Showing papers by "Srdjan Lukic published in 2023"

Medium Voltage Solid State Transformer for Extreme Fast Charging Applications

Abstract: A modular and scalable solid state transformer (SST) with direct medium voltage (MV) AC connectivity is proposed to enable DC extreme fast charging (XFC) of electric vehicles. Single-phase-modules (SPMs), each consisting of an active-front-end (AFE) stage and an isolated DC-DC stage, are connected in input-series-output-parallel (ISOP) configuration. The modular hardware is co-designed with decentralized control of the DC-DC stages where voltage and power balancing are achieved by each SPM using only its local sensor feedback; a centralized controller (CC) regulates the low voltage (LV) DC bus through the AFE stages without any sensor feedback form the SPMs. The controller architecture contrasts sharply with the prior art for MV AC to LV DC SSTs where high-speed bidirectional communication among SPMs and a CC are required for module-level voltage and power balancing, which severely limits the scalability and practical realization of higher voltage and higher power units. Detailed small-signal analysis and controller design guidelines are developed. Furthermore, a soft start-up strategy is presented. The proposed converter and control structure are validated through simulation and experimental results.

Privacy-Preserving Robust Consensus for Distributed Microgrid Control Applications

Abstract: Consensus-based distributed control has been proposed for coordinating distributed energy resources (DERs) in microgrids (MGs). As one key component, distributed average observers are used to estimate the average of a group of reference signals (e.g., voltage, current, or power). State-of-the-art distributed average observers could lead to loss of privacy due to information exchange on the communication channels. The DERs' reference signals, which contains private information, could be inferred by an eavesdropper. In this paper, a privacy-preserving distributed average observer is proposed, which is based on robust consensus and uses the state decomposition method to preserve privacy. Compared to the existing methods, the proposed observer does not require the knowledge of the reference signal's derivative and gives accurate and smooth estimation, and is thus applicable for MG distributed control applications. A detailed analysis regarding the convergence and privacy properties of the proposed observer is presented. The proposed observer is implemented on hardware controllers and validated in the context of distributed MG control applications through hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) tests.

Distributed Economic Dispatch for Microgrids Tracking Ramp Power Commands

Abstract: When in grid-connected mode of operation, distributed generators (DGs) within the microgrid (MG) can coordinate to act as a single entity to provide services to the bulk grid. The DGs can coordinate their power production to minimize the total operating cost, which is known as the distributed economic dispatch. Various methods have been proposed to solve the MG economic dispatch problem (EDP) in a distributed fashion, under the assumption that DGs’ power output, in aggregate, follows a constant or slowly varying power command. However, when the MG is providing frequency regulation service, or the internal load is highly dynamic, the MG EDP becomes dynamic, and the state-of-the-art distributed approaches cannot guarantee optimality. In this paper, we propose a distributed economic dispatch algorithm for MGs providing frequency regulation service, as an example of a dispatch profile with ramp commands. A consensus protocol guaranteeing zero steady-state error for ramp inputs is integrated into the EDP to find the optimal solution in a distributed way. With the proposed algorithm, the MG is able to tightly follow a time-varying regulation signal while maintaining an optimal economic dispatch for all the DGs within. We validate the proposed method using regulation signals from PJM and demonstrate the algorithm on a hardware-in-the-loop testbed.

Open Circuit Switch Fault Management Method of a Multi-Phase Synchronous Buck Converter for EV Charging Application

Abstract: Multi-phase synchronous buck converter (MSBC) is becoming popular for the electric vehicle (EV) charging application because of its higher efficiency, smaller passive component sizes, bidirectional power flow, and output current ripple reduction through interleaving. This converter also provides higher reliability than the traditional single phase converter since its modular structure enables fault tolerant operation. Fault management in the converter requires the detection of switch fault, shut down of the faulty phase, and reconfiguration of the PWM signals for the healthy phases to avoid circulating current and high output current ripple. In addition, it is desirable that the fault management method can be implemented using the micro-controller unit (MCU) or digital signal processor (DSP), which are widely used to control power converters. This paper presents a fault management method for detecting switch faults and reconfiguring healthy phases using a DSP. The method is validated through simulations and experiments using a commercial off-the-shelf power stack.