IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL INFORMATICS, VOL. 10, NO.
1, FEBRUARY 2014
An Effective Control Method for Quasi-Z-Source
Cascade Multilevel Inverter-Based Grid-Tie
Single-Phase Photovoltaic Power System
Yushan Liu, Student Member, IEEE, Baoming Ge, Member, IEEE, Haitham Abu-Rub, Senior Member, IEEE,
and Fang Z. Peng, Fellow, IEEE
Abstract—An effective control method, including system-level
control and pulsewidth modulation for quasi-Z-source cascade
multilevel inverter (qZS-CMI) based grid-tie photovoltaic (PV)
power system is proposed. The system-level control achieves the
grid-tie current injection, independent maximum power point
tracking (MPPT) for separate PV panels, and dc-link voltage bal-
ance for all quasi-Z-source H-bridge inverter (qZS-HBI) modules.
The complete design process is disclosed. A multilevel space vector
modulation (SVM) for the single-phase qZS-CMI is proposed
to fulfill the synthetization of the step-like voltage waveforms.
Simulation and experiment based on a seven-level prototype are
carried out to validate the proposed methods.
Index Terms—Cascade multilevel inverter (CMI), photovoltaic
(PV) power system, quasi-Z-source inverter, space vector modula-
tion (SVM).
I. INTRODUCTION
A recent upsurge in the study of photovoltaic (PV) power
generation emerges, since they directly convert the solar
radiation into electric power without hampering the environ-
ment. However, the stochastic fluctuation of solar power is in-
consistent with the desired stable power injected to the grid,
owing to variations of solar irradiation and temperature. To fully
exploit the solar energy, extracting the PV panels’ maximum
power and feeding them into grids at unity power factor be-
come the most important. The contributions have been made by
the cascade multilevel inverter (CMI) [1], [2]. Nevertheless, the
H-bridge inverter (HBI) module lacks boost function so that the
Manuscript received October 17, 2012; revised January 31, 2013; accepted
August 20, 2013. Date of publication August 29, 2013; date of current version
December 12, 2014. This work was supported by the Qatar National Research
Fund, a member of Qatar Foundation, under Grant NPRP-EP X-033-2-007.
Paper no. TII-12-0726.
Y. Liu is with the School of Electrical Engineering, Beijing Jiaotong Uni-
versity, Beijing 100044, China, and also with the Department of Electrical and
Computer Engineering, Texas A&M University at Qatar, Doha 23874, Qatar
(e-mail: yushan.liu@qatar.tamu.edu).
B. Ge is with the School of Electrical Engineering, Beijing Jiaotong Uni-
versity, Beijing 100044, China, and also with the Department of Electrical and
Computer Engineering, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824
USA (e-mail: gebaoming@tsinghua.org.cn; bm-ge@263.net).
H. Abu-Rub is with the Department of Electrical and Computer En-
gineering, Texas A&M University at Qatar, Doha 23874, Qatar (e-mail:
haitham.abu-rub@qatar.tamu.edu).
F. Z. Peng is with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering,
Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824 USA (e-mail: fzpeng@egr.
msu.edu).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TII.2013.2280083
1551-3203 © 2013 IEEE
399
inverter KVA rating requirement has to be increased twice with
a PV voltage range of 1:2; and the different PV panel output
voltages result in imbalanced dc-link voltages. The extra dc–dc
boost converters were coupled to PV panel and HBI of the CMI
to implement separate maximum power point tracking (MPPT)
and dc-link voltage balance [3], [4]. However, each HBI module
is a two-stage inverter, and many extra dc–dc converters not
only increase the complexity of the power circuit and control
and the system cost, but also decrease the efficiency.
Recently, the Z-source/quasi-Z-source cascade multilevel
inverter (ZS/qZS-CMI)-based PV systems were proposed in
[5]–[8]. They possess the advantages of both traditional CMI
and Z-source topologies. For example, the ZS/qZS-CMI: 1)
has high-quality staircase output voltage waveforms with
lower harmonic distortions, and reduces/eliminates output filter
requirements for the compliance of grid harmonic standards;
2) requires power semiconductors with a lower rating, and
greatly saves the costs; 3) shows modular topology that each
inverter has the same circuit topology, control structure and
modulation [1], [2]; 4) most important of all, has indepen-
dent dc-link voltage compensation with the special voltage
step-up/down function in a single-stage power conversion of
Z-source/quasi-Z-source network, which allows an independent
control of the power delivery with high reliability [9]–[11]; and
5) can fulfill the distributed MPPT [6], [8].
In order to properly operate the ZS/qZS-CMI, the power
injection, independent control of dc-link voltages, and the
pulsewidth modulation (PWM) are necessary. The work in
[5] and [7] focused on the parameter design of the ZS/qZS
networks and the analysis of efficiency. The work in [8] pre-
sented the whole control algorithm, i.e., the MPPT control of
separate quasi-Z-source H-bridge inverter (qZS-HBI) module,
and the grid-injected power control, whereas the phase-shifted
sinewave PWM (PS-SPWM) is the only existing PWM tech-
nique for the single-phase ZS/qZS-CMI. The PS-SPWM
consumes more resources to achieve the shoot-through states
because two more references are compared with the carrier
waveform. Additionally, the ZS/qZS-CMI based grid-tie
PV system has never been modeled in detail to design the
controllers.
The main contributions of this paper include: 1) a novel mul-
tilevel space vector modulation (SVM) technique for the single-
phase qZS-CMI is proposed, which is implemented without ad-
ditional resources; 2) a grid-connected control for the qZS-CMI
based PV system is proposed, where the all PV panel voltage
references from their independent MPPTs are used to control
the grid-tie current; the dual-loop dc-link peak voltage control
400 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL INFORMATICS, VOL. 10, NO. 1, FEBRUARY 2014

