteristic
equation into regions corresponding to the same number of
roots lying to the left of imaginary axis is called D-partition.
In order to understand the basic concept of D-partition
technique, the following characteristic equation is
considered

a o p n  a1p n 1  ..... a n 1p  a n  0 (12)

(b)
The aggregate values of a0 , a1, …, an may be interpreted
Fig. 3 (a) Equivalent circuit of three-phase NPC rectifier
(b) Overall control diagram of three-phase NPC rectifier
geometrically as a point in n-dimensional space, with axes
for the values of coefficients a0, a1, …,an. To each point of
this space, there corresponds a definite value of the
coefficients a0, a1, …,an and consequently, definite values of
The voltage equation in equation (2) transformed from all the roots p1, p2,…,pn of the characteristic equation. If in
the stationary a-b-c frame to the synchronous d-q frame in this space there exists a region in which each point
equation (4) after using equation (5) is given as follows: corresponds to a characteristic equation, all of whose roots
lie to the left of the imaginary axis in the root plane, then the
di d
VL  Liq  vd ' hyper-surface bounding this region is called the boundary of
dt the region of stability. Since all the coefficients a k are
di q determined by the values of parameters of the differential
0L  Lid  vq ' (8) equations of the system (time constants and amplification
dt coefficients), the space of parameters T 1, T2,…,K1, K2,…
In order to make the input currents track the reference can be similarly constructed and a region of stability can be
currents, the PI-type current controllers can be utilized. isolated within it.
However, the PI current controllers do not work well as Consider that for some definite values of ao and an in the
rapid tracking controllers for the coupled system in equation plane of roots (p-plane), the corresponding characteristic
(8). To avoid this problem, the following current controllers equation (12) has k roots lying to the left and n-k roots to the
are more effective for the control of supply currents right of the imaginary axis the value of roots can be
v d '  Liq  V  v d represented in the plane of the roots (p-plane), as shown in
Fig. 4(a). Obviously, there always exists a curve (in general
v q '  Lid  v q (9) a hyper-surface) which, in the plane of a0 and an (coefficient
plane), bounds a region as shown in Fig. 4(b), in which each
where the output signals ∆vd and ∆vq of the current point defines a polynomial also having k roots lying to the
controllers only generate transient additional voltages left and n-k roots to the right of the imaginary axis. The
required to maintain the sinusoidal input currents. region bounded by this curve is defined by D (k, n-k). Here
k can be any whole number between 0 and n. If , for
v d  k p i d * i d   k i  i d * i d dt instance, the characteristic equation is of third degree (n =
3), then in general case, the regions D(0,3), D(1,2), D(2,1)

v q  k p i q * i q   k  i
i q 
* i q dt (10) and D(3,0) can be found in the coefficient space and the last
region is also the region of stability.
With the addition of the overall current controller (9) to Suppose that k roots of the polynomial (Fig. 4(a)) lie to
the rectifier (8), which is originally a coupled dynamic the left of imaginary axis. By varying the values of the
system, the input-output relations of the rectifier become coefficients an continuously, the roots may cross over to the
first-order decoupled linear dynamic system with easy right- hand half-plane. Consequently, the imaginary axis in

3

(a)
(b)
Fig. 5 (a) Block diagram of voltage control loop
(b) Simplified block diagram of voltage control loop
the p-plane is the reflection of the boundary of the D-
partition, and crossing of the latter in the coefficient space is
represented by the roots in the root plane crossing the
imaginary axis. This suggests the method for determining
the D-partition boundary: its equation is found in parametric
form by replacing p by jω in the given polynomial (where
 is a variable). From this equation, the boundary may be
constructed by varying the value of  from  to .
The D-partition in the space of coefficients of
characteristic equation was considered above. Of course, in a
similar way, the D-partition for the space of any parameters
(time constants and amplification coefficients) on which the
coefficients of characteristic equation depend can be
constructed. The aim of the analysis is to isolate the region
of stability, the region D(n,0).
Now suppose the coefficients of the characteristic
equation of the system as given by equation (12) depend on
two parameters, α and β. Reducing the equation (12) to the
form
Sp  Qp  Rp  0
For example, the equation
5p 2

 p  5p  1  3  0
Can be reduced to the form,
 
 5p2  p  3  5p  1  0
In this case,
Sp  5p 2  p , Qp  3 , R p  5p  1
Putting p  j and separating the real and imaginary
parts, we get
S j  Q j  R j  u  jv
In order to construct the boundary of the D-partition, it is
necessary to determine the α and β for each , by solving
simultaneously the two equations
u  0 & v  0 (15)
If in each of them, we separate the terms containing α
and β, then we obtain a system of two equations with two
unknowns
u  S1   Q1   R1   0 (16)
v  S2   Q2   R 2   0 (17)
Solving this system of two linear algebraic equations
with respect to α and β for each value of  , we obtain
1 2
 &  (18)
 
