IEEE JOURNAL OF EMERGING AND SELECTED TOPICS IN POWER ELECTRONICS, VOL. 7, NO.
1, MARCH 2019 309
A Novel Model Predictive Control Strategy to
Eliminate Zero-Sequence Circulating Current
in Paralleled Three-Level Inverters
Xiaodong Wang , Student Member, IEEE, Jianxiao Zou , Member, IEEE, Jiancheng Zhao,
Chuan Xie , Member, IEEE, Kai Li , Member, IEEE, Hafiz Mudassir Munir,
and Josep M. Guerrero , Fellow, IEEE
Abstract— The main contribution of this paper is the proposal
of a novel finite control set model predictive control (MPC)-based
zero-sequence circulating current (ZSCC) elimination strategy
for parallel operating three-level inverters without any modifica-
tion or extra hardware on the three-level inverters. An equivalent
model of the ZSCC is first developed, and the voltage differences
of common-mode voltages (CMVs) among paralleled inverters as
well as those of the neutral point potentials (NPPs) are proved
to be the exciting sources of the ZSCC. With the analysis,
an MPC-based zero CMV method (ZCMV-MPC) is presented to
reduce the difference of CMVs among the paralleled inverters,
meanwhile, an active NPP perturbation-based ZSCC feedback
control method is proposed to further eliminate the ZSCC,
that may be caused by dead-time effects and the asymmetries
of both hardware and control parameters. With the proposed
method, the ZSCC between paralleled inverters can be eliminated
effectively, and both grid current tracking and NPP balance
control can also achieve satisfactory performances. Simulation
and experimental results supported the theoretical study and
verified the effectiveness of the proposed scheme.
Index Terms— Common-mode voltage (CMV), model predic-
tive control (MPC), neutral point potentials (NPPs), three-level
inverters, zero-sequence circulating current (ZSCC).
I. I NTRODUCTION
N OWADAYS, the parallel configuration of inverters is
widely used in high-power applications to extend the
power capacity [1]–[3]. Although the parallel configuration
of inverters has the advantages of the higher reliability and
lower output current harmonics [4]–[6], it will suffer from
the zero-sequence circulating current (ZSCC) because of
Manuscript received January 8, 2018; revised September 24, 2018; accepted
October 28, 2018. Date of publication November 6, 2018; date of current
version February 11, 2019. This work was supported by the National
Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant 51807021 and Grant
51707030. Recommended for publication by Associate Editor Marco Rivera.
(Corresponding author: Jianxiao Zou.)
X. Wang is with the School of Automation Engineering, University of
Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu 611731, China, and
also with the Institute of Materials, China Academy of Engineering Physics,
Mianyang 621000, China (e-mail: xiaodong0714@foxmail.com).
J. Zou, J. Zhao, C. Xie, K. Li, and H. Mudassir Munir are with
the School of Automation Engineering, University of Electronic Science
and Technology of China, Chengdu 611731, China (e-mail: jxzou@
uestc.edu.cn; zjclyc@qq.com; c.xie@uestc.edu.cn; autolikai@gmail.com;
hafiz585@gmail.com).
J. M. Guerrero is with the Department of Energy Technology, Aalborg
University, 9220 Aalborg, Denmark (e-mail: joz@et.aau.dk).
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/JESTPE.2018.2879645
2168-6777 © 2018 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
the low-impedance loop induced by direct connections of
the inverters to the dc and ac buses and the asymmetries
of the control and hardware parameters between paralleled
inverters [7]. The existence of the ZSCC may degrade the
quality of output current, increase power losses, and even
endanger the parallel system [8], [9]. Therefore, effective
methods are necessary to be developed to suppress the ZSCC
in paralleled inverters and improve the system performances.
Numerous research works have been carried out and great
achievements are achieved in the field of the ZSCC elimination
of the modular paralleled system in the past few years. Using
separated dc power sources or isolated ac bus to cut off
the ZSCC path is one of the simplest ways to eliminate
the ZSCC [10]–[12]. However, it will increase the cost and
volume of the parallel system. Another way is to provide
the high impedance at the medium and high frequencies for
the ZSCC of the parallel system by inserting common induc-
tors [2] or interphase reactors [13], [14]. However, the perfor-
mance at low frequencies is poor and additional inductors also
increase the cost and volume. In [15], the voltage difference of
common-mode voltages (CMVs) between paralleled inverters
is proven to be the exciting source of the ZSCC, and a
ZSCC feedback control method is first investigated. Since
then, many hybrid advance control methods such as deadbeat
control, proportional resonant, and other bandwidth expan-
sion methods are adopted to achieve a better performance
in the ZSCC elimination [16]–[18]. Pulsewidth modulation
(PWM)-based techniques, such as the interleaving discontin-
uous space vector modulation (SVM), remote state PWM,
active zero state PWM, and selective harmonic elimination
PWM [7], [19]–[21], are also introduced to reduce the CMV
differences between paralleled inverters. However, all of these
methods increase the complexity of the PWM modulator
which may inevitably lead to unacceptable harmonic distortion
of the grid current. Moreover, the above-mentioned methods
are mainly designed for two-level inverters and cannot be
directly applied to the three-level topology where the issue of
neural point potential (NPP) unbalance needs to be taken into
account. In [22] and [23], the ZSCC paths for paralleled three-
level inverters are studied and an equivalent model of ZSCC
is then derived. According to the derived model, the ZSCC
is classified into different components; consequently, the cor-
responding suppression methods are developed, respectively.
310 IEEE JOURNAL OF EMERGING AND SELECTED TOPICS IN POWER ELECTRONICS, VOL. 7, NO. 1, MARCH 2019

