A comparative study of hysteresis band PWM techniques for current control in shunt active power filters

Abstract

This paper evaluates the performance of an active power filter using three hysteresis band current control techniques: fixed-band, adaptive-band, and Space Vector Modulation. The characteristics of each method, along with their behaviour under different operating conditions, are studied by means of time domain simulations. The pq theory is used in all the cases to calculate the current reference, and a proportional controller is implemented to regulate the voltage in the dc bus. Based on the results, the PWM techniques evaluated in this work enable a reduction in the harmonic content of the supply grid currents that ranges from 31% without compensation to 6% after the active power filter is connected. The adaptive hysteresis band method exhibited the worst performance in the elimination of harmonics in grid currents; furthermore, it presented the largest reduction of variations in the switching frequency and requires more calculation time because the band width must be computed at each iteration. In turn, the fixed hysteresis band alternative is the most widely recommended forapplications that involve parallel filters because it has a simpler structure that enables its implementation. Finally, the technique that combines space vector modulation and hysteresis band current control produced highly-variable switching frequencies and a more complex implementation.

Keywords

• Active power filters
• current control techniques
• harmonic compensation
• hysteresis band
• vector modulation