Analysis of Power System Harmonics Using Singular
Value Decomposition, Least Square Estimation and FFT
Bilawal Rehman1, Masood Ahmad2, Jawad Hussain3
SST-UMT1, CIIT-LHR2, EED-UET3
Lahore Pakistan
eer.cbr@gmail.com1, masoodjaffar@gmail.com2, jawwd-hussain@hotmail.com3
Abstract — This research work will examine singular
value decomposition (SVD), Fast Fourier Transform
(FFT) and least square technique for the estimation of
harmonics in power system. Harmonics in power system
disturbs the quality of energy supplied to load,
increased energy losses and reduce the reliability of the
power system. In some cases, the large power converter
systems produce not only typical harmonics but also a
significant amount of inter harmonics which can
significantly deteriorate the quality of power supply
voltage. Inter harmonics are those components of
current or voltage waveform which are not integer
multiple of fundamental frequency component. Since
poor power quality cause losses in power system that’s
why researchers are working to find techniques to
estimate and control the harmonics in power system.
Singular value decomposition approach is an ideal
technique to estimate harmonics in power system
located far away. Since in most of the cases, power
system produce over determine equations which can
easily be solved using SVD for optimal solution.
Singular vector decomposition, SVD is really a
mathematical method to lessen a dataset containing an
extensive number of qualities to a dataset containing
fundamentally less values, yet which still contains a
huge portion of the variability introduce in the first
information. SVD investigation brings about a more
reduced representation of correlations, particularly
with multivariate datasets and can give knowledge into
spatial and temporal variations exhibited in the fields of
data being analysed under different circumstance.
Similarly traditional least square method is also one of
the most prominent method to estimate the line of best
fit. This research work will show the analysis of said
techniques to find the optimal approximation of noisy
and distorted wave form. To investigate effectiveness of
said techniques; simulations will be carried out in
MATLAB with same parameters.
Key Word: Singular Value Decomposition, Least
square estimation, Harmonics, Power System
I. INTRODUCTION
Variable frequency drives have become a standard
technique to control ventilation, heat, industrial
machines due to accurate control and momentous
energy savings. Converters have been used in
industrial application for years to control process [1].
In most HVAC installations, the customizable
frequency drive shares the AC power supply with
touchy electronic equipment, for example, computers,
telecommunications networks, lighting and clocks.
Delicate equipment build significantly at exploration
focuses, healing centres and so forth. A conceivable
concern in such situations could be harmonic twisting
on the AC power line created by the adjustable
frequency drive and other electrical equipment [2].
Most flexible frequency drives operate by utilizing a
bridge rectifier to change the incoming AC voltage to
DC voltage. Inverter is then used to convert this DC
voltage into an exact output AC voltage and
frequency to control the speed of the motor [3].
During rectification current can't spill out of the
rectifier into the DC bus until the input voltage is
more prominent than the DC bus voltage. This only
happens for a very short period of time for each phase.
This causes a non-sinusoidal current flow produce by
drive. Keeping in mind the end goal to exchange the
energy needed by the motor in short period of time,
the crest current must be high. It comprises of two
discrete pulses per half-period. Since the current
pulses are focused in the voltage period. The result is
that such a current waveform has an abnormal state of
harmonic distortion.
Harmonics are actually distortion of supply
waveform form ideal sinusoidal waveform. These are
due to the interaction between distorting customer
loads and impedance of the supply network. Its major
disadvantageous effects are induction motors,
transformers and capacitors’ heating and the
overloading neutrals.
Harmonic distortion is not generally due to the
operation of the power system. It is always be due to
non-linear load which draw non-sinusoidal current.
Various electronic equipment behaves differently
depending on their method of operation. Equipment
having large THD factor are not affected adversely
but equipment with low THD factor are severely
damaged. In most of the cases harmonics cause
overheating which results increased degradation of
insulation and could cause damage to life. Also
harmonics cause malfunctioning of sensitive data’s substructure more clearly and orders it from
electronic equipment. higher variation to the lower.

