Model-Free Predictive Power Control for PWM Rectifiers under Asymmetrical Grids

Conventional model predictive power control (MPPC) features a simple concept and quick dynamic response. However, it relies heavily on the system model and its parameter accuracy. Furthermore, the steady ripples are still high due to the use of one voltage vector during one control period. Recently, model-free predictive current control (MFPCC) has been proposed in the current control of PWM rectifiers. Despite the strong parameter robustness, the principle of MFPCC cannot be directly applied to power control, because the relationship between power and converter voltage is more complex. This paper first proposes a basic model-free predictive power control (MFPPC), which successfully extends the principle of MFPCC to power control. Subsequently, an improved MFPPC is proposed, which uses an extended finite control set of voltage vectors to improve the steady-state performance. Furthermore, by using the online updated ultralocal model of PWM rectifiers, the problem of stagnant power updating in basic MFPPC is solved. The ideal three-phase grid voltages are symmetrical and sinusoidal, but the actual grids are usually unsymmetrical. In this paper, the proposed method is extended to asymmetrical power grids by adding an appropriate compensated power to the original power references. The proposed basic MFPPC and improved MFPPC are compared to conventional MPPC. The presented experimental results confirm the effectiveness of the proposed methods.