is employed in every qZS-HBI module to balance the dc-link

voltages; 3) the design process of regulators is completely pre-
sented to achieve fast response and good stability; and 4) simu-
lation and experimental results verify the proposed PWM algo-
rithm and control scheme.
This paper is organized as follows. An overview of the
whole system with control strategy is presented in Section II.
Section III focuses on the system modeling and grid-connected
control. Section IV addresses the proposed multilevel SVM
technique. Section V designs the regulators; the proposed
strategy is verified by simulation and experimental results in
Section VI. Finally, a conclusion is given in Section VII. Note
that, in the derivations of the paper, all of the symbols with “ ”
denote the amplitude, and those with “ ” denote the average.
II. DESCRIPTION OF QZS-CMI-BASED GRID-TIE
PV POWER SYSTEM
Fig. 1 shows the discussed qZS-CMI-based grid-tie PV power
system. The total output voltage of the inverter is a series sum-
mation of qZS-HBI cell voltages. Each cell is fed by an inde-
pendent PV panel. The individual PV power source is an array
composed of identical PV panels in parallel and series. A typ-
ical PV model in [12] is performed by considering both the solar
irradiation and the PV panel temperature.
A. qZS-CMI
The qZS-CMI combines the qZS network into each HBI
module. When the th qZS-HBI is in nonshoot-through states,
it will work as a traditional HBI. There are

(1)

while in shoot-through states, the qZS-HBI module does not

contribute voltage. There are
(2)
For the qZS-CMI, the synthesized voltage is

(3)
Fig. 1. (a) qZS-CMI based grid-tie PV power system. (b) DC-link peak voltage
where is the output voltage of the th PV array; is control.
the dc-link voltage of the th qZS-HBI module; and
represent the shoot-through duty ratio and boost factor of the
th qZS-HBI, respectively, is the output voltage of the th 1) Total PV array voltage loop adjusts the sum of PV array
module, and is the switching function of the voltages tracking the sum of PV array voltage references
th qZS-HBI. by using a proportional and integral (PI) regulator .
Each PV array voltage reference is from its MPPT control
B. Control Strategy independently.
The control objectives of the qZS-CMI based grid-tie PV 2) Grid-tie current loop ensures a sinusoidal grid-injected cur-
system are: 1) the distributed MPPT to ensure the maximum rent in phase with the grid voltage. The total PV array
power extraction from each PV array; 2) the power injection voltage loop outputs the desired amplitude of grid-injected
to the grid at unity power factor with low harmonic distortion; current. A Proportional + Resonant (PR) regulator enforces
3) the same dc-link peak voltage for all qZS-HBI modules. The the actual grid current to track the desired grid-injected ref-
overall control scheme of Fig. 1 is proposed to fulfill these erence. The current loop output’s total modulation signal
purposes. subtracts the modulation signal sum of the second, third,
For achieving the first two goals, the closed loops are , and th qZS-HBI modules to get the first qZS-HBI
employed, as Fig. 1(a) shows. module’s modulation signal.
LIU et al.: EFFECTIVE CONTROL METHOD FOR qZS-CMI-BASED GRID-TIE SINGLE-PHASE PHOTOVOLTAIC POWER SYSTEM 401

Fig. 2. Block diagram of the proposed grid-tie control with the model for the qZS-CMI based PV system.

