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Analysis of Single Phase PWM Rectifier for Different Applications

Article  in  Journal of The Institution of Engineers (India) Series B · June 2016

DOI: 10.1007/s40031-016-0217-9

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J. Inst. Eng. India Ser. B
DOI 10.1007/s40031-016-0217-9
ORIGINAL CONTRIBUTION
Analysis of Single Phase PWM Rectifier for Different Applications
Arkendu Mitra1 • Sumana Chowdhuri2
Received: 4 April 2014 / Accepted: 3 January 2016
Ó The Institution of Engineers (India) 2016
Abstract This research work investigates the various
applications of a PWM rectifier based on its input power
factor. Most of the cases, the papers describe the operation
of the rectifier used for unity power factor (UPF) operation.
Beside this mode of operation, this paper compiles the
application of the rectifier as STATCOM also, where the
rectifier deals only with reactive power exchange. In this
work, the controller is implemented by inserting a loop for
reference input of phase angle which will be compared
with the actual one, so that user can operate the rectifier at
any power factor. Some basic formulae are derived for the
input current, active power and reactive power based on
which the control circuit is to be designed. Here two Pro-
portional–Integral (PI) controllers are used. A brief
description of tuning these two PI controllers is incorpo-
rated in this paper. Also some calculations are given to
determine the harmonic factors of the input line current
from which it is found that the rectifier when operated in
each mode operation, the order of the harmonics are very
low.
Keywords PWM  H-bridge configuration  PI controller 
Cascaded control  Harmonic factor
& Arkendu Mitra
arkendu83@gmail.com
1
Department of Electrical Engineering, Narula Institute of
Technology, Kolkata, India
2
Department of Applied Physics, University College of
Science and Technology, Calcutta University, Kolkata, India
Introduction
Now-a-days, the usage of ac to dc converter is very popular
in a wide range for various applications such as power
supplies for electronic equipment, electronic ballast, dc
drives, battery-chargers, control circuits for different power
electronic converters, various kinds of household appli-
ances etc. [1].
Previously, uncontrolled line-commutated rectifier was
developed by using diodes to transform energy from ac
side to dc. These rectifiers can only be able to produce
constant dc voltage, which is function of line voltage. With
development in power electronic devices and control
topologies, controlled line-commutated rectifiers are
developed by using thyristors. These rectifiers are able to
produce variable dc output voltage which is also a function
of line voltage as well as firing angle [2]. In present sce-
nario, with the increase in electronic loads such as on-line
UPS, grid connected non-conventional sources by using
thyristors based power electronic converters, front-end
rectifiers using full wave diode or SCR bridge followed by
a large electrolytic capacitor, a considerable amount of
harmonics near power frequency will be injected to the
source due to the thyristorised circuits and it will affect the
grid power quality [3, 4]. In order to minimize this prob-
lem, high frequency ac to dc converter with active power
factor correction (APFC) technology is now being adopted
[5, 6] where the harmonics injected into the grid will be
minimised due to high frequency PWM switching.
The rectifier controlled by PWM switching to devices
consumes current which is almost sinusoidal with desirable
phase shift [7] and also dc bus voltage can be controlled as
per requirement. In thyristorised rectifier, dc bus voltage
can be controlled from zero to that voltage obtained from
diode bridge rectifier by adjusting the firing angle. In the
123