Where
S1 Q1  R1 Q1 S1  R1
 ; 1  ; 2 
S2 Q2  R2 Q2 S2  R2
The equations u  0 and v  0 determine one
value of α and one value of β for each  only when these
equations are simultaneous and independent. If for some
value of  , the numerator and denominator become zero,
then for this value of  , one of the equations
u  0 or v  0 is a consequence of the other, and
for this value of  , we obtain not a point but a straight line
in the α-β plane. In this case, either of the equations
u  0 or v  0 is the equation of this straight line
when this value of  is substituted.
If the coefficient of the highest term of the characteristic
equation depends on the parameters α and β, then by
equating this coefficient to zero, we obtain the equation of
another straight line corresponding to    . These straight
lines are called singular or spatial lines.
In order to shade the boundary of the D-partition, we
must move along the boundary in the direction of 
(13) increasing, and shade it on the left edge at those points for
which   0 and on the right edge at those points for which
  0. Usually, the curve is traversed twice; once when 
goes from   to 0, and once when it changes from 0 to
, but it is shaded both times on the same side, since
usually the sign of ∆ changes for   0 or   . Singular
or spatial lines pass through these points most frequently.
The rule for shading the spatial lines is that near the point of
intersection of the curve and the spatial line, their shaded
sides must be directed towards one another.
IV. DESIGN OF PI VOLTAGE CONTROLLER
The DC-bus voltage control loop can be modeled with
the block diagram of Fig. 5(a). The gains and time constants
associated with the various elements of the block diagram
(14) are as follows –
4
 Tdv is the feedback-loop delay due to
sampling, processing time and feedback filter;
Kp is the gain of PI regulator;
Ti is the time-constant of PI regulator;
The inner current-control loop is modeled with the first-
order transfer function Hci given by,
I 1
H ci   (19)
I * 1  pTet

where Tet  2 and   1.5Ts .

Combining the two smallest time-constants in Fig. 5(a)

(Tdv and 2  of Hci), the equivalent time-constant Tev is
obtained as
Tev  Tdv   (20)

The block diagram of Fig. 5(a) gets simplified to as

shown in Fig. 5(b). In this case, it is assumed that there is no
DC-bus capacitor voltage unbalance, so that no current is
injected into the DC-bus neutral point (i o  0). The
capacitors C1 and C2 will be then in series and the total DC-
bus capacitance is
C1 or C 2  Fig. 6 D-partition boundary for voltage controller design for absolute
C stability
2
The DC-bus voltage in this case will be Putting p 3Ti C  p 2 C  F1 p and p  F2 p , we get

.F1 p    F2 p  0

1 1
Vo 
C 
i c dt 
C 
i d dt (23)

The open-loop transfer function is given by Now, Tev  Tdv  

 K p 1  pTi   1  1  Here, Tdv  Ts and   1.5Ts

Gs   H ov      (21)
 pTi  1  pTev  pC  Therefore, Tev  Ts  1.5Ts  2.5Ts and
6
The characteristic equation of the system is given by C  2350e F
In equation (23), putting p    j and separating the
1  GsHs  0
K p 1  pTi 
real and imaginary parts, we have
1 0 .R e F1 p  R e   R e .F2 p  0
pTi 1  pTeV .pC
(24)

Division by Kp yields, .I m F1 p  I m   I m .F2 p  0 (25)

1

1  pTi   0 From equations (24) and (25), various terms are defined
as follows:
K p pTi 1  pTi .pC
S1  R e F1 p ; Q1  R e K L  ; R1  R e F2 p
1 1
Putting
Kp
  and
Ti
 , and arranging various S2  I m F1 p; Q1  R e K L  ; R 2  I m F2 p
terms, we get Where

p 3Tev C  p 2 C    p  0 S1 Q1  R1 Q1 S1  R1
 1  2 
p T C  p C    p  0
; ; (26)
3
i
2
(22) S2 Q2  R2 Q2 S2  R2

