Optimal Design and Experimental Verification of FPGA-based MMC-HVDC Controller

The control system structure of modular multilevel converter based high voltage direct current (MMC-HVDC) is complicated. Data acquisition, control computation, and communication among distributed controllers lead to long link delay. The delay will further cause deterioration of the system’s dynamic characteristics and even instability. This paper presents an integrated controller design based on field programmable gate array (FPGA). The parallel features of FPGA are fully utilized to complete the control calculation task and shorten the link delay as much as possible. Based on the real-time digital simulator (RTDS) platform, hardware-in-the-loop experiments are carried out to verify the function of the designed controller. The results show that the designed controller has short link delay and fast response speed, and can be used in the testing of control strategy, control parameters optimization, and so on.