PWM rectifier, dc bus voltage can be maintained beyond
the voltage obtain from diode bridge or thyristorised rec-
tifier and hence the rectifier is also called boost rectifier.
The rectifier can also be operated as inverter with suit-
able control logic and is very useful for traction purpose [8]
where energy from the motor side is to be fed back to the
supply is required.
The design of controller in such PWM rectifier is very
much important. Here generally two PI controllers are used
as cascaded control. In outer loop, dc bus voltage is con-
trolled through a PI controller which is used to generate the
current reference and in inner loop; source current is con-
trolled through another PI controller to track the current
reference. Many researchers work for proper tuning of the
PI controller as it plays a major role for successful opera-
tion of the converter [9]. The research work is carried out
for tuning the PI controllers based on the ‘bandwidth
approach’ [10].
In this work, a simulation for single phase PWM recti-
fier has been carried out to observe its potential for reactive
power compensation like STATCOM along with the
operation in active power consumption at unity power
factor. Most of the research paper discussed about this
rectifier either for unity power operation or as STATCOM,
that is, the controller is designed for a dedicated purpose.
Here, the controller for this rectifier has been modified by
inserting another loop for phase angle correction so that
this rectifier can be used for both the purposes mentioned
earlier.
Basic Operating Principle
Figure 1 shows the circuit diagram of a single-phase PWM
boost rectifier which consists of four power electronic
switches with anti-parallel power diodes with suitable cur-
rent carrying capacity in H-bridge configuration; the input
ac side has an inductance for boost operation and the output
dc side has a capacitance of large value for smoothing the
dc bus voltage. A load may be connected in dc side as per
operational requirement described later.
Fig. 1 PWM boost rectifier
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J. Inst. Eng. India Ser. B
Assuming the supply voltage Vs to be sinusoidal, under
steady-state condition, the ac side of the rectifier can be
governed by the following equation
Vs ¼ jxLs Is1 þ Vc1 ð1Þ
where Is1 and Vc1 are the source current and the voltage
across the converter respectively corresponding to the
fundamental frequency.
The voltage across the converter is generated by the
PWM switching the dc bus voltage and can be equated as
Vc ¼ ma Vdc ð2Þ
V^sin
where ma is the amplitude modulation index ¼ ð3Þ
V^tri
The circuit operation is same as dc boost chopper where
the inductor will store the energy when the switch is closed
and it will release the energy to the output side when the
switch is open. For PWM boost rectifier, in case of positive
half cycle when the phase is in higher potential than
neutral, the input inductance will store the energy when
switch S2 is closed and the current will back to the neutral
through D4. When the switch S2 is open, it will discharge
its energy to the output side through the diode D1 and
returned back to the neutral through D4. Figure 2a, b
represents the corresponding current flowing paths for the
instants S2 closed and S2 open respectively.
Similarly, in case of negative half cycle when the neutral
is in higher potential than the phase, the input inductance
will store the energy when switch S4 is closed and the
current will back to the phase through D2. When the switch
S4 is open, it will discharge its energy to the output side
through the diode D3 and returned back to the phase through
D2. Figure 2c, d represents the corresponding current flow-
ing paths for the instants S4 closed and S4 open respectively.
Thus the energy stored in the inductor in both cycles
will increase the dc bus voltage and the circuit behaves like
a boost chopper. The boost operation can be described as
follows:
When S2 is ON, Vc = 0 and the corresponding voltage
across the inductor can be expressed as
dis
Vs ¼ Ls þ Vc ð4Þ
dt
or,
dis I2  I1
Vs ¼ Ls ¼ Ls ð5Þ
dt Ton
From Eq. (5), one can write,
Vs
I2  I1 ¼ Ton ð6Þ
Ls
where, I1 is the initial current of the inductor before switch
on and I2 is the final current of the inductor during the ON
J. Inst. Eng. India Ser. B

Fig. 2 Current paths at different instants. a when Switch S2 is ON, b when Switch S2 is OFF, c when Switch S4 is ON, d when Switch S4 is OFF

period. When S2 is OFF, Vc = Vdc and the corresponding

voltage across the inductor can be expressed as
dis
Vs ¼ Ls þ Vdc
dt
or,
dis I1  I2
Vs  Vdc ¼ Ls ¼ Ls ð7Þ
dt Toff
From Eq. (7), one can write,
Vdc  Vs Fig. 3 Phasor diagram
I2  I1 ¼ Toff ð8Þ
Ls
From Eqs. (6) and (8), it can be written as,
arbitrary angle h. The active power Ps supplied by the
Vs Ton ¼ ðVdc  Vs ÞToff source to the converter is
or,  
Vs2 Vc1
Vs T ¼ Vdc Toff Ps ¼ Vs Is1 cos h ¼ sin d ð10Þ
xs Vs
or, and for the same phasor diagram, reactive power Qs is
T 1 supplied by the source to the converter is positive and can
Vdc ¼ Vs ¼ Toff Vs
Toff T
be written as
 
or, Vs2 Vc1
Qs ¼ Vs Is1 sin h ¼ 1 cos d ð11Þ
1 xs Vs
Vdc ¼ Vs ð9Þ
1D
where, d is the angle between the supply voltage and the
where, D is the duty ratio ¼ TTon . Since the range of the duty voltage across the converter corresponding to the
ratio is 0 B D \ 1 (D = 1 is avoided because theoretically fundamental frequency [11] and the source current
an infinite dc voltage will occur), the voltage across the dc corresponding to the fundamental frequency can be
bus can maintain as per requirement by adjusting the duty measured from Eq. (1) and is expressed as
ratio at a suitable value.
A general phasor diagram for the converter shown in Vs  Vc1
Is1 ¼ ð12Þ
Fig. 3, where source current lags the supply voltage by an jxs