5
 (a)

  0.0,   10.0,   100.0

(a)

(b)
Fig. 8 (a) D-partition boundaries for voltage controller design for
different values of 
(b) Transient response of voltage control loop

stability of this region having maximum number of roots in

the left half p-plane is checked by the frequency scanning
  0.0,   0.25,   1.0 technique. To check this, a point is considered in this region
(b) and ,  are substituted in the characteristic equation

Dp  F1 p  K L  F2 p

Fig. 7 Frequency scanning for voltage controller parameters
(a) Stable (b) Unstable (28)

After computing , 1 and  2 , we can
 and  as follows
1 2
 , 
 
Putting p    j in equation (27) and varying
 from  to   for constant  , the D-partitioning
boundary is plotted in    plane as shown in Fig. 6 for
  0.0. To obtain the region having maximum number of
roots in the left-half of p-plane, the D-partitioning boundary
is shaded according to the sign of the denominator of
 or ( ) as given by the equation (27). Facing the
direction in which  is increasing, the boundary curve in
   plane is shaded twice on the left side if   0 and on
the right side if   0. The inner most region is the most
probable stable region as it happens to be the region having
maximum number of roots in the left half p-plane. The
find For fixed , the locus of the vector D   j is
plotted in real-imaginary plane with the variation in . The
characteristic curve is shaded once on its left-hand side as
 increases from  to . The system is stable at this
(27)
operating point if the origin lies in the inner most shaded
region. In this case, the entire probable stable region,
determined earlier, is the stable region.
The locus of D   j for   0.0 is shown in Fig.
7(a). To ensure the stability of this region, another point is
considered outside this region and the characteristic equation
vector Dp  is plotted again. The locus of D   j at
this point, as shown in Fig. 7(b), does not enclose the origin;
hence the region outside ‘A’ is unstable in the parametric
plane. To ensure maximum relative stability,  is increased
from minimum value of zero. The D-partition boundaries for
variation in  are shown in Fig. 8(a). It is found that the
region with higher degree of stability goes on decreasing as
 is increased.

6
 The final selection of the controller parameters is done Table 1 Performance indices of voltage
by comparing the transient response of the voltage control controllers for Kp and Ti
loop at different operating points in the stable region. The Gain Time constant % Overshoot Settling-time
mathematical block diagram of Fig. 5(b) is used for Case (sec)
(Kp) (Ti)
obtaining the transient response of the system. The closed-
loop transfer function of the control loop is obtained as 1 0.02 0.1 10 1
 G o p  
Mp   
2 0.1 0.05 6 0.19l
 (29)
1  G o p H o p   3 0.5 0.04 2 0.07
Using this transfer function, the transient response of the 4 0.01 0.05 No 1.7
voltage loop for step voltage reference variation from
1.0 p.u - 1.05 p.u is obtained. For final selection of voltage
controller parameters, the transient response is computed at V. PERFORMANCE INVESTIGATION
different points (for different values of Kp and Ti) in the
A laboratory prototype of the NPC converter has been
most stable region. Few representative points are mentioned
developed and experimented. Space vector PWM is used as
in Table 1. The transient response curves at these points are
the modulation algorithm [17-20] for the converter
shown in Fig. 8(b).For minimum overshoot and settling
operation. DSP DS1104 of dSPACE [21] has been used for
time, the controller parameters chosen from Table 1 are as
the real-time implementation [22] of the designed controller
K p  0.5 and time constant Ti  0.04. Thus, the selected parameters. Fig. 9 shows the block diagram of DSP-based
transfer function of the PI voltage regulator is given by NPC rectifier implementation. Table 2 shows system
hardware details as well as the system parameters chosen for
 (1  0.04p)  experimentation of the laboratory prototype. Fig. 10 (a)
0.5  depicts the waveforms for phase voltage, line current and
 0.04p  load voltage in rectification mode of operation of the
In a similar way, inner-loop PI current controllers can be converter. As shown in the frequency spectrum of line
designed. The designed current controller parameters are current in Fig. 10 (b), the current drawn is nearly sinusoidal
K p  2 and time constant Ti  0.2 with a THD of 4.4% only. Fig. 11 (a) depicts the waveforms