3) The separate PV array voltage loops regulate the A PR regulator [13]

other PV array voltages to achieve their own MPPTs
through the PI regulators, such as to , (7)
respectively. With the total PV array voltage loop con-
trol, the PV arrays fulfill the distributed MPPT. In ad- is employed to enforce the actual grid-injected current to track
dition, the voltage feed forward control is used to generate the desired reference.
each qZS-HBI module’s modulation signal, which will re- With a grid voltage feed forward control, the th qZS-HBI
duce the regulators’ burden, achieve the fast dynamic module has the modulation signal
response, and minimize the grid voltage’s impact on the
grid-tie current. (8)
For the third goal, the dc-link peak voltage is adjusted in terms with
of its shoot-through duty ratio for each qZS-HBI module, as
Fig. 1(b) shows. A proportional ( ) regulator is employed in (9)
the inductor current loop to improve the dynamic response,
and a PI regulator of the dc-link voltage loop ensures the dc-link where is the regulated modulation signal from the separate
peak voltage tracking the reference. voltage control of the th module, as Fig. 2 shows.
Finally, the independent modulation signals and shoot- From (8) and (9), we have
through duty ratios of the qZS-CMI, ,
are combined into the proposed multilevel SVM to achieve the
desired purposes.

III. SYSTEM MODELING AND CONTROL
Fig. 2 shows block diagram of the proposed grid-tie con-
trol with the system model for the qZS-CMI based PV power
system. The details will be explained as follows.
(10)
At the dc-link peak voltage balance control, all dc-link peak
voltages are the same. The qZS-HBI modules have the same
transfer function, and we assume

A. Grid-Tie Current Loop (11)

The th qZS-HBI module has following dynamic: Using (6)–(11), the grid-injected current will be

(4) (12)

where is the current of qZS inductor , is the th PV Then, the current loop of Fig. 2 is simplified to Fig. 3, and the
array’s current, and is the capacitance of PV array terminal open-loop transfer function can be obtained as
capacitor.
The qZS-CMI based grid-tie PV system has
(13)
(5)
With the compensation of the PR regulator, the transfer func-
where is the grid voltage, is the grid-injected current, tion becomes
is the filter inductance, and is its parasitic resistance. The
transfer function of the grid-injected current can be

(6) (14)
402 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL INFORMATICS, VOL. 10, NO. 1, FEBRUARY 2014

Fig. 3. Simplified block diagram of the grid-current closed loop.

Fig. 4. Block diagram of total PV voltage loop.

Consequently, the closed-loop transfer function of grid-tie cur-

rent control can be obtained in (15), shown at the bottom of the
page.

B. PV Voltage Loop
From (4), we have Fig. 5. Block diagram of separate PV voltage loop.

(16)
If is considered as disturbance, with (20) and Fig. 4, the
In addition, the output power of each qZS-HBI module transfer function of the total PV array voltage loop is given by
equals to its input power in the nonshoot-through state, the th (21), shown at the bottom of the page, where the coefficients
qZS-HBI module has the power equation and are

(17)

where is the average current of inductor in non-

shoot-through state. Using (1), can be solved as
(22)
(18)
The PI regulator is applied to track
In the shoot-through state, the average current of inductor the total reference voltage coming from MPPT algorithm. Thus,
can be expressed as the open-loop transfer function of total PV voltage loop after
compensation can be obtained by
(19)

Combining (18) and (19), the average current of inductor (23)

is
where

(20)

Then, the block diagrams of total and separate PV voltage loops

can be obtained in Figs. 4 and 5.

(15)

(21)
LIU et al.: EFFECTIVE CONTROL METHOD FOR qZS-CMI-BASED GRID-TIE SINGLE-PHASE PHOTOVOLTAIC POWER SYSTEM 403

Fig. 6. Block diagram of the th module’s dc-link peak voltage control.