However, this strategy needs to change the topology of the

three-level inverter and add additional cables. A strategy,
which combines the PWM-based zero CMV (ZCMV-PWM)
technique with the ZSCC feedback control method, is pro-
posed in [24] to eliminate the ZSCC between paralleled three-
level inverters. However, an auxiliary circuit is added to control
the NPPs which will increase the cost and volume of the
parallel system.
Model predictive control (MPC) is an optimization-based
control strategy which is especially suitable for inverters.
Among various kinds of MPC methods, finite control set
MPC (FCS-MPC) is most commonly used in power electronics
since it has the advantages of easy implementation, flexible
in the definition of control objectives, and fast dynamic
response [25]–[27]. In [28], an FCS-MPC-based ZSCC elim-
ination method is proposed for the parallel system with two-
Fig. 1. Structure of the proposed 3LT2 Is parallel operating system.
level inverters. The system with paralleled three-level inverters
is more complicated and also has the issue of NPPs unbalance;
the research of the FCS-MPC-based ZSCC elimination method
for the parallel system with three-level inverters is still open.
In light of this point, this paper proposes a novel
FCS-MPC-based strategy to eliminate the ZSCC in paralleled
three-level inverters with the common ac and dc buses. In the
proposed ZSCC elimination strategy, an FCS-MPC-based zero
common-voltage (ZCMV-MPC) method which can keep the
CMV constant zero is investigated to reduce the difference of
CMVs between paralleled three-level inverters, and an active
NPP perturbation-based ZSCC feedback control method is Fig. 2. Equivalent circuit of the ZSCC loop.
used to eliminate the ZSCC caused by dead-time effects and
asymmetries of the circuit and control parameters. The exciting
sources of the ZSCC, the FCS-MPC-based ZSCC elimination where i nx (n = A, B, and C) and u nx O x represent the grid
strategy, and parameters design methods are analyzed in current and the pole voltage with respect to the NP of the
detail. Simulation and experimental results are provided to dc bus, respectively. Vx = V P x − VN x denotes the voltage
validate the effectiveness of the proposed FCS-MPC-based difference of the dc link capacitors.
ZSCC elimination strategy. The rest of paper is organized Assuming a three-phase balanced system, the ZSCC of the
as follows. In Section II, the equivalent model of the ZSCC studied parallel operating system i z can be expressed as [14]
 
is developed. The basic concept of the FCS-MPC method is i z = i z1 = i n1 = − i n2 = −i z2 (2)
introduced in Section III and the proposed FCS-MPC strategy n=A,B,C n=A,B,C
for ZSCC elimination is presented in Section IV. The simula-
where i zx represents the ZSCC of the xth 3LT2 I.
tion and experimental results are given in Sections V and VI,
The CMV of the 3LT2 I shown in Fig. 1 can be expressed by
respectively. Section VII summarizes this paper.
the pole voltages with respect to the NP of the dc bus which
II. A NALYSIS OF ZSCC S FOR 3LT2 I S PARALLEL S YSTEM shown as [29]
Fig. 1 shows the system structure diagram of the parallel V Ax O x + V B x O x + VC x O x
u cmvx = . (3)
operating system with two three-level T-type inverters (3LT2 Is) 3
sharing the common dc and ac buses. C j x (x = 1 and 2; By substituting (2) and (3) into (1), the differential equation
j = P, N) denotes the dc bus capacitor of the xth 3LT2 I. model of ZSCC between the paralleled 3LT2 Is shown in Fig. 1
V j x represents the voltage of the dc bus capacitor. L x is the can be derived as
filter inductance, and Rx denotes the equivalent series resis- di z
tance (ESR) of L x . Ox and n represent the NPs of the dc bus (L 1 + L 2 ) + (R1 + R2 )i z
dt
and the utility grid, respectively. The dc bus voltage and filter 3
inductor currents are assumed to be constant in one sampling = (V1 − V2 ) + 3(u CMV2 − u CMV1 ). (4)
2
interval to simplify the analysis. According to the Kirchhoff’s Equation (4) describes the dynamics of the ZSCC of the
voltage law, we can obtain the following equations: studied parallel operating system, which can be interpreted as
Vdc − V1 di n1 an equivalent loop circuit of the ZSCC as shown in Fig. 2.
+ u n 1 O1 + L 1 + R1 i n1
2 dt According to the above-mentioned analysis, it can be con-
Vdc − V2 di n2 cluded that both the voltage differences of the paralleled invert-
= + u n 2 O2 + L 2 + R2 i n2 (1)
2 dt ers’ CMVs and NPPs are the exciting sources of the ZSCC.
WANG et al.: NOVEL MODEL PREDICTIVE CONTROL STRATEGY TO ELIMINATE ZSCC 311

It is obvious that the ZSCC can be eliminated effectively by TABLE I

increasing the impedance of the circuit path or decreasing D EFINITION OF S WITCHING VARIABLE
the exciting sources of the ZSCC. However, the approach
of increasing the impedance of the circuit path may increase
the cost and volume of the parallel system. Thus, this paper
investigates the control of the exciting sources to suppress the
ZSCC between paralleled three-level inverters.

