Performance analysis of Closed loop controlled

Single-Phase Unipolar Inverter with Fixed

Switching Frequency Sliding Mode Control
Praveen Kumar Bonthagorla Suresh Mikkili
Electrical and Electronics Engineering Electrical and Electronics Engineering
National Institute of Technology Goa National Institute of Technology Goa
Ponda, Goa, India 403401 Ponda, Goa, India 403401
praveennitgoa2017@gmail.com msuresh.ee@gmail.com

Abstract—This research article proposes a highly efficient fixed

switching frequency sliding mode controller (SMC) for a Unipolar
Single Phase inverter connected to R and R-L loads through L-C
filter. The single-phase inverter is controlled with SMC controller,
which will give the Modulating signal. The switching pulses
for the switches are generated by comparing the modulating
signal with the carrier wave either by using Bipolar Pulse
width Modulation (BPWM) or Unipolar Pulse width Modulation
(UPWM) methods. In this paper, the performance parameter
such as Total Harmonic Distortion (THD) is analysed with
SMC+UPWM and SMC+BPWM control. The performance of the
proposed controller is compared with the conventional controller
using UPWM and BPWM for R and R-L loads. The proposed
controller gives the less THD and nearly unity power factor over
conventional controller.
Index Terms—Unipolar Single Phase Unipolar Inverter,
UPWM, BPWM, sliding mode control Fig. 1. PWM-based Single Phase Unipolar Inverter.

I. I NTRODUCTION
as a main element for a good performance and efficient power
Now-a-days, the uninterruptible power supply (UPS) de- conversion system such as communication systems, medical
vices supplying critical step and non linear loads using the equipments and uninterruptible power supplies (UPS) [3]-[4].
single phase inverter. If the inverter having non zero output In the UPS inverter, the output voltage waveform maintains,
load impedance, then the critical step and non-linear loads can sinusoidal shape with a very low THD value. In order to
degrade the quality of output voltage of the inverter [1]-[2]. For get the very low amount of THD at the output side of the
a non-linear loads, the total harmonic distortion (THD) should inverter, PWM techniques along with the second order filter
be less than 5% according to the IEEE standard 1547 and The are used. One way of getting a clean voltage wave form with
maximum allowable harmonic content in the voltage profile of sinusoidal nature at the output of the Inverter using a sinusoidal
the system is shown in Table I. The switching frequency of pulse width modulation technique(SPWM). In this method a
the inverter can be selected more than 2 KHz, if the inverter reference sinusoidal signal is compared with the output voltage
generates the 50 Hz sinusoidal output voltage. If the switching signal, gives the error signal.The magnitude of the error signal
frequency is higher, then the lower order harmonics are controls the modulating wave in the control circuit. In order
eliminated in closed loop due to the presence of controller. The to achieve the low THD values and better dynamic response
controller must responds for abrupt change in line and load of the inverter multiple loops are introduced at the output.
variations and also it will provide good output regulation in Recently, a large interest focuses on the sliding mode
voltage and current. These characteristics demands to choose control theory due to its advantages such as robustness and
a controller with good dynamic response and high speed performance [5]-[6]. In this work a fixed switching frequency
operation for the inverters. Hence SMC controller is proposed sliding mode controller along with UPWM and BPWM is used
in this paper because of its robustness, good regulation and to get better performance of the inverter.
stability in various operating conditions. Due to the demand The paper is organized as follows: Section II provides the
for good quality power sources, PWM based inverter is used the system description involving inverter and filter design,
978-1-7281-0419-5/19/$31.00 ©2019 IEEE section III gives the control strategies for inverter such as
 TABLE I
IEEE S TANDARD 1547 FOR M AXIMUM A LLOWABLE H ARMONIC VOLTAGE D ISTORTION

Total
Individual
h ≤ 11 11 ≤ h < 17 17 ≤ h < 23 23 ≤ h < 35 35 ≤ h Harmonic
Harmonic order
Distortion
Percent (%) 4.0 2.0 1.5 0.6 0.3 5.0

conventional PI and SMC control and section IV describes the

simulation studies. Finally the paper is concluded in section
V.