The closed-loop transfer function is

(24)
Fig. 7. Proposed multilevel SVM for the single-phase qZS-CMI. (a) Switching
where and pattern of one qZS-HBI module. (b) Synthetization of voltage vectors for the
qZS-CMI.
.
Similarly, from Fig. 5, the transfer function of the th
and the closed-loop transfer function
qZS-HBI module’s PV voltage loop, , is

(30)

IV. PROPOSED MULTILEVEL SVM FOR QZS-CMI

(25)
which is compensated by PI regulator
. Then, the resultant open-loop transfer function of the
th qZS-HBI module’s PV voltage loop becomes
As the qZS network is embedded to the HBI module, the
SVM for each qZS-HBI can be achieved by modifying the SVM
technique for the traditional single-phase inverter [15]. Using
the first qZS-HBI module of Fig. 1 as an example, the voltage
vector reference is created through the two vectors and
, by

(31)

(26) where and is the carrier frequency; the time in-

Also, the closed-loop transfer function is obtained as terval is the duration of active vectors, and is the duration
of traditional zero voltage space vectors. Thus, the switching
(27) times for the left and right bridge legs in traditional HBI are
. However, the shoot-through
states are required for the independent qZS-HBI module.
C. DC-Link Voltage Control For this purpose, a delay of the switching times for upper
switches or a lead of the switching times for lower switches
The independent dc-link peak voltage control based on the in- are employed at the transition moments, as Fig. 7(a) shows.
ductor- current and the capacitor- voltage is performed for During each control cycle, the total time of shoot-through
each qZS-HBI module, as Fig. 1(b) shows. From [14], the th zero state is equally divided into four parts. The time intervals
qZS-HBI module’s transfer functions from the shoot-through of and remain un-
duty ratio to the dc-link peak voltage, , and from the changed; and
shoot-through duty ratio to the inductor- current, , are the modified times to generate the shoot-through states;
can be obtained, respectively. and are the switching control signals for the upper switches,
With the employed proportional regulator at the coefficient and are that for the lower switches, .
for the inductor current loop, as the block diagram of In this way, the shoot-through states are distributed into the
Fig. 6 shows, the closed-loop transfer function of inductor qZS-HBI module without additional switching actions, losses,
current can be obtained by and resources.
To generate the step-like ac output voltage waveform from
(28) the qZS-CMI, a phase difference, in which is the
number of reference voltage vectors in each cycle, is employed
A PI regulator with the transfer function of between any two adjacent voltage vectors, as Fig. 7(b) shows.
is cascaded to the inductor current loop for The total voltage vector is composed of reference vectors
controlling the dc-link peak voltage, as shown in Fig. 6. There- from the qZS-HBI modules.
fore, the th qZS-HBI module’s dc-link peak voltage control
V. CONTROL PARAMETER DESIGN
has the open-loop transfer function
The prototype specifications of qZS-CMI based PV power
(29) system are shown in Table I. For the grid-connected current
404 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL INFORMATICS, VOL. 10, NO. 1, FEBRUARY 2014

TABLE I
PROTOTYPE SPECIFICATIONS

Fig. 9. Bode diagrams of (a) and ; and (b) and

.

TABLE II
CONTROL PARAMETERS

Fig. 10. Bode diagrams of (a) and and (b)

and .

Fig. 9(a) shows the Bode plots of total PV voltage control

loop transfer functions and , which cor-
respond to before and after compensation, respectively. The
39.1-dB gain margin and 90.5 phase margin show an un-
stable . By using the zero-pole assignment of ,
the compensated transfer function presents stable
features, which is also verified from the Bode plots of the closed-
loop transfer function .
Similarly, the Bode plots of separate PV voltage control are
shown in Fig. 9(b). From Fig. 9(b) and (25), we know that
the is not stable. Compensated by the PI regulator
Fig. 8. Bode diagrams of and . , an 87.5 phase margin is shown in . The
closed-loop transfer function also confirms its stable
feature.
Fig. 10 shows the Bode plots of transfer functions for each
loop, the PR regulator parameters are designed to get a fast dy-
module’s dc-link peak voltage control loop. When using a pro-
namic and zero-steady state error at the grid frequency [13].
portional gain , the inductor current shows a faster
The fast dynamic response and stable steady-state performance
response without loss of the stability, as shown in Fig. 10(a).
are taken into account to design the control parameters for total
From Fig. 10(b), the dc-link peak voltage closed-loop’s stability
PV voltage control loop, separate PV voltage control loop, and
is greatly improved by decreasing the crossover frequency. As
dc-link voltage control loop. The design results are shown in
a result, the closed-loop transfer function presents a
Table II, and all of the Bode plots are shown in Figs. 8–10.
fast and robust characteristic.
Fig. 8 shows the Bode plots of the grid-tie current loop
transfer functions and , which are before and
after compensation, respectively. The symbol is the corner VI. SIMULATION AND EXPERIMENTAL VERIFICATIONS
frequency of , which equals from (6); is the
resonant frequency of the PR regulator, i.e., grid frequency of A seven-level qZS-CMI for grid-connected PV power system
314 rad/s. After compensation, provides a large gain is prototyped. Two Agilent E4360A Solar Array Simulators
inside its bandpass region, making the crossover frequency al- (SAS) are used to emulate the electrical behavior of PV arrays.
most tenfold the corner frequency . Thus, the grid-connected Each SAS has two channel outputs, and each channel is with
fast response is greatly enhanced without loss of stability, maximum 120-V maximum power point (MPP) voltage ( )
which can be obtained from the bode diagram of closed-loop and 5-A MPP current ( ). Simulation and experimental
transfer function . results are shown in Figs. 11–15.
LIU et al.: EFFECTIVE CONTROL METHOD FOR qZS-CMI-BASED GRID-TIE SINGLE-PHASE PHOTOVOLTAIC POWER SYSTEM 405