III. BASIC C ONCEPT OF THE C ONVENTIONAL

FCS-MPC M ETHOD FOR 3LT2 I S
Referring to the 3LT2 I presented in Fig. 1, the average
model of the 3LT2 I in the two-phase stationary frame can be
expressed as
     
i αx (k + 1) i αx (k) u αx (k) − eαx (k)
= Ax + Bx (5)
i β x (k + 1) i β x (k) u β x (k) − eβ x (k)
where i αx (k), i β x (k), u αx (k), u β x (k), eαx (k), and eβ x (k) are
the grid current, output voltage, and back electromotive force
components of the 3LT2 Is in the two-phase stationary frame
at the instant k, i αx (k + 1) and i β x (k + 1) are the predicted
grid current at the instant k + 1, and A x , Bx are shown as Fig. 3. SV diagram of a 3LT2 I.
 
1 − Rx Ts /L x 0
Ax =
0 1 − Rx Ts /L x
  by 1, 0, and −1 which denote the switching combinations
Ts /L x 0 that generating Vdc /2, 0, and −Vdc /2, at the output terminals
Bx = (6)
0 Ts /L x of the inverter as shown in Table I.
where Ts denotes the control period. It can be counted that there are 27 switching states for
The dynamics of the dc link capacitor voltage is described the 3LT2 I corresponding to six large vectors, six medium
by the differential equation expressed as vectors, six small vectors, and one zero vector. It is seen that
dVjx 1 both zero and small vectors have redundant switching states
= i jx (7) and the relationship between switching states and voltage
dt C
vectors can be shown in Fig. 3.
where C and i j x denote the value of the dc capacitor and the In order to track the reference current and balance the
current flowing through, respectively. NPPs of the 3LT2 I, the cost function of the conventional MPC
The capacitor voltage derivative dV j x /dt in (7) is replaced method can be expressed as
by the forward Euler approximation, which can be expressed
∗
via the following equation: gx = |i αx (k) − i αx (k + 1)| + |i β∗ x (k) − i β x (k + 1)|
dVjx V j x (k + 1) − V j x (k) + λxdc |V P x (k + 1) − VN x (k + 1)| (12)
= (8)
dt Ts ∗ (k) and i ∗ (k) are the reference currents at instant k.
where i αx βx
giving the discrete form of the dc link capacitor voltage shown Weighting factor λxdc handles the tradeoff of the control effort
as that dedicated to reference current tracking and NPPs balance
1 control. A larger value of λxdc implies greater priority to the
V j x (k + 1) = V j x (k) + i j x (k)Ts (9) objective of NPPs balance control, and vice versa.
C
However, the unavoidable calculation delay in digital imple-
where current i j x (k) depends on the switching state and the
mentation has a significant influence on the performance of
grid current of the 3LT2 I, which can be calculated via the
the 3LT2 I. In order to compensate the calculation delay in the
following expression:
 digital control [29], the cost function considers the difference
i j x (k) = i dcx (k) − Hxn j i nx (k) (10) between the dc link capacitor voltages and current errors at
n=A,B,C the instant k + 2, which can be expressed as
∗
where i dcx is the current across the dc bus. Variable Hxn j is g x = |i αx (k) − i αx (k + 2)| + |i β∗ x (k) − i β x (k + 2)|
defined as + λxdc |V P x (k + 2) − VN x (k + 2)| (13)

