Design and performance evaluation of a generalized virtual sensor for three-phase PWM AC/DC converters

Abstract

Three-phase PWM converters are widely used as they can operate at low harmonic distortion and high input displacement power factor. However, these features are achieved by means of modern control techniques which require many electrical variables in order to be properly implemented. This constraint makes these techniques less attractive and simpler control techniques are preferred. On the other hand, virtual sensors have become an alternative to provide the electrical variables without sensing them. They use the already available information to estimate the missing measurements; however, their design uses several parameters that are usually manually tuned. This paper presents a general virtual sensor and defines performance tests in order to evaluate and design optimum operating parameters of the virtual sensor applied to three-phase static power converters. Simulated and experimental results in a 2 kVA prototype are presented to illustrate the proposed approach.