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 J. Inst. Eng. India Ser. B

To maintain dc bus voltage at a constant value, the input Vc1  Vs ð20Þ

and output powers must be balanced. Hence, from
Eqs. (10) and (11) Under full load conditions,
qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
fl
Vc1 Vc1 ¼ Vs 1 þ x2pu ð21Þ
Is1 cos h ¼ sin d ð13Þ
xs
fl
Is1 xs
Vs  Vc1 cos d xpu ¼ ð22Þ
Is1 sin h ¼ ð14Þ Vs
xs
fl
where, Is1 is the full load fundamental input rms current at
If the reactive power drawn from supply is equal to zero,
unity power factor. Equation (22) implies that the funda-
that is, when the converter is operated at unity power
mental voltage across the converterqVffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
c1 is greater than the
factor,
input supply voltage Vs by a factor 1 þ x2pu , known as the
Is1 xs ¼ Vc1 sin d ð15Þ boost factor [12].
Vs ¼ Vc1 cos d ð16Þ The circuit may also be operated as an inverter with
suitable control strategy if the dc side has an active source.
To operate the converter as STATCOM mode, that is, Since the converter is associated with four diodes anti-
ideally no active power is drawn from the source, the parallel with the switches, reactive load can also be con-
power factor of the converter will be either zero lag or zero nected in the ac side when the converter is operated as an
lead. Under this condition, from Eqs. (13) and (14), inverter where the reactive power freewheels through the
anti-parallel diodes. Here, switches S1 and S3 are to be
d¼0 ð17Þ
operated from the control circuit for inversion of the dc
Is1 xs ¼ Vs  Vc1 ð18Þ voltage.
Hence it is clear from the earlier equations that for a
given voltage Vs and the chosen inductance Ls, desired
Power Factor Correction Technique
value of Ps and Qs can be obtained. Also Eqs. (17) and (18)
satisfies the phasor diagrams shown in Fig. 4a, b.
PWM rectifier is very useful for power factor correction.
Most of cases, the operation of the converter as rectifier
Figure 4 represents the phasor diagrams at different input
and inverter at unity power factor are very popular. These
power factors.
two operations are represented by the phasor diagram
Figure 4c represents when input power factor is made to
shown in Fig. 4c, d. In both the cases
be unity, where it allows active power from the ac side to
qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi flow to the dc side. From input–output power balance, an
Vc1 ¼ Vs2 þ ðIs1 xs Þ2 ð19Þ active load should also be connected in dc side. A dc motor
connected directly to the dc bus or an ac motor may be
If the switching frequency is very high, a small value of
connected after converting the dc bus voltage into ac by
inductance Ls is required and can be neglected. Then
using another converter. In the motor loads, both active and
Eq. (19) becomes

Fig. 4 Phasor diagrams at

different operating power factor.
a lagging power factor mode,
b leading power factor mode,
c unity power factor rectifier
mode, d unity power factor
inverter mode

