Philippe Delarue

Design and Control of a supercapacitor storage system for traction applications

The storage system in this paper is made of supercapacitors. The main goal is to ensure an efficient energy management in a series hybrid vehicle, even if braking resistors are still needed. Design considerations are discussed. In particular the influence of the inductor resistance on the system stability is described. A maximum control structure is then deduced from the energetic macroscopic representation of the storage system. Comparisons between experimentation and simulation are presented in order to highlight the influence of the inductor resistor. Experiments are then carried out on a normal operating cycle.

Energy Storage System With Supercapacitor for an Innovative Subway

In this paper, a new energy storage system (ESS) is developed for an innovative subway without supply rail between two stations. The ESS is composed of a supercapacitor bank and a braking resistor. An inversion-based control of the ESS is deduced from the Energetic Macroscopic Representation of the entire system. This control scheme requires a distribution criterion in order to allow the energy to be shared between the supercapacitors and the braking resistor. Different cases are evaluated via a Hardware-In-the-Loop simulation using a reduced-power ESS. The suggested control enables the energy recovery to be maximal and secure the supercapacitor in real time for different track configurations.

A Bidirectional Three-Level DC–DC Converter for the Ultracapacitor Applications

Electrochemical double-layer capacitors, which are well known as ultracapacitors, have intensively been used in power conversion applications such as controlled electric drives, active filters, power conditioners, and uninterruptible power supplies. The ultracapacitor is employed as the energy storage device that can be fully charged/discharged within a few seconds. To achieve better flexibility and efficiency, the ultracapacitor is connected to the power conversion system via an interfacing dc-dc power converter. Various topologies are used as the dc-dc power converter: nonisolated two-level single-phase or multiphase interleaved converters and many varieties of isolated soft-switched dc-dc converters. A three-level nonisolated dc-dc converter as a candidate for ultracapacitor applications is proposed and analyzed in this paper. The topology is theoretically analyzed, and design guidelines are given. The modeling and control aspects are discussed. A 5.5-kW prototype was designed, and the proposed topology was experimentally verified on a general-purpose controlled electric drive. Experimental results are presented and discussed.

Generic control method of multileg voltage-source-converters for fast practical implementation

A generic and simple control method is suggested for any multileg voltage-source-converter. A specific coding yields an inversion table allowing a fast practical implementation. Phase-to-phase voltage references have to be defined for such a table. This original control strategy is validated by experimental results for two-leg, three-leg, four-leg, and five-leg structures supplying balanced and unbalanced multiphase loads.

Modular Multilevel Converter Models for Electromagnetic Transients

Modular multilevel converters (MMCs) may contain numerous insulated-gate bipolar transistors. The modeling of such converters for electromagnetic transient-type (EMT-type) simulations is complex. Detailed models used in MMC-HVDC simulations may require very large computing times. Simplified and averaged models have been proposed in the past to overcome this problem. In this paper, existing averaged and simplified models are improved in order to increase their range of applications. The models are compared and analyzed for different transient events on an MMC-HVDC system.

Control implementation of a five-leg AC-AC converter to supply a three-phase induction machine

A fault-tolerant ac-ac converter capable of supplying a three-phase induction machine from the grid with an unitary power factor has been proposed. With one faulted converter leg, two of the remaining five legs are connected to the grid, two legs are connected to the machine, and a common leg is shared by the grid and the machine. The previously developed control strategy required a too great computation time for practical implementation. In this paper, a new control strategy is suggested for this power converter. It enables an easier control implementation. Experimental results are provided.

Inversion-based control of electromechanical systems using causal graphical descriptions

Causal ordering graph and energetic macroscopic representation are graphical descriptions to model electromechanical systems using integral causality. Inversion rules have been defined in order to deduce control structure step-by-step from these graphical descriptions. These two modeling tools can be used together to develop a two-layer control of system with complex parts. A double-drive paper system is taken as an example. The deduced control yields good performances of tension regulation and velocity tracking

Reduced-Scale-Power Hardware-in-the-Loop Simulation of an Innovative Subway

An innovative subway has been proposed using super capacitors as the main energy source. Different steps have been defined in order to check the performance of this new supply system on a real subway. In this paper, a reduced-scale hardware-in-the-loop simulation is presented for initial experimental validations on a reduced-power experimental setup. Special attention is paid to reproducing torque, acceleration, and jerk limitations of the real system.

A Novel Three-Phase Diode Boost Rectifier Using Hybrid Half-DC-Bus-Voltage Rated Boost Converter

A novel three-phase diode boost rectifier is proposed in this paper. The core of the proposed topology is a power conversion device [the loss-free transformer (LFT)] with two terminals; one input and one output. The input is parallel-connected with the dc bus capacitor, while the output is connected between the rectifier plus rail and the dc bus plus rail. The LFT is controlled in such a way to control the rectifier current and boost the dc bus voltage. In contrast to the ordinary boost rectifiers, the switches of the new boost rectifier are rated on a fraction of the dc bus voltage and a fraction of the input current. It makes this topology very compact and efficient. Power rating, size, and losses depend strongly on the ratio of the dc bus voltage to rectifier voltage (boosting factor). For example, if the boosting factor is low, below 1.5, the power converter efficiency could be 98-99%. The proposed boost rectifier has been analyzed and experimentally verified on a 5.5-kW prototype. The results are presented and discussed.

Switched Causal Modeling of Transmission With Clutch in Hybrid Electric Vehicles

Certain difficulties arise when attempting to model a clutch in a power train transmission due to its nonlinear behavior. Two different states have to be taken into account-the first being when the clutch is locked and the second being when the clutch is slipping. In this paper, a clutch model is developed using the energetic macroscopic representation, which is, in turn, used in the modeling of complete hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs). Two different models are used, and a specific condition defining the commutation between both models with respect to the physical energy flow is proposed. A Petri net is employed to activate one of the models, depending on the clutch state (locked or slipping). This model allows us to implement without difficulty a simulation of the clutch with a relatively short computation time.