Quite a large number of single-phase distorting
loads causes harmonics which may extend to three
phases, for example, happens in high-rise office
buildings; harmonics can cause neutral currents which
can surpass dynamic line current. At the point where
the harmonics are truant, the neutral carries a little
current; this thing has been in practice that the neutral
is rated for full or at-least major part of the live line
current which is not less then half. With unnecessary
harmonics’ level caused by loads in single phase,
there is the danger of overloading of neutral with
these two conceivable results:
Overheating of the neutral wire which leads to the
loss of conductor’s life and conceivable danger of fire.
There are few claims which state that the huge
neutral- earth voltages can influence the modern
digital equipment if earthing system’s design is not
good.
Transformers and PFI (Power Factor
Improvement) capacitors are highly affected by
harmonics that came with supply in power system
substations. Transformer are affected by un-even
current waveform that leads to extra heating and
causes the reduction of their service life. The applied
voltage waveform affects the capacitor which leads to
the overheating of dielectric and it increases the
explosion risk. So harmonic effect leads to the over-
heating of equipment, minimizes service life to as low
as half and risk of life and property that results in
considerable losses in terms of economy.
In this research work a noisy power signal will be
examined using singular value decomposition (SVD),
reduced SVD, Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) and least
square technique for the estimation of harmonics in
power system. Graphical results will be shown to
verify the accuracy of techniques.
The most notable point of singular value
decomposition is that we can simply ignore variation
below a certain threshold which reduces our data
massively but we have to make sure that the actual
relationship of interest should be preserved.
We can drive singular value decomposition
theorem using simple algebraic concepts which states
that an ordinary rectangular matrix ‫ܣ‬can be expressed
as the product of three matrices.
ܷis orthogonal matrix (ܷ ் ܷ ൌ ‫)ܫ‬
‫ ܦ‬is diagonal matrix
ܸ ் is transpose U, the orthogonal matrix (ܸ ் ܸ ൌ
‫)ܫ‬
SVD is normally expressed by following equation
‫ܣ‬௠௡ ൌ ܷ௠௠ ‫ܦ‬௠௡ ܸ௡௡ ்
Orthogonal eigenvalues of ‫ ்ܣܣ‬and ‫ ܣ ்ܣ‬are the
column vectors ofܷ and ܸ respectively, whereas ‫ ܦ‬is
a diagonal matrix having the square roots of
eigenvalues from ܷ or ܸ in descending order. By
applying Gram-Schmidt orthonormalization method
we can convert a matrix into an orthogonal matrix.
In order to estimate a noisy signal using SVD
technique we have to apply above equation on
characteristic equation of signal. Consider a noisy
signal
‫ݔ‬ሺ‫ݐ‬ሻ ൌ ͷͲ …‘•ሺʹߨͷͲ‫ݐ‬ሻ ൅ ͺͲ …‘•ሺʹߨʹ͹ͷ‫ݐ‬ሻ
൅ ͳͲͲ…‘•ሺʹߨͳʹͷ‫ݐ‬ሻ
Shown in figure 1.

II.SINGULAR VALUE DECOMPOSITION

Singular value decomposition is a technique in

mathematics to transform correlated variable into
uncorrelated set of variables which expose original
behaviour, to identify set of data points which exhibits
most variation and to approximate original data into
fewer dimensions [8].