123
J. Inst. Eng. India Ser. B
Fig. 5 Control circuit
reactive power is required. The input power factor for such
type of loads can be maintained at unity also.
Figure 4a shows that the input power factor is 90° lag-
ging, that is, the converter is operated as purely inductive.
This operation is as same as charging of bus reactor to a
transmission network. When a long transmission line is
operated at lightly loaded condition, to compensate the
capacitive effect of the line, which causes over-voltage at
the receiving end called Ferranti Effect, this operation is
very useful.
The phasor of Fig. 4b is very common application to the
transmission network. Most of the industrial as well as
domestic loads are inductive type. It requires a large amount
of lagging reactive power and has a tendency to operate the
line at poor power factor. Since poor power factor increases
line current as well as line losses, power factor is to be cor-
rected to decrease the line current. The common practise for
correction of the power factor by installing capacitor bank to
the network. By using this power electronic converter, power
factor correction by injecting leading reactive power to the
system may also be possible.
Figure 4d represents the phasor diagram for inverter
mode of operation where input voltage and input current
are totally out of phase. This will occur when an active
source is connected in the dc side and the converter is
operated as an inverter. The inversion mode of operation
can also be possible if a motor connected in dc side (dc
motor or ac motor) is operated in regenerative braking
mode where energy is to be fed back to the supply from
motor terminal to the supply terminal. So this converter is
very useful to the traction purpose where regenerative
braking is frequently required.
Control Circuit Design
As described earlier, during inverter mode of operation, an
active dc source has to be connected as supply to the
converter. This research work develops an idea to maintain
the output dc voltage at a constant level using the capacitor
when the converter is operated as rectifier mode. Hence,
the paper contains the operation of the rectifier in three
different power factors (UPF, zero lagging and zero lead-
ing) with the help of same control circuit.
To develop the control circuit for the said rectifier,
control parameters are so chosen that the circuit will
operate as per the desired values of dc bus voltage and
input power factor. The actual values of the controlled
parameters are taken into account to compare them with
the desired values by formation of a closed loop.
Figure 5 represents the detail control logic where the
following three parameters are chosen: (a) dc Bus Voltage,
(b) Source Current, (c) Input Power Factor.
Authors [1] describe that the input current reference
generated by the voltage controller is to be multiplied by a
sinusoidal signal of same frequency and phase as input
voltage. In this research work, an another loop of the phase
angle of input current is considered since the input power
factor is another parameter to be controlled, a desired phase
angle is to be given, with which the actual input phase angle
is to be compared. This will enhance the flexibility of oper-
ation of the converter as per the requirement of user with
some special conditions mentioned in the earlier section.
In outer loop, the actual dc bus voltage is compared with
the desired dc voltage. The output of the comparator is
connected with a voltage controller, basically a PI con-
troller, which controls the amount of power required to
maintain the dc bus voltage at the specified value. The
controller delivers the peak value of the source current.
Since the signal delivered by the voltage controller is a
constant value, a sinusoidal function with desired phase
shift (0°, 90° or -90°) is to be multiplied with the signal to
generate the input current template.
The output of the comparator will be added as the phase
shift with the sinusoidal function which will be multiplied
with the current amplitude reference generated by the
voltage controller. This current amplitude reference is
calculated by the PI controller connected in cascade with
the inner loop. The tuning of this dc bus voltage controller
is developed by the bandwidth approach, where in order to
tune the controllers, inner and outer loops bandwidths are
separated at least by one decade.
The bandwidth of the outer loop can be calculated by the
following equation
123
 J. Inst. Eng. India Ser. B

Ki maximum dc output power respectively. Table 2 shows the

fbw ¼ ð23Þ
2pKp values of Kp, Ki and the bandwidth respectively both for
inner and outer loop. Table 3 gives the simulation data of
or, reference phase angle, source voltage, converter voltage,
Ki ¼ 2pKp fbw ð24Þ load angle, fundamental input current, active power, reac-
tive power, value of modulation index, source current and
In the inner loop this reference current is compared with
the operating power factor. The values are taken for UPF,
the actual system current so that the system current will
zero lagging power factor and zero leading power factor
follow the desired power factor and as well as the
respectively from the simulation corresponding to the
magnitude. Hence, the output of this converter is passed
fundamental frequency.
through another PI controller to generate the modulation
Table 3 shows that a small amount of reactive power is
index. The inner current loop must be faster than the outer
flowing in the circuit when reference phase angle is zero.
loop in order to fast current tracking of the system input
The total reactive power as calculated in Eq. (11) is the
current. Since, the input system current is expected to be
sum of the reactive power exchanged by the converter
stable as per requirement and have fast dynamic; the
circuit and the reactive power consumed by the input
bandwidth of the inner loop is one decade greater than that
inductance Ls. In this work, frequency modulation index mf
of the outer loop.
is kept at 200 and hence the input inductance is taken a
The comparator is required to generate two consecutive
small value of 1.5 mH accordingly so that this reactive
pulses of different pulse width at a constant high carrier
power can be approximated as the reactive power
frequency.
exchanged by the converter circuit.
Based on the data available in the Table 3, the active
power (Pcal) and the reactive power (Qcal) can be calculated
Results and Discussions from the Eqs. (10) and (11).
The simulation results of source voltage, converter
The entire simulation procedure is carried out by the
voltage and source current under different power factor
software MATLAB, version 7.14.0.739. Figure 6 shows
operation is shown in Fig. 9. Figure 9a shows the oper-
the simulation diagram which contains a single phase
ation of the converter in UPF mode. The operation under
source, an inductor between the source and the converter, a
UPF mode is carried out by connecting a resistive load of
single-phase IGBT/Diode based converter, a dc output side
5 kW in dc side. Figure 9b, c represents the voltage
capacitor and a controller to operate the IGBTs.
current relationship under inductive and capacitive mode
Figure 7 shows the circuit diagram of the bridge con-
of operation respectively. These operations are very use-
verter where the converter may be used as rectifier as well
ful to operate the rectifier as STATCOM where the
as inverter and Fig. 8 represents the diagram of the control
compensation of power factor is the main interest. To
circuit from where the output pulses are required to operate
operate the converter as STATCOM, no active load
the IGBTs.
should be connected on the dc bus to maintain the power
Detail specification of the PWM rectifier is given in
factor 90° lead or lag. The converter is said to be floating
Table 1. The table shows the values of supply voltage, the
on the dc bus.
value of input inductor, dc voltage, value of capacitor and

