Circulating Current Controller in Modular

Multilevel Converter for Drive Application – A

Comparative Analysis
1st 2nd
Sujo Oommen Dr. Venkatesh Murthy B S
Research Scholar Associate Professor
School of Electrical and Electronics Engineering School of Electrical and Electronics Engineering
REVA University REVA University
Bangalore, India Bangalore, India
sujo.oommen@reva.edu.in

Abstract—In recent years, Modular Multilevel Converter challenges correlated with the control parameters of the MMC
(MMC) has become one of the most prominent and popular to improvise its performance for different applications [2]– [6].
power converter technology suitable for medium-power drive Several strategies of control based on linear conventional con-
system applications. It possesses unique advantages like mod-
ularity in structure, better harmonic performances, redundancy trollers such as proportional-integral (PI) control, proportional
etc. During operational condition of MMC, inevitable flow of resonant (PR) control, have been used to control the MMC [1],
circulating currents through its each arm and which in turn [7]-[9]. However, these conventional controllers have much
leads to power losses, rise in the ratings of the devices in the significant control on the dynamics performance in operation
overall converter system. Various circulating current suppression of the MMC, its necessary to adoption of more advanced
methods are studied by the researchers for the effective reduction
in rms values and elimination of even harmonics in circulating control strategies because of the magnitude of the arm current,
currents. In the paper describes the comparative analysis of Total circulating current THD and voltage ripple concern. In the
Harmonic Distortion (THD) of different control strategies for the normal operation of MMC, the total voltage output of each
circulating current control in MMC drive system for efficient phase in submodule same as the DC bus voltage. Hence the
operation. MATLAB Simulation Studies are carried out for the presence of circulating current is identified. The circulating
various control approaches for circulating current strategies for
MMC. current not only rises the magnitude of arm current but also
Index Terms—Modular Multilevel Converter (MMC); Cir- affects voltage handling level give rise to voltage ripple in
culating Current control; Total Harmonic Distortion (THD); submodules [10]. Later it leads to the inefficient operation of
Control Strategies. MMC and effects the rating of the devices. Thus, numerous re-
search study based on the various parameters is proposed such
I. I NTRODUCTION as in order to suppress the circulating current arm reactance is
The Modular multilevel Converter gives a significant im- increased, but it has only limited effect [11]. Another approach
provement in converter topology due to its unique features like PI controller to limit the inner circulating current only
made it deployed for medium and high voltage applications. minimize the 2nd harmonics but easily affected the system
MMC also acts as bidirectional flow (AC- DC / DC-AC) of parameters change [12]. It is believed PI controllers are not
power voltage source converter in both single and three phase only second harmonic components but also minimize the other
system. However, compared with other VSC topologies, it can even harmonic components in the inner circulating current
provide different voltage levels at its output AC side with in the MMC system [13]. By using double PI controller,
good harmonic performance. The attractive features include the suppression of the 2nd and 4th harmonic components in
scalability, modular structure, reduced switching frequency, circulating current has been also done [14]. In proportional
redundancy etc leads MMC to become most innovative and resonance (PR) controller with the coordinate transformation
coherent solution for conversion of energy [1]-[2]. Neverthe- gives the complex control mode for inner loop. The PIR
less, challenges persist in controlling and modulating MMCs. uses arm balancing control by obtain the reference value of
Issues such as circulating current and voltage balancing of sub- circulating current, which in-turn requires many PI controllers,
module (SM) capacitor significantly influence power switch leads to complex design of the controller parameter [15]. Thus,
device ratings, losses, and capacitor voltage fluctuations. These sliding mode control (SMC) based strategy usually possesses
challenges, coupled with low switching frequencies, present simple nature of parameter design, strong robustness and anti-
a new set of hurdles to ensure stable and efficient MMC interference ability features makes it applied to application of
operation. Over the past decades, bountiful research work electric drives and other various power converters, it possesses
has been carried out to direct the operational and technical slightly high value for magnitude ofarm currents [16]. This
paper suggests Repetitive Controller which has lots of ad-
vantages compared to SMC, employed to mitigate the impact
of periodic or repetitive disturbances and also improves the
overall performance of the converter system. Hence, this article
describes the comparison of various circulating controller
methods for MMC driven system.