1 if (Sxn = 1& j = P) or (Sxn = −1& j = N )
Hxn j = where predicted currents i αx (k + 2), i β x (k + 2), and predicted
0 otherwise
voltages V P x (k + 2) and VN x (k + 2) are obtained by shifting
(11)
predicted values at the instant k + 1 one-step forward [30].
where switching state variable Sxn represents the switching Prediction of the future variable values based on the average
state of phase n, and it has three possible values denoted model of the 3LT2 I is calculated for all the 27 switching states
312 IEEE JOURNAL OF EMERGING AND SELECTED TOPICS IN POWER ELECTRONICS, VOL. 7, NO. 1, MARCH 2019
Fig. 4. Conventional FCS-MPC algorithm for 3LT2 I.
and the one which minimizes the cost function is selected
as the optimal switching state to apply to the 3LT2 I. The
control block diagram of the conventional FCS-MPC method
is presented in Fig. 4.
IV. P ROPOSED FCS-MPC S CHEME
FOR ZSCC E LIMINATION
Based on the analysis in Section II, it is concluded that
both the differences of CMVs and NPPs between paralleled
inverters are the exciting sources of the ZSCC. However,
in practical applications, the NPPs must be controlled to half
of the dc bus voltage as close as possible to achieve good
performances of output voltage waveforms. Thus, it can be
inferred that the main cause of the ZSCC could be the voltage
difference of the CMVs between paralleled inverters.
A. ZCMV-MPC Method and NPP Control
In the conventional MPC method, all the 27 switching
states are utilized to perform the optimization in every control
period and the CMV of each inverter in the parallel system
will change with fast frequency. Thus, the difference in CMVs
which demonstrated to be the primary cause of the ZSCC is
generated. To avoid CMV fluctuations, a modified FCS-MPC
method by adding additional terms to the cost function is
proposed in [31] and [32]. However, the additional term
complicates the design of weighting factors and increases the
computational burden. Furthermore, it can also be inferred
that although all the 27 switching states are utilized to
perform the optimization in every control period, only limited
switching states which generate the same CMV are applied to
the 3LT2 I if the CMV is controlled as a constant value with
the modified FCS-MPC method. In this paper, in order to
avoid CMV fluctuations with reduced computational burden
and complexity, only switching state combinations which
generate the same CMV are considered as candidates to
perform the optimization in every control period with the
proposed ZCMV-MPC method. Therefore, the 27 switching
states are divided into seven groups by different CMV values
where the relationship between switching states and CMVs
are summarized in Table II.
According to Table II, the seven switching states from
G4 correspond to six medium and one zero vectors (6MV1Z)
which generate constant zero CMV are defined as the
candidate voltage vector (VV) combination for the proposed
TABLE II
R ELATIONSHIP B ETWEEN THE S WITCHING S TATES AND CMV
Fig. 5. Switch state graph of the proposed ZCMV-MPC method.
ZCMV-MPC method. Thus, the difference of CMVs between
the paralleled inverters can be theoretically limited to zero with
the proposed ZCMV-MPC method, since that only VVs from
G4 are adopted for each inverter to perform the optimization
in every control period. The switch state graph of the proposed
FCS-MPC-based ZCMV-MPC method is shown in Fig. 5.
As can be seen from Fig. 5, any VV is permitted to be
applied in the next control period in the ZCMV-MPC method
which is different from the conventional PWM-based method.
In any case, the CMV of each inverter is always assumed to be
constant zero with the ZCMV-MPC method, and the difference
of CMVs between paralleled inverters can be eliminated.
However, it should be noted that the proposed ZCMV-MPC
method can only be applied with the maximum amplitude of
the phase-to-neutral voltages equal to Vdc /2 (which could be
verified by simulation), resulting in 86.6% of the voltages that
can be obtained with the SVPWM and the conventional MPC
method. Nevertheless, this limitation actually will not be an
issue for some applications such as photovoltaic (PV) systems,
where the dc voltage can be easily raised by connecting more
PV modules in series. In addition, adopting the ZCMV-MPC
method for PV systems also has the benefit of low leakage
current [33].
The control of using candidate VV combination which gen-
erates the constant zero CMV is the best choice to eliminate
the difference of CMVs between paralleled inverters. However,
these VVs will lead to current flowthrough the NP of the dc
bus, which may induce NPPs imbalance. It should be noted
that the positive current flowthrough the NP decreases the
WANG et al.: NOVEL MODEL PREDICTIVE CONTROL STRATEGY TO ELIMINATE ZSCC 313

Fig. 6. Equivalent circuit of applied VVs. (a) V0 (000). (b) V M1 (10–1).

