Transient Performance Improvement of Active Front End Rectifier Using Finite Set Model Predictive Control

This paper presents the control of active front-end rectifier (AFE) using finite set model predictive control (MPC). Finite set MPC uses discrete nature of power converter to generate the optimal switching states. The power flow, as well as the power factor of the rectifier, is controlled by controlling the input currents using current controller. In this work, MPC is used as a current controller for its robust dynamic response which also avoids the difficult task of tuning classical controller. The set points for inner MPC are generated from an outer voltage regulator. The performance of the proposed MPC based controller has been compared with classical VOC based PWM controller for AFE. The results obtained from the simulation study demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed MPC based control scheme. The system modeling and control strategy has been developed in RSCAD software and simulated in the real-time environment using real-time digital simulator (RTDS).