II. SYSTEM DESCRIPTION

In this section, the overall system structure is explained.

The system includes, operation of the inverter with popular
PWM techniques and design of filter components. The block
diagram of the complete system structure with controller is
shown in Fig.2.

Fig. 3. (a) Load Voltage of the Inverter (b) Bipolar PWM (c) Unipoalr PWM

at the output respectively. The elements used in the system are

ideal and state representation of the inverter are
diL
Lf = U ∗ Vdc − Vo u = −1, 0, +1 (2)
dt
dvo
Cf = ic = iL − io (3)
Fig. 2. Block Diagram of the system with proposed closed loop control dt
strategy.
Vo
io = (4)
R
A. Single phase inverter Where io , ic , R represents the output current , capacitor current
and output resistance. Here the inductor current and inverter
The single-phase Inverter with an L-C filter is shown
output voltage are considered as state variable parameters. the
in Fig.1. A suitable switching technique is applied to the
parameters used for the simulation of inverter is shown in
switches for getting the desired sinusoidal output voltage with
Table II.
the desired magnitude and frequency. The popular switching
techniques for the inverter are UPWM and BPWM shown
TABLE II
in Fig.3 [7]-[8]. The UPWM provides three level of output PARAMETERS OF S IMULATED I NVERTER
voltages such as +Vdc , 0, −Vdc and BPWM provides only two
level of output voltages such as +Vdc , −Vdc . Due to the two Parameter Value
levels of output voltage from BPWM, the harmonic content switching frequency 15 KHz
is two times that of UPWM. The UPWM does not having Input DC Voltage 350 V
even harmonics because of its switching nature. So due to the Output RMS Voltage 220 V
Load resistance 100 Ω
advantages of UPWM, we have implemented UPWM in this Load Inductance 20 mH
paper [9]-[10]. Output Fundamental frequency 50 Hz
The voltage of the inverter at the output can be stated as

Vo = Vdc ∗ m ∗ sin(2Πfo t) (1)

B. Design of LC filter
Where Vo is the output load voltage , Vdc is voltage at input of In order to deliver, clean power to the load, a proper design
the inverter, m is the modulation index and fo is the frequency of L-C filter is required. The magnitude of the ripple content
in the inductor depends upon its size and operating frequency. follows the desired state Xd .
The value of the filter inductance can be calculated as The control law for SMC controller is stated as
(
Vdc +1 if S(x) > 0
Lf = (5) u = sign(S(X)) = (7)
4fs ∆i −1 if S(x) < 0
Where Vdc is the input DC voltage, 4i is the amount of
Here S(x) is called, sliding region and the condition is
ripple present in the inductor current and fs is the switching
S(x) = 0.
frequency.
The control of the inverter in closed loop with sliding mode
For the allowable output voltage ripple 4Vo , The filter capac-
controller is shown in Fig.5. In this control method capacitor
itor can be calculated as
current and inverter output voltage are considered as state
∆i variables. For implementing SMC controller, the output
C= (6)
8fs ∆Vo voltage error and derivative of the output voltage error are
III. CONTROL STRATEGIES
calculated.

In this section, controllers for single phase unipolar inverter e = Vo − Vref (8)
is explained. Here, mainly PI and SMC controllers for unipolar
inverter is implemented. d ic ˙
ė = (Vo − Vref ) = − Vref (9)
dt C
A. PI Controller Here Vref is the reference voltage and Vo is the measured
The multi loop control of the Inverter with Proportional voltage at the output of inverter.
Integral (PI) controller is shown in Fig.4. This mode of control
having two closed loops, one is external voltage loop and
another one is inner current loop [11].

