In this article, in order to optimize the dynamic performance of the permanent magnet synchronous motor (PMSM) speed regulation system, a nonlinear speed-control algorithm for the PMSM control systems using sliding-mode control is developed. First, a sliding-mode control method based on a new sliding-mode reaching law (NSMRL) is proposed. This NSMRL includes the system state variable and the power term of sliding surface function. In particular, the power term is bounded by the absolute value of the switching function, so that the reaching law can be expressed in two different forms during the reaching process. This method can not only effectively suppress the inherent chattering, but also increases the velocity of the system state reaching to the sliding-mode surface. Based on this new reaching law, a sliding-mode speed controller (SMSC) of PMSM is designed. Then, considering the large chattering phenomenon caused by high switching gain, an improved antidisturbance sliding-mode speed controller method, called SMSC + ESO method, is developed. This method introduces an extended state observer to observe the lumped disturbance and adds a feedforward compensation item based on the observed disturbances to the SMSC. Finally, simulation and experimental results both show the validity of the proposed control method.

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A New Reaching Law for Antidisturbance Sliding-Mode Control of PMSM Speed Regulation System

Power module packaging technologies have been experiencing extensive changes as the novel silicon carbide (SiC) power devices with superior performance become commercially available. This article presents an overview of power module packaging technologies in this transition, with an emphasis on the challenges that current standard packaging face, requirements that future power module packaging needs to fulfill, and recent advances on packaging technologies. The standard power module structure, which is a widely used current practice to package SiC devices, is reviewed, and the reasons why novel packaging technologies should be developed are described in this article. The packaging challenges associated with high-speed switching, thermal management, high-temperature operation, and high-voltage isolation are explained in detail. Recent advances on technologies, which try to address the limitations of standard packaging, both in packaging elements and package structure are summarized. The trend toward novel soft-switching power converters gave rise to problems regarding package designs of unconventional module configuration. Potential applications areas, such as aerospace applications, introduce low-temperature challenges to SiC packaging. Key issues in these emerging areas are highlighted.

A Review of SiC Power Module Packaging Technologies: Challenges, Advances, and Emerging Issues

The development of microgrids is an advantageous option for integrating rapidly growing renewable energies. However, the stochastic nature of renewable energies and variable power demand have created many challenges like unstable voltage/frequency and complicated power management and interaction with the utility grid. Recently, predictive control with its fast transient response and flexibility to accommodate different constraints has presented huge potentials in microgrid applications. This paper provides a comprehensive review of model predictive control (MPC) in individual and interconnected microgrids, including both converter-level and grid-level control strategies applied to three layers of the hierarchical control architecture. This survey shows that MPC is at the beginning of the application in microgrids and that it emerges as a competitive alternative to conventional methods in voltage regulation, frequency control, power flow management and economic operation optimization. Also, some of the most important trends in MPC development have been highlighted and discussed as future perspectives.

Model predictive control of microgrids – An overview

A terminal sliding mode control (SMC) method based on nonlinear disturbance observer is investigated to realize the speed and the current tracking control for the permanent magnet synchronous motor (PMSM) drive system in this paper. The proposed method adopts the speed-current single-loop control structure instead of the traditional cascade control in the vector control of the PMSM. First, considering the nonlinear and the coupling characteristic, a single-loop terminal sliding mode controller is designed for PMSM drive system through feedback linearization technology. This method can make the motor speed and current reach the reference value in finite time, which can realize the fast transient response. Although the SMC is less sensitive to parameter uncertainties and external disturbance, it may produce a large switching gain, which may cause the undesired chattering. Meanwhile, the SMC cannot keep the property of invariance in the presence of unmatched uncertainties. Then, a nonlinear disturbance observer is proposed to the estimate the lump disturbance, which is used in the feed-forward compensation control. Thus, a composite control scheme is developed for the PMSM drive system. The results show that the motor control system based on the proposed method has good speed and current tracking performance and strong robustness.

Combined Speed and Current Terminal Sliding Mode Control With Nonlinear Disturbance Observer for PMSM Drive

This article classifies, describes, and critically compares different modeling techniques and control methods for dual-active-bridge (DAB) dc–dc converters and provides explicit guidance about the DAB controller design to practicing engineers and researchers. First, available modeling methods for DAB including reduced-order model, generalized average model, and discrete-time model are classified and quantitatively compared using simulation results. Based on this comparison, recommendations for suitable DAB modeling method are given. Then, we comprehensively review the available control methods including feedback-only control, linearization control, feedforward plus feedback, disturbance-observer-based control, feedforward current control, model predictive current control, sliding mode control, and moving discretized control set model predictive control. Frequency responses of the closed-loop control-to-output and output impedance are selected as the metrics of the ability in voltage tracking and the load disturbance rejection performance. The frequency response plots of the closed-loop control-to-output transfer function and output impedance of each control method are theoretically derived or swept using simulation software PLECS and MATLAB. Based on these plots, remarks on each control method are drawn. Some practical control issues for DAB including dead-time effect, phase drift, and dc magnetic flux bias are also reviewed. This article is accompanied by PLECS simulation files of the reviewed control methods.

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Modeling and Advanced Control of Dual-Active-Bridge DC–DC Converters: A Review

State-of-the-art silicon carbide (SiC) power devices provide superior performance over silicon devices with much higher switching frequencies/speed and lower losses. High switching speed is preferred for achieving low switching loss, yet high dv/dt and di/dt can result in high EMI emission during switching transients. These switching dynamics can be controlled by the device gate driving strategy. The multi-level active gate driver (AGD) approach is able to tradeoff the switching losses with the dv/dt and di/dt for each switching transient. A novel three-level (3-L) AGD for SiC power mosfet trajectory control is introduced. Its turn-off profile has a shorter turn-off delay compared to any existing methodology. Accordingly, a comprehensive datasheet-driven trajectory model for the online model-based optimization of the 3-L turn-off is introduced. The main factors that impact the 3-L turn-off performance are analyzed with this model. The experimental results of double pulse tests validate the approach. Additionally, the benefits of the proposed 3-L AGD method over two-stage turn-off and conventional gate drivers on the market are illustrated through experiments.

