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Achieving ultra-high performance power converter control while extending system lifetime: Introduction to set-theoretic methods

The continuously increasing demand for power converters with higher power density, higher energy efficiency, and longer lifetime operation leads to tight constraints on voltages and currents through converter components. However, classical control techniques applied to power converters do not take into account these constraints, and thus violations of component specifications regularly occurs, causing reduced component lifetime and in some cases resulting in catastrophic premature failure. In conventional control systems, the violation of a constraint such as the voltage limit on an IGBT or SCR, may go undetected, resulting in unexplained failures before the expected component lifetime.

Very low complexity control laws, suitable for practical deployment in low cost FPGA or ASIC devices, can eliminate these constraints violations while achieving high performance, through an automated control design technique inspired from set-theoretic methods. In the demonstrated example, the goal of the power converter control algorithm is to optimally regulate the output voltage to the desired set point regardless of disturbances while keeping the system states and inputs within the specified bounds. The introductory presentation shows a fully automated control synthesis approach that takes into account all physical constraints and guarantees safe operation within limits by design. In other words, the design method can account for all possible situations that can occur in the circuit. This approach provides strong guarantees of performance, robustness and constraints satisfaction. In essence, the methodology represents a way to achieve ultra-high performance power converter control while extending system lifetime and energy efficiency.

The control synthesis method takes care of constraints a priori, and if all the assumptions are still true in reality (model, disturbance, computation errors), it gives a safe controller by design. However, for additional validation and verification of the embedded control system hardware/software under simulated signal or full power test conditions, the physical closed-loop control system can be validated with full test coverage real-time hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) simulation using new ultra high-speed FPGA-based power electronics simulators. Note that the introductory video below does not cover these HIL simulation based validation techniques. For details on that aspect of the design process, see the related NIWeek Energy Technology Summit Presentation.

Presented by Veaceslav Spinu, PhD, Postdoctoral Researcher at Eindhoven University of Technology, Electrical Engineering

Watch the Video - Introduction to Set-Theoretic Methods

Speaker Bio:

Veaceslav Spinu is currently a Postdoctoral Researcher at Eindhoven University of Technology, Electrical Engineering Department, Control Systems Group. Veaceslav's research focuses on advanced control of power converters with a special attention to model predictive control and set theoretic methods. Veaceslav was actively involved in the Ultra High-precision Power Amplifier (UHPA) project prior to its completion. The project focused on next generation design techniques for power converters with an emphassis on increasing their reliability, bandwidth and accuracy above the current state of the art. In addition to a PhD from Eindhoven University of Technology,Veaceslav Spinu holds the Ir. and M.S. degrees in Automatic Control and Applied Informatics from Technical University of Iasi, Romania.

Related Links

IEEE Spectrum Webinar: Power Converter Controller Design for Smart Grid Power Electronics

NIWeek Energy Technology Summit Presentation: A Development Cycle for Power Converter Control Systems with Full Validation & Verification Coverage

Conference Paper: FPGA implementation of optimal and approximate model predictive control for a buck-boost DC-DC conve...

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