Fig. 6 Simulation diagram

123
J. Inst. Eng. India Ser. B

Fig. 7 Diagram of the

converter circuit

Fig. 8 Simulation control circuit

Table 1 Specification of PWM rectifier

Supply voltage Value of input inductor dc voltage Value of dc capacitor Maximum dc power output Rated source current
(Vs), V (Ls), mH (Vdc), V (Cd), lF (Pdc), W (Is), A

230 1.5 500 10,000 5000 21.74

Table 2 Value of PI controllers gain fh ¼ hf1 ð25Þ

Loop Value of proportional Value of proportional Bandwidth where h is the order of harmonics and can be written in the
controller gain (Kp) controller gain (Ki)
following form
Outer 0.9 100 17.68 h ¼ amf  b ð26Þ
Inner 0.1 1 1.59
where a and b are two constants depending on which the
order of the harmonics can be determined and h = 1 cor-
The harmonics of the source current appears as the responds to the fundamental frequency. Here only odd
sidebands, centred on the frequency modulation index mf harmonics will occur as sidebands, centred around mf, 2mf,
and its multiples. The harmonic order of the source current 3mf and so on. For odd value of mf, if the constant a is even,
can be expressed as the value of b will be odd and vice versa. If the value of mf

123
 J. Inst. Eng. India Ser. B

Table 3 Simulation data

Reference Source Converter Load Calculated Actual Calculated Actual Modulation Source Operating
phase angle voltage voltage angle active power active reactive power reactive index (ma) current power
(href), degree (Vs), V (Vc1), V (d), (Pcal), W power (Qcal), VAr power (Qact), (Is1), A factor
degree (Pact), W VAr

0° 230 230.5 1.89° 3712.34 3551 -182.77 -186.8 0.6348 15.46 0.99 lead
-90° 229.8 226.4 0.01° 19.35 8.34 1658 1646 0.6208 7.612 0 lag
90° 230.2 234 0.14° 279.7 213.5 -1856 -1864 0.6396 8.15 0.11 lead

Fig. 9 Operation of the converter in different power factor mode: a source voltage, converter voltage and source current of the converter in UPF
mode, b source voltage, converter voltage and source current of the converter in inductive mode, c source voltage, converter voltage and source
current of the converter in capacitive mode

Fig. 10 Order of harmonics for different power factor operation. a harmonic order for UPF, b harmonic order for lagging PF, c harmonic order
for leading PF

123
J. Inst. Eng. India Ser. B
is even, the order of harmonics will appear only the odd
values of b.
Figure 10 represents the harmonic content in the source
current for different modes of operation. Since the simu-
lation is carried out by choosing frequency modulation
index mf = 200, the order of harmonics of a considerable
amount has appeared will be 197, 199, 201, 203, 397, 403
etc. which are the sidebands of 200, 400 etc.
Conclusion
In this research work, the operations of PWM rectifier with
different applications are described. It is found from the above
simulation that the rectifier is very much flexible to operate at
various modes of operation. The flexibility can be improved
by inserting control of input phase angle so that the operation
of the rectifier can track with the required phase angle
depending upon which the applications of the said rectifier
may be changed as per the requirement of the user.
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