TABLE III
NP C URRENT OF D IFFERENT VVs

potential of the NP, and vice versa. Examples of the equivalent

circuits when V0 and VM1 applied to the 3LT2 I are illustrated
in Fig. 6(a) and (b), respectively. i O represents the current
flowthrough the NP. It can be seen that i O equals 0 and i B for
a balanced three-phase system when V0 and VM1 are applied
to the 3LT2 I, respectively.
Similarly, the current flowthrough the NP for all the VVs of Fig. 7. Parameter calculation methods. (a) λxdc . (b) Vd x .
the proposed ZCMV-MPC method is summarized in Table III.
According to Table III, it can be seen that the current feedback control method is proposed to compensate the ZSCC
flowthrough the NP for the candidate VVs of the proposed caused by dead-time effects and the asymmetries of the control
ZCMV-MPC method always includes i A , i B , and i C . For a and hardware parameters. In the proposed ZSCC feedback
balanced three-phase system, the current of each phase always control method, the NPP of each inverter in the parallel system
satisfies i A + i B + i C = 0, which implies that among i A , is controlled with a certain bias value intentionally where the
i B , and i C , two of them always have the opposite polarity cost function is redesigned as
to the third one. As mentioned previously, different polarities ∗
of the current flowthrough the NP has different effects on the gx = |i αx (k) − i αx (k + 2)| + |i β∗ x (k) − i β x (k + 2)|
potential of the NP. Therefore, it can be seen that the proposed + λxdc |V P x (k + 2) − VN x (k + 2) − Vd x | (14)
ZCMV-MPC method has the ability to control the potential of where Vd x denotes the desired voltage bias of the dc link
the NP. capacitors in inverter x. Note that the value of Vd x must
be limited to a small range to avoid distorting output voltage
B. Proposed ZSCC Feedback Control Method waveform.
In practical application, the dead time is inevitably needed The calculation methods of λxdc and Vd x are shown in
to prevent disastrous shoot-through faults. During the dead Fig. 7(a) and (b), respectively. The relationship between λxdc
time, new states will be generated which may cause large and i zx shown in Fig. 7(a) can be derived as
random and uncontrolled CMV fluctuations. Although the λxdc
⎧λ
difference of CMVs between paralleled inverters can maintain
⎪ x lim − λx0
⎪
⎪ i zx + λx0 , (i zx ≥ 0)
zero for most of the time with the ZCMV-MPC method, ⎨ i zx max
the ZSCC excited by the random and uncontrolled difference = λ x0 − λ x lim
⎪
⎪ i zx + λx0 , (i zx < 0)
of CMVs between paralleled inverters which caused by dead- ⎪
⎩ i zx max
time effects may accumulate and result in big dc component λx lim , (i zx ≤ −i zx max or i zx ≥ i zx max )
of the ZSCC. In addition, the asymmetries of the control (15)
system and hardware parameters may also excite the ZSCC.
Therefore, a closed-loop ZSCC feedback control is necessary where i zxmax is the maximum tolerable value of i zx , λx0
to be developed. denotes the weighting factor when i zx equals zero. In addition,
As discussed in Section II, another exciting source of the an upper limit λxlim is considered for the weighting factor λxdc
ZSCC is the difference of NPPs between paralleled inverters. to guarantee the accuracy of current tracking.
Although the difference of NPPs should be controlled as small Similarly, the relationship between Vd x and i zx illustrated
as possible to eliminate the ZSCC excited by this kind of in Fig. 7(b) can be expressed as
⎧
excitation source, it can also be used as an ideal tool to ⎪
⎪ −V , (i z > i z max )
⎨ Vd x max
counteract the ZSCC caused by dead-time effects as well as the d x max
Vd x = − i z , (i z max ≥ i z ≥ −i z max ) (16)
asymmetries of the control system and hardware parameters. ⎪
⎪ i
⎩V z max, (i < −i )
Based on this opinion, an active NPP perturbation-based ZSCC d x max z z max
314 IEEE JOURNAL OF EMERGING AND SELECTED TOPICS IN POWER ELECTRONICS, VOL. 7, NO. 1, MARCH 2019
Fig. 8. Simplified model of the equivalent ZSCC feedback control loop.
(a) i Z > 0. (b) i Z < 0.
Fig. 9. Control structure of the proposed ZSCC elimination scheme.
where Vd xmax represents the maximum tolerable value of the
desired voltage difference of the dc link capacitors. Upper and
lower limits are set for Vd x to ensure the fluctuations of the
NPPs are within a small range.
Taking the parallel operating system shown in Fig. 1 as
an example, the specific working principle of the proposed
active NPP perturbation-based ZSCC feedback control strategy
can be described as followed. Assume that the ZSCC i z
(i z = i z1 = −i z2 ) is positive but within the limit value,
since the two paralleled inverters are the same, the para-
meters λ1dc and λ2dc are with the same value according
to (15). Meanwhile, Vd1 and Vd2 are calculated using (16),
where Vd1 is a positive value and Vd2 is the opposite
of Vd1 . With the proposed active NPP perturbation-based
ZSCC feedback control strategy, Vd1 becomes a negative
value and Vd2 becomes a positive value, i.e., the difference
of the NPPs (Vd1 − Vd2 ) between paralleled inverters
becomes a negative value. Thus, a reverse exciting source,
which is capable of compensating the existing ZSCC (i z ),
