LOCAL DIGITAL CONTROL OF POWER ELECTRONIC CONVERTERS IN A DC MICROGRID BASED ON A-PRIORI DERIVATION OF SWITCHING SURFACES

In power electronic basedmicrogrids, the computational requirements needed to implement an optimized online control strategy can be prohibitive. The work presented in this dissertation proposes a generalized method of derivation of geometric manifolds in a dc microgrid that is based on the a-priori computation of the optimal reactions and trajectories for classes of events in a dc microgrid. The proposed states are the stored energies in all the energy storage elements of the dc microgrid and power flowing into them. It is anticipated that calculating a large enough set of dissimilar transient scenarios will also span many scenarios not specifically used to develop the surface. These geometric manifolds will then be used as reference surfaces in any type of controller, such as a sliding mode hysteretic controller. The presence of switched power converters in microgrids involve different control actions for different system events. The control of the switch states of the converters is essential for steady state and transient operations. A digital memory look-up based controller that uses a hysteretic sliding mode control strategy is an effective technique to generate the proper switch states for the converters. An example dcmicrogrid with three dc-dc boost converters and resistive loads is considered for this work. The geometric manifolds are successfully generated for transient events, such as step changes in the loads and the sources. The surfaces corresponding to a specific case of step change in the loads are then used as reference surfaces in an EEPROM for experimentally validating the control strategy. The required switch states corresponding to this specific transient scenario are programmed in the EEPROM as a memory table. This controls the switching of the dc-dc boost converters and drives the system states to the reference manifold. In this work, it is shown that this strategy effectively controls the system for a transient condition such as step changes in the loads for the example case.

AN ENERGY BASED MINIMUM-TIME OPTIMAL CONTROL OF DC-DC CONVERTERS

Time-optimal response is an important and sometimes necessary characteristic of dynamic systems for specific applications. Power converters are widely used in different electrical systems and their dynamic response will affect the whole system. In many electrical systems like microgrids or voltage regulators which supplies sensitive loads fast dynamic response is a must. Minimum time is the fastest converter to compensate the step output reference or load change. Boost converters as one of the wildly used power converters in the electrical systems are aimed to be controlled in optimal time in this study. Linear controllers are not able to provide the optimal response for a boost converter however they are still useful and functional for other applications like reference tracking or stabilization. To obtain the fastest possible response from boost converters, a nonlinear control approach based on the total energy of the system is studied in this research. Total energy of the system considers as the basis for developing the presented method, since it is easy and accurate to measure besides that the total energy of the system represents the actual operating condition of the boost converter. The detailed model of a boost converter is simulated in MATLAB/Simulink to achieve the time optimal response of the boost converter by applying the developed method. The simulation results confirmed the ability of the presented method to secure the time optimal response of the boost converter under four different scenarios.

Structural and surface property characterization of titanium dioxide nanotubes for orthopedic implants

This research focused on the to modification of the surface structure of titanium implants with nanostructured morphology of TiO2 nanotubes and studied the interaction of nanotubes with osteoblast cells to understand the parameters that affect the cell growth. The electrical, mechanical, and structural properties of TiO2 nanotubes were characterized to establish a better understanding on the properties of such nanoscale morphological structures. To achieve the objectives of this research work I transformed the titanium and its alloys, either in bulk sheet form, bulk machined form, or thin film deposited on another substrate into a surface of titania nanotubes using a low cost and environmentally friendly process. The process requires only a simple electrolyte, low cost electrode, and a DC power supply. With this simple approach of scalable nanofabrication, a typical result is nanotubes that are each approximately 100nm in diameter and have a wall thickness of about 20nm. By changing the fabrication parameters, independent nanotubes can be fabricated with open volume between them. Titanium in this form is termed onedimensional since electron transport is narrowly confined along the length of the nanotube. My Ph.D. accomplishments have successfully shown that osteoblast cells, the cells that are the precursors to bone, have a strong tendency to attach to the inside and outside of the titanium nanotubes onto which they are grown using their filopodia – cell’s foot used for locomotion – anchored to titanium nanotubes. In fact it was shown that the cell prefers to find many anchoring sites. These sites are critical for cell locomotion during the first several weeks of maturity and upon calcification as a strongly anchored bone cell. In addition I have shown that such a surface has a greater cell density than a smooth titanium surface. My work also developed a process that uses a focused and controllably rastered ion beam as a nano-scalpel to cut away sections of the osteoblast cells to probe the attachment beneath the main cell body. Ultimately the more rapid growth of osteoblasts, coupled with a stronger cell-surface interface, could provide cost reduction, shorter rehabilitation, and fewer follow-on surgeries due to implant loosening.