II. O PERATION AND A NALYSIS OF M ODULAR

M ULTILEVEL C ONVERTER
Three-phase unique structure of MMC comprises of two
arms in each leg and the two arms are interlocked with an arm
inductor (L with a small internal value of resistance of the arm
inductor) is represented in Fig. 1. The basic building block is
a Sub-Module (SM) with Half Bridge Sub-Module (HBSM) is
most commonly used. HBSM constitute two complementary
switches and a capacitor.
Fig. 2. Single-phase MMC Equivalent circuit diagram.

Expression for dynamic of MMC with consideration of polar-

ity and loop equations:
Vdc (ϑui + ϑli ) dicir,i
− − r0 icir,i − L0 =0 (4)
2 2 dt
Where ro and L0 are internal resistance and inductance of
the upper arm and lower arm respectively. Vdc is the dc bus
link voltage, ϑui and ϑli re the upper and lower arm voltages.
Circulating current offset voltages are included in both arms
and can be expressed as:
dicir,i
ϑof f set,i = r0 .icir,i + L0 (5)
dt
Equations (4) and (5) combined to form reference voltages for
upper and lower arms (ϑ∗ui and ϑ∗li ) are represented as:
Fig. 1. Basic Configuration of MMC Drive system.
Vdc
ϑ∗ui = − e∗i − ϑ∗of f set,i (6)
2
A. Circulating Current Analysis Vdc
ϑ∗li = + e∗i − ϑ∗of f set,i (7)
An operation of a single-phase MMC equivalent circuit is 2
shown in Fig. 2. The arm consists of two voltages (DC sources Where e∗i is the reference voltages given for 3- phase current
Vdc/2 and Sinusoidal source Vui ,Vli ) in which DC bus voltage controller and ϑ∗of f set,i is the additional reference voltages
split into two DC Sources (Vdc/2) which is considered as the given for circulating current controller.
reference point. The upper and lower arm currents combination
of each leg can be represented as: (ϑli − ϑui )
ei = (8)
2
ii
iui = i(cir,i) + (1) Considering Vi as the load voltage for given i- phase (i=
2
a,b,c) and the 3-phase output currents are controlled by the
ii inner voltage control ei .
ili = i(cir,i) − (2)
2
III. C IRCULATING C URRENT C ONTROL S TRATEGIES
Where iui and ili are the current of upper and lower arm
respectively, ii is the output phase current, and icir,i is the In order to minimize peak value of arm current, THD of
circulating current in phase ‘i’ = a,b,c. Circulating current in circulating current in MMC, there are various control strate-
the MMC converter can be expressed from the equation (1) gies are implemented. Thus, these control strategies help to
and (2) suppress the circulating current, reduce ripple voltage, which
(iui + ili ) in-turn minimize the switching loss and improve the entire
i(cir,i) = (3) system efficiency.
2
A. Proportional Integral Control to mitigate the repetitive disturbances. The RC uses the error
Proportional Integral (PI) control is valid when double signal which generate a compensating control signal and is
frequency current component is taken into account. It helps to added to the already existing control signals to mitigate the cir-
suppress 2nd order fundamental frequency current component culating currents in MMC. These control signals generated are
in the circulating current. The Basic Structure of PI controller applied to the switches within the converter, and reconfigure
for circulating of MMC is represented in Fig.3. the modulation technique which helps to tune the circulating
currents in MMC. The circulating currents are continuously
regulated and variation of desired parameters of the system
profile are kept to a minimum, this process is repeated in a
continuous loop.
Repetitive control creates a flawless feedback structure em-
bedding a systematic model system with external input signal
in the controller actively based on the internal membrane
principle. The input signal without static differences in-turn
generate infinite gain during periodic harmonic frequencies
are the two main merits.
Fig. 3. Basic Structure of PI controller for circulating current. The basic schematic control of the RC is depicted in Fig.
5. Based on the exponential function’s nature, the Repetitive
Control can be expressed as:
B. Sliding Mode Control
MMC commonly utilize the Proportional-Integral (PI) con-
trol for various applications. In PI method, the feedback e(−sT ) 1 1 1 + e(−sT ) 1 1 1 2
GRC (s) = = + ( = + ( +Σ∞ k=1 ( 2
involves a PI element with linear combination and the error (1 − e (−sT ) 2 2 (1 − e (−sT ) 2 T s s + (k
signal (e(t)), which represents the difference between the (9)
output and reference values. However, the inertia of the system where e−sT is the delay in cycle time link, ω = 2p/T and k
poses a challenge, making it difficult for the output to undergo is an integer.
rapid and precise changes when there is a step change in the
reference value. This challenge leads to a conflict between
overshooting and achieving quick responses. To address this
issue, Sliding Mode Control (SMC) is applied to MMCs.