Fig. 9 Block diagram of DSP-Based NPC Rectifier Implementation

7
 Table 2 System Parameters for Experimentation

S No. Item Specification/Parameters

va
1. Switches IGBT’s (IRG4PH40KD)
1200V, 20A ia
2. Clamping diodes Fast recovery diodes
(MUR 1660C)
3. Current sensors Hall effect current sensors
(TELCON HTP 25)
Transformation ratio=1000:1
4. Voltage sensors Isolation amplifier (AD
202 JN)
(a)
Gain = 1V/V to 1000V/V,
Sensing voltage range =
±1000V
5. Isolation circuit board for Toshiba Photo-coupler chip
optical isolation of DSP (6N 137)
hardware
6. IGBT driver circuits From Agilent Technologies
(HCPL-316J)
7. DSP hardware board DS1104 R&D Controller
Board of dSPACE
8. Boost Inductor L = 4.5 mH, R = 0.4 Ω
9. DC-Bus capacitors C1 = C2 = 4700 µF
10. Supply voltage 40 volts (peak), 50 Hz (b)
11. Load Ro = 15 Ω, Lo = 5 mH Fig. 11 (a) Phase A voltage and current waveforms in inversion
mode X-axis: time – 5 mS/div. Y-axis: va – 20 volts/div
12. Reference DC voltage(Vo*) 100 volts and ia – 10 A/div.
(b) Frequency spectrum of source current
13. Sampling frequency (fs) 5 kHz
Vo
100V

vc

Vo
ic
v
100V

aia

(a)
(a)
Vo
100V

va
ia

(b)
Fig. 12 (a) Load voltage, source voltage and source current waveforms
(b) for a step decrease in load X-axis: time – 20 mS/div. Y-axis:
Fig 10 (a) Phase voltage, line-current and load voltage waveforms Vo –15 volts/div, va – 20 volts/div & ia – 10 A/div.
x-axis: time – 5 mS/div. Y-axis: vc – 20 volts/div, (b) Load voltage, source voltage and source current waveforms
ic – 10A/div, Vo – 25 volts/div. for a step increase in load X-axis: time – 20 mS/div. Y-axis:
(b) Frequency spectrum of line-current Vo –15 volts/div, va – 20 volts/div & ia – 10 A/div.

8
 [11] Fukuda, S., and Matsumoto, Y., “Neutral point potential and unity
power factor control of NPC boost Converters,” Proc. Power
for phase voltage and line current waveforms in inversion Convers. Conf., vol. 1, pp. 231-236, 1997.
mode of operation of the converter. Again, the current drawn [12] Bose Bimal K., “Modern Power Electronics And AC Drives,”
is nearly sinusoidal with a THD of 4.8%, as shown in Fig. Singapore: Pearson Education, 2003.
[13] Lin B. R., Lee Y. C. and Yang T. Y., “Implementation of a Three-
11(b). Fig. 12(a) shows the load voltage, source voltage and Phase High-Power-Factor Rectifier with NPC Topology,” IEEE
line-current waveforms for load perturbation (sudden Trans. On Aerospace and Electronic Systems, vol. 40, no. 1, January
decrease of load on the converter). As can be seen, the load 2004, pp. 180-189.
voltage correction is achieved within 5 cycles after load [14] L. Yacoubi, Kamal Al-Haddad, F. Fnaiech, and L. A. Dessaint, “A
disturbance is introduced. Fig. 12(b) shows the load voltage, DSP-Based Implementation of a New Nonlinear Control for a Three-
Phase Neutral Point Clamped Boost Rectifier Prototype,” IEEE Trans.
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the controller quickly acts and brings the load voltage back improvement ac/dc converters,” Elsevier, Electric Power Systems
to the desired value within 5 cycles after the introduction of Research, vol. 78, 2008, pp. 276-289.
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designed controller parameters verify excellent closed-loop Neural-network-based Space-vector Pulse-width Modulation for a
Three-phase Neutral-point clamped High-power Factor Converter,”
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[17] M. Malinowski, “Sensorless Control Strategies for Three-phase PWM
VI. CONCLUSION Rectifiers” 2001.
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