Energy and conductance state modeling of power electronic converters for DC microgrids

This document will demonstrate the methodology used to create an energy and conductance based model for power electronic converters. The work is intended to be a replacement for voltage and current based models which have limited applicability to the network nodal equations. Using conductance-based modeling allows direct application of load differential equations to the bus admittance matrix (Y-bus) with a unified approach. When applied directly to the Y-bus, the system becomes much easier to simulate since the state variables do not need to be transformed. The proposed transformation applies to loads, sources, and energy storage systems and is useful for DC microgrids. Transformed state models of a complete microgrid are compared to experimental results and show the models accurately reflect the system dynamic behavior.

Adaptive control of sinusoidal brushless DC motor actuators

Electrical Power Assisted Steering system (EPAS) will likely be used on future automotive power steering systems. The sinusoidal brushless DC (BLDC) motor has been identified as one of the most suitable actuators for the EPAS application. Motor characteristic variations, which can be indicated by variations of the motor parameters such as the coil resistance and the torque constant, directly impart inaccuracies in the control scheme based on the nominal values of parameters and thus the whole system performance suffers. The motor controller must address the time-varying motor characteristics problem and maintain the performance in its long service life. In this dissertation, four adaptive control algorithms for brushless DC (BLDC) motors are explored. The first algorithm engages a simplified inverse dq-coordinate dynamics controller and solves for the parameter errors with the q-axis current (iq) feedback from several past sampling steps. The controller parameter values are updated by slow integration of the parameter errors. Improvement such as dynamic approximation, speed approximation and Gram-Schmidt orthonormalization are discussed for better estimation performance. The second algorithm is proposed to use both the d-axis current (id) and the q-axis current (iq) feedback for parameter estimation since id always accompanies iq. Stochastic conditions for unbiased estimation are shown through Monte Carlo simulations. Study of the first two adaptive algorithms indicates that the parameter estimation performance can be achieved by using more history data. The Extended Kalman Filter (EKF), a representative recursive estimation algorithm, is then investigated for the BLDC motor application. Simulation results validated the superior estimation performance with the EKF. However, the computation complexity and stability may be barriers for practical implementation of the EKF. The fourth algorithm is a model reference adaptive control (MRAC) that utilizes the desired motor characteristics as a reference model. Its stability is guaranteed by Lyapunov’s direct method. Simulation shows superior performance in terms of the convergence speed and current tracking. These algorithms are compared in closed loop simulation with an EPAS model and a motor speed control application. The MRAC is identified as the most promising candidate controller because of its combination of superior performance and low computational complexity. A BLDC motor controller developed with the dq-coordinate model cannot be implemented without several supplemental functions such as the coordinate transformation and a DC-to-AC current encoding scheme. A quasi-physical BLDC motor model is developed to study the practical implementation issues of the dq-coordinate control strategy, such as the initialization and rotor angle transducer resolution. This model can also be beneficial during first stage development in automotive BLDC motor applications.