Fig. 5. control strategy of the Inverter with SMC control

From the Fig.5, the SMC controller has two loops : one is
Fig. 4. Multi loop control operation of Inverter with PI control
external voltage loop and another one is current loop with
PWM generator.The SMC controller gives the modulating
The operation of PI control is explained as follows : Initially signal and which is compared with the carrier signal frequency
the external voltage loop generates error voltage signal by of 15 KHz using both UPWM and BPWM techniques for
comparing output voltage of the inverter with the reference generating switching pulses for the inverter.
voltage of magnitude 220 V rms. This error voltage signal can
be processed through PI controller and it generates reference IV. S IMULATION STUDIES
current signal. This reference current signal is compared with This section explains the simulation studies of single phase
the filter capacitor current and generates error current signal, unipolar inverter with conventional and proposed controller for
which is processed through the another PI controller and it R and R-L loads.
gives the modulating signal. The switching pulses for the
switches in the inverter are getting by comparison made A. Control strategy of the inverter with PI controller
between the modulating signal and carrier signal of frequency The control strategy of the inverter with PI controller is
15 KHz using either UPWM or BPWM techniques. simulated in MATLAB platform. The performance analysis
can be carried out with R and R-L loads using PI+UPWM
B. SMC Controller control technique for the inverter specifications Vdc = 350V
The SMC controller is one of the effective controller for and load elements are R = 100Ω, L = 20mH. The suitable
converters because of the stability against severe input and values of Kp and Ki for PI controller are obtained using trail
output disturbances, Robustness and good dynamic response and error technique. For the better performance, the chosen
characteristics [12]-[13]. values are Kp = 100 and Ki = 100. Fig.6 shows the inverter
Before going to design SMC controller, a control law is to be output voltage and inverter output current waveforms with R
stated for each and every system [14], so that system state X and R-L loads using PI+UPWM technique. The maximum
Fig. 6. Load voltage and Load current wave forms with PI+UPWM
(a) R load (b) R-L load

Fig. 8. Load voltage and Load current wave forms SMC+UPWM (a) R load
(b) R-L load

Fig. 7. THD analysis of Inverter output voltage with PI+UPWM (a) R load
(b) R-L load

value of load voltage with R, R-L loads is 306 V. Fig.7 shows Fig. 9. THD analysis of Inverter output voltage with SMC+UPWM (a) R
the THD analysis of inverter output voltages for R, R-L loads load (b) R-L load
and the values of THD for R, RL loads are 0.71% and 1.74%.
B. Control strategy of the inverter with SMC
The closed loop control operation of inverter with
SMC controller is simulated in MATLAB platform. The
performance of the inverter is analysed for R, RL loads using
SMC+BPWM and SMC+UPWM techniques for the given
inverter specifications. Fig.8 shows the output voltage and

Fig. 11. THD analysis of Inverter output voltage with SMC+BPWM (a) R
load (b) R-L load

TABLE III
C OMPARATIVE THD ANALYSIS AMONG SMC AND PI C OTROLLERS
Fig. 10. Load voltage and Load current wave forms SMC+BPWM (a) R load
(b) R-L load
S.No Controller Load % THD
R 0.71%
output current wave forms with SMC+UPWM . While Fig.9 1 PI + UPWM
shows the THD analysis inverter output voltages with R, R-L RL 1.74%
loads using SMC+UPWM control technique and The values R 0.34%
of the THD with R, R-L loads are 0.34% and 0.38%. 2 SMC + UPWM
Fig.10 shows the output voltage and output current wave RL 0.38%
forms with SMC+BPWM. While Fig.11 shows the THD R 0.71%
analysis of inverter output voltages for R, R-L loads using 3 SMC + BPWM
SMC+BPWM control technique and The values of the THD RL 0.84%
with R, R-L loads are 0.71% and 0.84%.

gives lesser THD and it improves the efficiency and power

C. Comparative study
factor compared with the conventional PI+UPWM controller.
The performance of the controllers for single phase unipolar The SMC+UPWM controller gives THD 0.34% and 0.38%
inverter with R and R-L loads is compared in this section and with R and R-L loads,where as PI+UPWM gives 0.71% and
it is shown in Table III. From the table we can conclude that 1.74% .
SMC + UPWM is superior than SMC + BPWM and PI +
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