is generated. The simplified model of the ZSCC feedback
control loop is shown in Fig. 8(a). Similarly, when i z is a
negative value, the simplified model can also be summarized
as shown in Fig. 8(b).
The whole block diagram of the proposed FCS-MPC-
based ZSCC elimination strategy is presented in Fig. 9. The
ZCMV-MPC method is used to reduce the difference of CMVs
between the paralleled inverters and the ZSCC feedback
control method is aimed to compensate the ZSCC caused by
dead-time effects and the asymmetries of the control system
and hardware parameters.
TABLE IV
S YSTEM PARAMETERS
V. S IMULATION VALIDATION
To confirm the above-mentioned theoretical analysis and
the effectiveness of the proposed FCS-MPC-based strategy
in ZSCC elimination, a simulation model approximating the
practical parallel system as close as possible was built in
the MATLAB/Simulink environment. The system and control
parameters in the simulation are fully listed in Table IV.
Fig. 10(a) and (b) shows the simulation waveforms of
grid currents and the CMV of one single 3LT2 I obtained
by the conventional MPC method and the proposed ZCMV-
MPC method with the filter inductance equal to 12.5 mH,
respectively. It is observed that the proposed ZCMV-MPC
method exhibits a slightly higher total harmonic distortion
(THD) value than the conventional MPC method since that
only 6MV1Z are involved in the optimization. Some CMV
fluctuations are still generated by the proposed ZCMV-MPC
method as shown in Fig. 10(b) due to dead-time effects.
Nevertheless, both the peak value and the fluctuation times
of the CMV are significantly reduced compared with the
conventional MPC method shown in Fig. 10(a). Note that the
duration of each CMV pulse shown in Fig. 10(b) is equal
to the dead time which will have little impact on the ZSCC
between the paralleled inverters. The simulated results validate
the theoretical expectation in Section IV and the effectiveness
of the proposed FCS-MPC-based ZCMV-MPC method on
reducing the CMV fluctuations.
Since the performance of the 3LT2 I based on the
FCS-MPC method is strongly influenced by the control period,
the performance of the 3LT2 I by the proposed ZCMV-MPC
method is compared with the conventional FCS-MPC-based
method for the 3LT2 I in terms of the average switching
numbers and THD values of grid currents as a function of the
control period, as shown in Fig. 11. The average switching
numbers are defined as the average value of the switching
operation numbers of all the 12 insulated-gate bipolar transis-
tors (IGBTs) in one fundamental period shown as
1  
4
ns = n sni (17)
12
i=1 n=A,B,C
where n sni denotes the average switching numbers of the
i th IGBT of phase n. The results of the average switching
WANG et al.: NOVEL MODEL PREDICTIVE CONTROL STRATEGY TO ELIMINATE ZSCC
Fig. 10. Simulated waveforms of phase currents and CMV. (a) Conventional
MPC method. (b) ZCMV-MPC method.
numbers obtained by the two methods versus the control
period are shown in Fig. 11(a). It can be seen that the
proposed ZCMV-MPC method significantly decreases the
average switching numbers comparing with the conventional
MPC method for 3LT2 I.
The percentage of THD is defined as
TMS320F28335. The parameters for paralleled inverters and
 x=A,B,C nh=2 i xh 2
315
Fig. 11. Comparative results. (a) Number of switchings. (b) Percentage of
the THD.
Fig. 12. Simulated waveforms with unequal filter parameters (L 1 = 10 mH
and L 2 = 12 mH) and unequal reference currents (Iref1 = 5 A and
Iref2 = 2.5 A). (a) ZSCC and phase currents. (b) NPP fluctuations.
where i x1 and i xh denote the fundamental and hth-harmonic
components in the grid current of phase x, respectively. The
results are presented in Fig. 11(b). It can be observed that
the proposed ZCMV-MPC method exhibits higher THD values
than the conventional MPC method for 3LT2 I because of less
candidate VVs used for the reference current tracking control
in every control period.
As shown in Fig. 12, the conventional FCS-MPC method is
operated before 0.2 s. At 0.2 s, the proposed FCS-MPC-based
ZSCC elimination strategy is enabled. It can be observed
in Fig. 12(a) that before 0.2 s, the ZSCC between paralleled
inverters is very large and the phase currents are almost
out of control. After 0.2 s, when the proposed FCS-MPC-
based ZSCC elimination strategy is enabled, the ZSCC is
significantly reduced and the grid current performance is
also improved greatly at the cost of increasing fluctuations
of the NPPs. The simulated results verified the theoretical
analysis in Section IV and the effectiveness of the proposed
FCS-MPC-based ZSCC elimination strategy.
VI. E XPERIMENTAL R ESULTS
To further validate the developed model and the proposed
FCS-MPC-based ZSCC elimination strategy, experiments have
been carried out on a prototype system where two paral-
leled 3LT2 Is are involved, as shown in Fig. 13. The entire
control strategy is implemented on an embed controller with
%THD = 
· 100 (18) control in the experiments are the same as those in the
2
x=A,B,C i x1 simulations.
316 IEEE JOURNAL OF EMERGING AND SELECTED TOPICS IN POWER ELECTRONICS, VOL. 7, NO. 1, MARCH 2019