Fig. 11. Simulation results of qZS-CMI at different PV array voltages.

A. DC-Link Voltage Balance Test

The different PV array voltages are performed for the three
qZS-HBI modules. The second module’s PV voltage is set
to 70 V and the others are at 90 V. A 50- resistor is used as ac
load in this test. All of the voltages in experimental results are
100 V/div.
From (1), the 136-V dc-link voltage of qZS-HBI module is
required to support the 230-V grid. Fig. 11 shows the simula-
tion results, where the second module’s dc-link peak voltage is Fig. 12. Experimental results of qZS-CMI at different PV array voltages.
boosted to the same voltage value when compared with other (a) Two modules’ PV array voltages and dc-link voltages. (b) Two PV array
voltages, seven-level output voltage, and load current.
modules, but with a longer shoot-through time interval. Also,
the qZS-CMI outputs the seven-level voltage with equal voltage
step from one level to another level.
Fig. 12 shows the experimental results. We can find that the
same qZS-CMI output voltages and currents are achieved in
Fig. 11 (or Fig. 12), which is derived from the designed dc-link
peak voltage control.

B. Grid-Tie Investigation
The qZS-CMI is connected to the grid in order to test the
proposed grid-tie control. Fig. 13 shows the PV array’s power-
voltage characteristics. The measured PV array voltage and cur-
rent of each module are used to calculate the actual PV power
and the MPPT algorithm searches for the PV voltage reference
at the MPP, which is refreshed every 0.05 s. Here, the perturba-
tion and observation (P&O) MPPT strategy is applied in consid-
ering the excellent tracking efficiency and easy implementation
[16].
At first, the three modules are all working at 900 W/m , and Fig. 13. PV array power–voltage characteristic.
all of the initial voltage references of MPPT algorithms are
given at 105 V from Fig. 13. The second module’s irradiation
decreases to 700 W/m from 1 to 2 s in simulation. Fig. 14 shows even though the second module’s PV irradiation changes after
the simulation results. In the experiments, the same test condi- 1 s, the still tracks the reference very well after a very short
tions of irradiation and temperature can be implemented by set- transient.
ting the curves of Agilent SAS. Fig. 15 shows the experimental Fig. 14(c) and (d) shows that the grid-injected current is
results. exactly in phase with the grid voltage even at the irradiation
Fig. 14(a) shows the total PV voltage (sum of three PV panel changing moment. The solar irradiation does not affect the
voltages) and reference, PV panel voltages and references of seven-level staircase output voltage of qZS-CMI, but the lower
modules 2 and 3, respectively. irradiation makes the grid-injected current reduced.
Fig. 14(b) is the enlarged detail of Fig. 14(a). It can be seen The identical experimental results are shown in Fig. 15. As
that the excellent tracking performance is achieved during 0–1 s; in Fig. 15(a), the lower solar irradiation reduces the second
406
Fig. 14. Simulation results at the grid-tie case. (a), (b) For PV voltages at
MPPT. (c), (d) For qZS-CMI output voltage, grid voltage, and current.
module’s PV panel current, the first and third modules’ PV
panel currents are not changed due to their constant irradiations.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL INFORMATICS, VOL. 10, NO. 1, FEBRUARY 2014
Fig. 15. Experimental results at the grid-tie case. (a) Three PV panel currents.
(b) Second module’s PV panel voltage, qZS-CMI output voltage, grid voltage,
and the grid-injected current. (c) Results zoomed in when the second module’s
PV irradiation changes from 900 to 700 W/m .
The second module’s low irradiation causes the system power
reduced, so the grid-injected current decreases, as Fig. 15(c)
shows. No matter the solar irradiation changes or not, the
qZS-CMI always outputs consistent voltage, which verifies
the voltage balance ability. In simulation and experiments, the
irradiation change may be derived from the shading of cloud
or other objects. Figs. 14 and 15 validate the proposed control
methods.