The basic idea behind the singular value

decomposition is transformation of a high
dimensional, largely variable set of data points into a Figure 1
lower dimensional space that exposes the original
 The signal contains basic frequency component of
50 Hz, higher frequency 275 Hz and inter harmonics
of 125 Hz. Applying SVD technique to ‫ݔ‬ሺ‫ݐ‬ሻ we get
Figure 2
Figure 2 follows that Singular value
decomposition is a suitable approach to estimate a
signal. Applying Chirp Z-Transform to SVD signal
we can estimate signal frequency and higher
harmonics.
௟
‫ܪ‬ሺ‫ݖ‬ሻ ൌ ͳ െ ෍ ݄௜ ‫ି ݖ‬௜
௜ୀଵ
Here ݄௜ is the sampled signal of SVD estimation.
Figure 3
Figure 3 follows the frequency spectrum of
estimated signal. Taking positive values of frequency
spectrum we can illustrate the frequency components
of power signal as shown in figure 4.
Figure 4
Many more simulations have been taken into
account and results are shown in figure 5.
Figure 5
III. FAST FOURIER TRANSFORM
Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) is a type of Fourier
Transform that deals in the transformation of time
data points’ block. It speaks to the frequency
composition of the time signal. Fourier series is
actually gives an alternative way to represent the data.
We can represent a signal by the amount of
information at different frequencies instead of
expressing the signal as function of amplitude and
time. Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) is the most
commonly used systems in the field of Electrical
Engineering to analyse the frequency behaviour of
different signals. On other hand Fourier series states
that a signal can be represented by infinite series
expressing sum of •‹‡•and …‘•‹‡•of different
frequencies

ஶ
݂ሺ‫ݐ‬ሻ ൌ ܽ௢ ൅ ෍ሺܽ௡ •‹ሺʹߨ݊‫ݐ‬ሻ ൅ ܾ௡ …‘•ሺʹߨ݊‫ݐ‬ሻሻ
௡ୀଵ
݂ሺ‫ݐ‬ሻ represents the signal in time domain, and ܽ௡
and ܾ௡ are unknown coefficients of the series.
Figure 6 follows the Fourier transform of above
mentioned signal. We can easily see that singular
value decomposition is effective technique to estimate
frequency component of noisy signal. The error
between singular value decomposition and Fourier
transform is show in figure 7.
Figure 6
Figure 7
Figure 7 clearly explains the accuracy of singular
value decomposition technique to estimate harmonics
in power systems while FFT fails to calculate the
correct amplitude of frequency components in noisy
signal.
IV. LEAST SQUARE ESTIMATION
Least square estimation is a traditional technique
about estimating parameters by minimizing the
squared differences between actual value and
observed value of data under consideration. The least
squares technique is actually a computationally
convenient measure of best fit. It corresponds to
maximum possibility estimation when the noise is
normally distributed over the signal. Figure 8 shows
the least square estimation of above mention signal
[8].
Figure 8
Figure 9 indicates the moving average estimation
of above signal with lower noise.
Figure 9
Fourier transform of estimated moving average
signal can be seen in figure 10.

Figure 10
We can see form figure 10 that moving average
fails to determine all frequency components of power
signal. However singular value decomposition
efficiently point out the all frequency components of
signal.
V. CONCLUSION
In this research work various mathematical
techniques to estimate harmonics of power signal
have been analysed. All the simulations have been
carried out in MATLAB with a same signal. Results
show that all techniques have their own features but it
has been clear from results that singular value
decomposition technique to estimate harmonics in
power signal is more efficient as compared to other
presented techniques in literature.
VI. REFERENCES
[1] Integral energy, “Harmonic distortion in the electric
supply system”- 2000
[2] “Preliminary Study of a New Approach to NMF Based
Text Summarization Fused with Anaphora Resolution”,
TICKDD -2010
[3] “Harmonic Distortion of the AC Power Line” by
danfoss-2011
[4] Kirk Baker, “Singular Value Decomposition Tutorial”,
2005
[5] Carbone D. Menniti, N. Sorrentino A. Testa, “Iterative
Harmonic and Interharmonic Analysis in Multiconverter
Industrial Systems”
[6] T. Lobos, T. Kozina , H.-J. Koglin ,“Power System
Harmonics Estimation Using Linear Least Squares Method
and SVD”
[7] T. Lobos and J. Rezmer ,Real-Time Determination of
Power System Frequency”, IEEE Trans., Instrument. And
Measurement, February 1991.
[8] Sara A. Van De Geer, “Least Squares Estimation” 2005