Fig. 13. Photograph of the experimental prototype.

Fig. 14(a) and (b) present the experimental results of one

3LT2 I obtained by the conventional FCS-MPC method and
the proposed ZCMV-MPC method, respectively. It is seen
that the grid current generated by the proposed ZCMV-MPC
method exhibits a slightly higher THD value due to fewer
numbers of VVs used for the current control. In addition,
it can be observed that fewer CMV fluctuations are generated
by the proposed ZCMV-MPC method due to dead-time effects.
However, it can be seen that both the amplitude and the
frequency of the CMV fluctuations are significantly reduced
compared with the conventional FCS-MPC method, which
agrees with the simulation results presented in Section V.
Note that the CMV curve is calculated by (V Ax N + V Bx N +
VC x N )/3−Vdc /2, where Vn x N is measured by an oscilloscope.
It can be seen from Fig. 12 that there exits huge ZSCC
when the conventional FCS-MPC method was performed,
which distorted the phase current of the inverter seriously and
made the inverter difficult to be controlled in the physical
experiment. When performing the physical experiment with
the conventional FCS-MPC method, the inverter suddenly
runs into the trip as expected by the simulation, thus the
experimental waveform is not provided.
Fig. 15 presents the experimental results in the regular
control conditions, which both of the filter parameters and
the reference currents of the two paralleled 3LT2 Is are the
same, namely, L 1 = L 2 = 12.5 mH and Iref1 = Iref2 = 5 A.
As can be seen in Fig. 15(a), the ZSCC exists in a very small
rms value shown as 86 mA with the proposed ZCMV-MPC
method in the experimental study. It is proven that the
primary cause of the ZSCC (the difference of CMVs) has
Fig. 14. Experimental results of the phase current and CMV. (a) Conventional
been effectively eliminated by the proposed ZCMV-MPC FCS-MPC method. (b) ZCMV-MPC method.
method. Although the ZSCC is significantly reduced by the
proposed ZCMV-MPC method, it should be noted that the
ZCMV-MPC method cannot work alone for the parallel system in Fig. 15(a). However, a slightly larger NPP fluctuation is
since that the dead-time effect, asymmetries of the control generated as shown in Fig. 15(b) due to the ZSCC feedback
and circuit parameters, as well as the fluctuations of NPPs, control, which is consistent with the results in simulation.
may accumulate and result in big dc component of the ZSCC. Fig. 16 shows the experimental results with equal reference
The experimental waveforms of the proposed FCS-MPC-based currents and unequal filter parameters, namely, Iref1 = Iref2 =
ZSCC elimination strategy (ZCMV-MPC method with ZSCC 5 A, L 1 = 10 mH, and L 2 = 12.5 mH, since that the filter
feedback control) are shown in Fig. 15(b). It can be seen that parameters of the paralleled 3LT2 Is usually exists a little devia-
the ZSCC is almost gone and the quality of grid currents is tion in the actual parallel system. It can be seen from the exper-
also improved compared with the ZCMV-MPC method shown imental results that the ZSCC is slightly increased compared
WANG et al.: NOVEL MODEL PREDICTIVE CONTROL STRATEGY TO ELIMINATE ZSCC 317

Fig. 16. Experimental waveforms with equal reference currents and unequal
filter parameters. (a) ZCMV-MPC method. (b) ZCMV-MPC with ZSCC
feedback control.

Fig. 15. Experimental waveforms with equal reference currents and equal
filter parameters. (a) ZCMV-MPC method. (b) ZCMV-MPC with ZSCC
feedback control.

with the results shown in Fig. 15. However, it can be seen that
the ZSCC is not significant comparing to the phase currents.
In addition, it can also be seen that both the ZSCC and the
THD values are reduced by the method of ZCMV-MPC with
ZSCC feedback control shown in Fig. 17(b) compared with
the results of the ZCMV-MPC method shown in Fig. 17(a).
Generally, the currents of each paralleled inverters in the
parallel system are equal. However, in some particular cases,
the reference currents of each inverter need to be distributed.
Fig. 17. Experimental waveforms with unequal reference currents and
equal filter parameters. (a) ZCMV-MPC method. (b) ZCMV-MPC with ZSCC
feedback control.
Thus, the experimental results with equal filter parameters and
unequal reference currents, namely, L 1 = L 2 = 12.5 mH,
Iref1 = 2.5 A, and Iref2 = 5 A are given in Fig. 17. It can be
318 IEEE JOURNAL OF EMERGING AND SELECTED TOPICS IN POWER ELECTRONICS, VOL. 7, NO. 1, MARCH 2019

Fig. 18. Experimental waveforms with unequal reference currents and

unequal filter parameters. (a) ZCMV-MPC method. (b) ZCMV-MPC with
ZSCC feedback control.

Fig. 19. FFT analysis comparison of the grid current.