MULTIDIMENSIONAL OPTIMAL DROOP CONTROL FOR WIND RESOURCES IN DC MICROGRIDS

Two important and upcoming technologies, microgrids and electricity generation from wind resources, are increasingly being combined. Various control strategies can be implemented, and droop control provides a simple option without requiring communication between microgrid components. Eliminating the single source of potential failure around the communication system is especially important in remote, islanded microgrids, which are considered in this work. However, traditional droop control does not allow the microgrid to utilize much of the power available from the wind. This dissertation presents a novel droop control strategy, which implements a droop surface in higher dimension than the traditional strategy. The droop control relationship then depends on two variables: the dc microgrid bus voltage, and the wind speed at the current time. An approach for optimizing this droop control surface in order to meet a given objective, for example utilizing all of the power available from a wind resource, is proposed and demonstrated. Various cases are used to test the proposed optimal high dimension droop control method, and demonstrate its function. First, the use of linear multidimensional droop control without optimization is demonstrated through simulation. Next, an optimal high dimension droop control surface is implemented with a simple dc microgrid containing two sources and one load. Various cases for changing load and wind speed are investigated using simulation and hardware-in-the-loop techniques. Optimal multidimensional droop control is demonstrated with a wind resource in a full dc microgrid example, containing an energy storage device as well as multiple sources and loads. Finally, the optimal high dimension droop control method is applied with a solar resource, and using a load model developed for a military patrol base application. The operation of the proposed control is again investigated using simulation and hardware-in-the-loop techniques.

STATE OF CHARGE BASED DROOP SURFACE FOR OPTIMAL CONTROL OF DC MICROGRIDS

For a microgrid with a high penetration level of renewable energy, energy storage use becomes more integral to the system performance due to the stochastic nature of most renewable energy sources. This thesis examines the use of droop control of an energy storage source in dc microgrids in order to optimize a global cost function. The approach involves using a multidimensional surface to determine the optimal droop parameters based on load and state of charge. The optimal surface is determined using knowledge of the system architecture and can be implemented with fully decentralized source controllers. The optimal surface control of the system is presented. Derivations of a cost function along with the implementation of the optimal control are included. Results were verified using a hardware-in-the-loop system.

DC MICROGRID STABILIZATION THROUGH FUZZY CONTROL OF INTERLEAVED, HETEROGENEOUS STORAGE ELEMENTS

As microgrid power systems gain prevalence and renewable energy comprises greater and greater portions of distributed generation, energy storage becomes important to offset the higher variance of renewable energy sources and maximize their usefulness. One of the emerging techniques is to utilize a combination of lead-acid batteries and ultracapacitors to provide both short and long-term stabilization to microgrid systems. The different energy and power characteristics of batteries and ultracapacitors imply that they ought to be utilized in different ways. Traditional linear controls can use these energy storage systems to stabilize a power grid, but cannot effect more complex interactions. This research explores a fuzzy logic approach to microgrid stabilization. The ability of a fuzzy logic controller to regulate a dc bus in the presence of source and load fluctuations, in a manner comparable to traditional linear control systems, is explored and demonstrated. Furthermore, the expanded capabilities (such as storage balancing, self-protection, and battery optimization) of a fuzzy logic system over a traditional linear control system are shown. System simulation results are presented and validated through hardware-based experiments. These experiments confirm the capabilities of the fuzzy logic control system to regulate bus voltage, balance storage elements, optimize battery usage, and effect self-protection.

REALIZATION OF A DC MICROGRID USING A HAMILTONIAN BASED CONTROLS SOLUTION

Future power grids are envisioned to be serviced by heterogeneous arrangements of renewable energy sources. Due to their stochastic nature, energy storage distribution and management are pivotal in realizing microgrids serviced heavily by renewable energy assets. Identifying the required response characteristics to meet the operational requirements of a power grid are of great importance and must be illuminated in order to discern optimal hardware topologies. Hamiltonian Surface Shaping and Power Flow Control (HSSPFC) presents the tools to identify such characteristics. By using energy storage as actuation within the closed loop controller, the response requirements may be identified while providing a decoupled controller solution. A DC microgrid servicing a fixed RC load through source and bus level storage managed by HSSPFC was realized in hardware. A procedure was developed to calibrate the DC microgrid architecture of this work to the reduced order model used by the HSSPFC law. Storage requirements were examined through simulation and experimental testing. Bandwidth contributions between feed forward and PI components of the HSSPFC law are illuminated and suggest the need for well-known system losses to prevent the need for additional overhead in storage allocations. The following work outlines the steps taken in realizing a DC microgrid and presents design considerations for system calibration and storage requirements per the closed loop controls for future DC microgrids.