VII. CONCLUSION
This paper proposed a control method for qZS-CMI based
single-phase grid-tie PV system. The grid-injected power was
fulfilled at unity power factor, all qZS-HBI modules separately
achieved their own maximum power points tracking even if
LIU et al.: EFFECTIVE CONTROL METHOD FOR qZS-CMI-BASED GRID-TIE SINGLE-PHASE PHOTOVOLTAIC POWER SYSTEM
some modules’ PV panels had different conditions. Moreover,
the independent dc-link voltage closed-loop control ensured all
qZS-HBI modules have the balanced voltage, which provided
the high quality output voltage waveform to the grid. The con-
trol parameters were well designed to ensure system stability
and fast response. A multilevel SVM integrating with shoot-
through states was proposed to synthesize the staircase voltage
waveform of the single-phase qZS-CMI.
The simulation and experiment were carried out on the
seven-level qZS-CMI prototype. The qZS-CMI based grid-tie
PV system was tested. The simulation and experimental results
verified the proposed qZS-CMI based grid-tie PV power system
and the proposed control method.
In principle, the proposed system can work with the weak
grid, even though this paper did not address this topic. In future
work, we will focus on the application to the weak grid, and the
detailed analysis and experimental results will be disclosed in
the next paper.
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Yushan Liu (S’12) received the B.Sc. degree in
automation from the Beijing Institute of Technology,
Beijing, China, in 2008. She is currently working
toward the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering
at the School of Electrical Engineering, Beijing
Jiaotong University, Beijing.
She is also currently a Research Assistant with the
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering,
Texas A&M University at Qatar, Doha, Qatar. Her
research interests include modeling and control of
Z-source inverters, cascade multilevel inverters, PV
power generation, and battery energy storage.
Baoming Ge (M’11) received the Ph.D. degree in
electrical engineering from Zhejiang University,
Hangzhou, China, in 2000.
He was a Postdoctoral Researcher with the Depart-
ment of Electrical Engineering, Tsinghua University,
Beijing, China, from 2000 to 2002, was a Visiting
Scholar with the Department of Electrical and Com-
puter Engineering, University of Coimbra, Coimbra,
Portugal, from 2004 to 2005, and was a Visiting Pro-
fessor with the Department of Electrical and Com-
puter Engineering (ECE), Michigan State University
(MSU), East Lansing, MI, USA, from 2007 to 2008. He is currently with the
ECE of MSU as well as a Professor with the School of Electrical Engineering,
Beijing Jiaotong University, Beijing, which he joined in 2002. His research in-
terests include renewable energy power generation, electrical machines and con-
trol, power electronics systems, and control theories and applications.
Haitham Abu-Rub (M’99–SM’07) received the
M.Sc. degree in electrical engineering from Gdynia
Marine Academy, Gdynia, Poland, in 1990, and
the Ph.D. degree from the Gdansk University of
Technology, Gdansk, Poland, in 1995.
For eight years, he was with Birzeit University,
Birzeit, Palestine, where he was first an Assistant
Professor and then an Associate Professor and was
the Chairman of the Electrical Engineering Depart-
ment for four years. He is currently a Full Professor
with the Department of Electrical and Computer
Engineering, Texas A&M University at Qatar, Doha, Qatar. His main research
interests are the electrical machine drives and power electronics.
Dr. Abu-Rub was a recipient of many international prestigious awards, such
as the American Fulbright Scholarship (at Texas A&M University, College Sta-
tion), the German Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship (at Wuppertal Univer-
sity, Wuppertal, Germany), the German DAAD Scholarship (at Ruhr University
Bochum, Bochum, Germany), and the British Royal Society Scholarship (at the
University of Southampton, Southampton, U.K.).
Fang Z. Peng, photograph and biography not available at the time of
publication.