seen that the ZSCC obtained by the ZCMV-MPC method with

unequal reference currents is slightly increased compared with
the results in the condition of the same reference current shown
in Fig. 15(a). However, when performing the ZCMV-MPC
method with ZSCC feedback control, the ZSCC is greatly
reduced and the performance of the THD is also improved.
Fig. 18 shows the experimental results with the worst
case where both of the filter parameters and the reference
currents are unequal, namely, L 1 = 10 mH, L 2 = 12.5 m,
Iref1 = 2.5 A, and Iref2 = 5 A. It is observed that the
ZSCC is still not significant comparing to the phase currents
even without the proposed ZSCC feedback control as shown
in Fig. 18(a). The experimental results shown in Fig. 18(b)
exhibit that good ZSCC suppression can be achieved by the
proposed FCS-MPC-based ZSCC elimination strategy even
Fig. 20. Experimental waveforms of the dynamic performance with unequal
reference currents and unequal filter parameters. (a) ZCMV-MPC method.
(b) ZCMV-MPC with ZSCC feedback control.
with the worst case where both of the filter parameters and
the reference currents are unequal.
Fig. 19 presents the FFT analysis comparison of the
grid current obtained by the ZCMV-MPC method and the
ZCMV-MPC with ZSCC feedback control method. It can be
seen that the low-order harmonic are even lower with the
active NPP perturbation-based ZSCC feedback control which
indicates that the influence of the active NPP perturbation
control can be ignored.
WANG et al.: NOVEL MODEL PREDICTIVE CONTROL STRATEGY TO ELIMINATE ZSCC
Fig. 20 presents the dynamic experiment results of the
two methods with the worst case where both of the filter
parameters and the reference currents are unequal. It can be
seen that the grid current can track step change of the reference
current in the magnitude from 2.5 to 5 A in fast dynamics for
both methods and the ZSCC elimination, as well as the NPP
balance control, exhibits good performance in the dynamic
process. Note that both the performance of grid current
tracking and the ZSCC elimination are improved for the
ZCMV-MPC with ZSCC feedback control. However, slightly
larger NPP fluctuations are induced as shown in Fig. 20(b).
VII. C ONCLUSION
This paper proposed a novel FCS-MPC-based strategy
to eliminate the ZSCC in parallel operating three-level
inverters with common both ac and dc buses. In the proposed
FCS-MPC-based strategy, a ZCMV-MPC method is presented
to reduce the difference of CMVs between paralleled
three-level inverters, and an active NPP perturbation-based
ZSCC feedback control method is proposed to eliminate
the ZSCC caused by dead-time effects and the asymmetries
of the control and hardware parameters. Simulation and
experimental results verified the effectiveness of the proposed
scheme in ZSCC elimination. In addition, this method has
the advantage of easy implementation and the communication
line between each inverter is not essential.
This paper takes a parallel system with two 3LT2 Is as an
example; actually, the proposed strategy can also be applied
to the parallel system where more inverters are involved.
In addition, other three-level topologies such as NPC and
ANPC are also available for the parallel operating system.
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Xiaodong Wang (S’16) was born in Mianzhu,
Sichuan, China, in 1989. He received the M.S.
degree in control theory and control engineering
from the University of Electronic Science and Tech-
nology of China, Chengdu, China, in 2015, where
he is currently pursuing the Ph.D. degree.
His current research interests include distributed
renewable power generation, microgrids, and model
predictive control of multilevel inverters.
Jianxiao Zou (M’15) received the B.S., M.S., and
Ph.D. degrees in control science and engineering
from the University of Electronic Science and Tech-
nology of China (UESTC), Chengdu, China, in
2000, 2003, and 2009, respectively.
In 2010, he was with the University of California
at Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA, as a Visiting
Scholar. In 2014, he was with Rutgers University,
New Brunswick, NJ, USA, as a Senior Visiting Pro-
fessor. Since 2011, he has been the Vice Dean with
the School of Automation Engineering, UESTC,
where he is currently a Professor. He has authored or co-authored over 50 jour-
nal papers. He holds over 120 national invention patents. His current research
interests include control theory and control engineering, renewable energy
control technologies, and intelligent information processing and control.
Jiancheng Zhao received the bachelor’s degree in
electrical automation specialty from Central South
University, Changsha, China. He is currently pursu-
ing the Ph.D. degree in control science and engi-
neering with the University of Electronic Science
and Technology of China, Chengdu, China.
His current research interests include power elec-
tronic converter design, analysis, and control.
Chuan Xie (M’16) received the B.S. degree in
automation engineering from the University of Elec-
tronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu,
China, and the Ph.D. degree in power electron-
ics from Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China,
in 2007 and 2012, respectively.
Since 2012, he has been a Lecturer with the School
of Automation Engineering, University of Electronic
Science and Technology of China. From 2015 to
2016, he was a Visiting Scholar with the Department
of Energy Technology, Aalborg University, Aalborg,
Denmark. His current research interests include digital control of power
electronics, grid synchronization technology, distributed generation systems,
microgrids, and power quality.
Kai Li (M’15) received the B.S., M.S., and Ph.D.
degrees in automation engineering from the Uni-
versity of Electronic Science and Technology of
China, Chengdu, China, in 2006, 2009, and 2014,
respectively.
From 2009 to 2016, he was an Assistant Professor
with the School of Automation Engineering, Univer-
sity of Electronic Science and Technology of China.
From 2016 to 2017, he was a Guest Researcher
with the Department of Energy Technology, Aalborg
University, Aalborg, Denmark. His current research
interests include multilevel inverters, storage converters, and microgrids.
Hafiz Mudassir Munir received M.S. degree in
electrical power engineering from the University of
Greenwich, London, U.K., in 2012. He is currently
pursuing the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering
with the University of Electronic Sciences and Tech-
nology, Chengdu, China, with research focused on
power electronics, including hierarchical and coop-
erative control of distributed generation and active
power filters.
Josep M. Guerrero (S’01–M’04–SM’08–F’15)
received the B.S. degree in telecommunications
engineering, the M.S. degree in electronics engineer-
ing, and the Ph.D. degree in power electronics from
the Technical University of Catalonia, Barcelona,
Spain, in 1997, 2000, and 2003, respectively.
Since 2011, he has been a Full Professor with
the Department of Energy Technology, Aalborg Uni-
versity, Aalborg, Denmark, where he is responsible
for the Microgrid Research Program. His current
research interests include power electronics, distrib-
uted energy-storage systems, hierarchical and cooperative control, energy
management systems, and optimization of microgrids and islanded minigrids.