Dual-Loop Digital Control of a Three-Phase Power Supply Unit With Reduced Sensor Count

Widespread deployment of voltage source inverter units in high penetration applications such as distributed generation and stand-alone renewable energy conditioning imposes stringent demands on reliability and output voltage regulation. Reported literature provides numerous solutions for output voltage regulation, which includes twin aspects of command tracking and output impedance control. Most of these methods rely on the measurement of at least two separate variables per phase, which compromises overall reliability. This paper focuses on a dual-loop voltage regulation approach requiring only output voltage measurement. The outer loop of a control scheme is used to assure prompt tracking of the inverter output voltage, whereas the inner derivative feedback loop improves system stability by damping the output filter resonance. Digital realization of this derivative term is generally a challenge with many methods currently developed for resolving it. These methods are, however, still facing drawbacks, which have inclusively been explained in this paper. Subsequently, a new digital derivative is proposed whose performance is predicted analytically and then validated through experimental results with a 7.5-kVA inverter prototype.