Fig. 5. Basic control schematic of RC.

Fig. 4. Control Structure of SMC for inner control.

In Sliding Mode Control (SMC) approach, the precise

control variables such as the output current and circulating
current, which in-turn designed into two appropriate control
structures. When one of the two control structures activates
simultaneously, the corresponding control variable is dynami-
cally adjusted to glide within the given range of the two control
structures as shown in Fig.4.
C. Repetitive Control
Fig. 6. Control schematic: (a) Functional diagram of Repetitive Control (RC)
A Repetitive Controller (RC) is utilized to handle the peri- based inner loop control of circulating current system of MMC; (b) Integrated
odic/repetitive nature of the circulating currents and designed structure of RC.
 As illustrated in Equation (9), the Repetitive Controller
(RC) is consisting of an integral controller and resonant
controllers. This integration of two controllers enables the RC
to accomplish infinite gain at every resonant frequency point
kw, and also ensuring theoretical control of the input at these
specific frequencies.
The RC is integrated with a PI controller to minimize
the circulating current harmonics while maintaining the per-
formance of the dynamic controller. The control schematic
depicting the RC based inner loop control of circulating
current system is represented in Fig. 6. In the control loop
Fig. 8. THD Analysis of Circulating current based on PI Controller
design process, RC comprise of main three components such
as a low-pass filter component, time delay component, and the
compensation session as mentioned in the structure.

IV. S IMULATION R ESULTS AND D ISCUSSIONS

To analyse the circulating current control method perfor-

mance and effectiveness, three phase five level MMC is
considered and the system parameter ratings of the converter
are tabulated in Table I. The MATLAB simulation is carried
out for conventional Proportional Integral (PI) control, Slid-
ing Mode Control (SMC) and Repetitive Control (RC) with
comparative analysis.

TABLE I Fig. 9. Waveform of Bridge Arm current based on PI Controller

S IMULATION PARAMETERS FOR MMC

SL. Parameters and Specifications

No. Parameter Values
1 DC voltage (Vdc) 650V
2 Submodules/Arm 4
3 Submodule capacitor 1.2mF
4 Arm Resistance 0.02 Ω
5 Arm Inductor 3mH
6 Switching frequency 5kHz

A. Simulation Results on Various Controller based MMC fed

induction motor

Fig. 10. THD Analysis of Arm current based on PI Controller

Fig. 7. Waveform of Circulating current based on PI Controller

Fig. 11. Inverter output Voltage based on PI Controller

 Fig. 12. Waveform of Circulating current based on SMC
Fig. 16. Inverter output Voltage based on SMC

Fig. 13. THD Analysis of Circulating current based on SMC

Fig. 17. Waveform of Circulating current based on SMC

Fig. 14. Waveform of Bridge Arm current based on SMC

Fig. 18. THD Analysis of Circulating current based on RC

Fig. 15. THD Analysis of Arm current based on SMC

Fig. 19. Waveform of Bridge Arm current based on RC
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SL THD Analysis
No Circulating Current Circulating Current Arm Current
Controllers (%) (%)
1 Proportional Integral (PI) 12.45 24.56
2 Sliding Mode Control (SMC) 11.19 11.19
2 Repitative Control (RC) 3.58 3.32