Adaptive Multi-Level Active Gate Drivers for SiC Power Devices

The silicon carbide (SiC) devices have faster switching speed than that of the conventional silicon (Si) devices, which however may cause excessive device voltage overshoot. Larger gate resistance can help to restrain the overshoot, it however slows down the switching speed and increases switching losses. There are other methods that can mitigate the voltage overshoot, e.g., using low-inductance busbars, adding snubber circuits, etc. In this article, the busbar design for a 250-kW SiC three-level T-type inverter is investigated. The current commutation loops (CCLs) are first analyzed using a single-phase equivalent circuit. Then the detailed busbar design methods, especially a 3-D busbar design concept, are proposed to select the optimal stacking order for the multilayer laminated busbar and to address constraints posed by the physical terminal arrangements of SiC modules and dc-link capacitors. The stray inductance in each CCL is extracted via a finite element analysis and validated on the actual inverter busbar prototypes using an impedance analyzer. To further minimize the busbar stray inductance, a hybrid busbar structure with printed circuit board based buffer circuit using high-frequency decoupling capacitors is designed and evaluated in this article. Finally, the effectiveness of the designed busbars as well as the buffer circuit are validated using experimental studies.

Busbar Design and Optimization for Voltage Overshoot Mitigation of a Silicon Carbide High-Power Three-Phase T-Type Inverter

In constant-voltage constant-frequency (CVCF) pulsewidth modulation (PWM) dc–ac inverters, the lumped disturbance, including the parameter uncertainties, unmodeled dynamics, and nonlinear loads, will deteriorate the performance and cause high harmonic distortions, or even result in instability. Conventional disturbance observer (CDOB), in which a low-pass $Q$ filter is adopted to estimate the lumped disturbance, cannot completely eliminate the harmonics. While the conventional repetitive control (CRC) can attenuate the harmonics by using the error signal of previous period(s), that may result in slow transient response due to nonperiodic components in the tracking error during the transient state. In this paper, an internal model-based disturbance observer (IM-DOB) is proposed and has been applied in a CVCF PWM inverter to improve the control performance. In IM-DOB, a novel IM-based disturbance estimation observer is proposed to estimate the disturbance both in the low-frequency region and at harmonic frequencies, while compensation filters are introduced to enhance the robustness and stability. The IM-DOB scheme, which fuses the merit of CDOB and CRC, is actually a two-degree-of-freedom scheme. The stability analysis and a design case are also given. Comparative experiments are conducted to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed scheme.

Internal Model-Based Disturbance Observer With Application to CVCF PWM Inverter

Using silicon carbide (SiC) power devices can potentially improve the efficiency of a power electronic system, but it may also introduce severe electromagnetic interference (EMI) problems due to the fast switching speed. The conventional gate driver cannot provide the flexibility to adjust the switching speed of SiC dynamically. To address this issue, an intelligent versatile active gate driver (AGD) is proposed to achieve optimized switching trajectory for power devices. The proposed AGD has five operation modes, i.e., faster/normal/slower the turn-on process and slower/normal turn-off process. The availability of multiple operation modes offers extra freedom to improve the switching performance and enable it to be versatile across various systems. The proposed AGD can provide more switching speed adjustment resolution than the other AGDs allowing for fine tuning of the switching speed of SiC power devices. In addition, a novel model-based trajectory optimization strategy is proposed to determine the optimal gate driver output voltage by trading the EMI noise against the switching energy losses. The functionalities of the multi-level AGD are validated with the experimental results. The hardware design consideration is also given for the product commercialization purpose.

An Intelligent Versatile Model-Based Trajectory-Optimized Active Gate Driver for Silicon Carbide Devices

This article presents a comprehensive design and validation of a compact all-silicon carbide (SiC) 250-kW T-type traction inverter with a power density of 25 kW/l and 98.5% peak efficiency. All the operation modes and switching transitions in a T-type phase leg are analyzed to model the semiconductor power losses over a fundamental cycle. Special attention has been paid to investigate the behavior and losses due to the reverse conduction of the SiC MOSFETs. Then a loss model is built based upon this analysis to calculate the device loss distribution and system efficiency, which is further used to determine the optimal switching frequency. In addition, detailed inverter system design and prototyping procedure, including the selection of SiC modules and dc-link capacitors, and the optimization of a four-layer laminated busbar, are presented. In this article, the T-type phase leg is formed by a normal half-bridge module and a common-source module. The switching performance and losses in this configuration are different from two-level topology that only uses one SiC module. Therefore, the switching performance and the associated switching energy in each switch position are characterized using a custom clamped inductive load (CIL) test setup designed for a T-type phase leg. The performance of the full power traction inverter prototype has been verified experimentally using pulse testing and continuous power testing.

Yuheng Wu

Papers

Adaptive Multi-Level Active Gate Drivers for SiC Power Devices

Busbar Design and Optimization for Voltage Overshoot Mitigation of a Silicon Carbide High-Power Three-Phase T-Type Inverter

Internal Model-Based Disturbance Observer With Application to CVCF PWM Inverter

An Intelligent Versatile Model-Based Trajectory-Optimized Active Gate Driver for Silicon Carbide Devices

Design and Validation of A 250-kW All-Silicon Carbide High-Density Three-Level T-Type Inverter