Sharif Digital Repository

In this paper, a novel thermal microactuator is designed which is capable of producing bi-directional lateral and rotational output and one of its applications as a two DOF micromanipulator is shown. Also, by carefully choosing the doping level, temperature distribution is determined by considering the dependency of silicon's resistivity and conductivity to temperature. Using variable separation method an equation in terms of elliptic integrals is reached and after imposing boundary conditions the exact temperature distribution is obtained numerically. Currents at each branch is updated due to the last temperature distribution and this process is repeated several times until the final... 

This paper proposes a new approach for corrective voltage control (CVC) of power systems in presence of uncertain wind power generation and demand values. The CVC framework deals with the condition that a power system encounters voltage instability as a result of severe contingencies. The uncertainty of wind power generation and demand values is handled using a scenario-based modeling approach. One of the features of the proposed methodology is to consider participation of demand-side resources as an effective control facility that reduces control costs. Active and reactive redispatch of generating units and involuntary load curtailment are employed along with the voluntary demand-side... 

This paper presents an effective control strategy for autonomous operation of a multi-bus medium voltage (MV) microgrid (MG) consisting of several dispatchable distributed generation (DG) units. Each electronically-coupled DG unit supplies the loads which can be unbalanced due to the inclusion of single-phase loads. The proportional resonance (PR) and droop controllers are, respectively, used to regulate the load voltage and share the average powers among the DG units. The virtual negative-sequence impedance controller (VNSIC) is proposed to effectively compensate the negative-sequence currents of the unbalanced loads. Moreover, the VNSIC minimizes the negative-sequence currents in the MV... 

A Cúk converter operating in discontinuous capacitor voltage mode (DCVM) is an inherent power factor correction converter. A reduced-order switch-network model of a Cúk converter in DCVM is developed, which is valid for both dc-dc and ac-dc applications. The model can be used for controller analysis and design. Moreover, a fast dynamic response controller is proposed, which is an integration of a switching-frequency control unit and a proportional-integral (PI) controller. The PI controller is in charge of duty ratio adjustment. In the proposed controller, unlike conventional PI controllers, switching frequency is no longer fixed and varies as load changes. The switching-frequency control... 

This paper proposes a control strategy for an islanded microgrid to effectively coordinate hybrid power source (HPS) units and to robustly control individual interfaced inverters under unbalanced and nonlinear load conditions. Cascaded H-bridge (CHB) multilevel inverters are flexibly deployed in order to enhance the power quality and redundancy. The HPS employs fuel cell (FC) as the main and supercapacitors (SC) as complementary power sources. Fast transient response; high performance; and high power density are the main characteristics of the proposed HPS system. The presented control strategy consists of a power management strategy for the HPS units and a voltage control strategy for the... 

This paper presents an effective voltage control strategy for the autonomous operation of a medium voltage (MV) microgrid under nonlinear and unbalanced load conditions. The main objectives of this strategy are to effectively compensate the harmonic and negative-sequence currents of nonlinear and unbalanced loads using distributed generation (DG) units. The proposed control strategy consists of a multi-proportional resonant controller (MPRC) whose parameters are assigned with particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm. The optimization function is defined to minimize the tracking error at the specific harmonics considering the stability limitations. In this paper the performance of the... 

This paper presents a novel opposition-based self-adaptive modified gravitational search algorithm (OSAMGSA) for optimal reactive power dispatch and voltage control in power-system operation. The problem is formulated as a mixed integer, nonlinear optimization problem, which has both continuous and discrete control variables. In order to achieve the optimal value of loss, voltage deviation, and voltage stability index, it is necessary to find the optimal value of control variables such as the tap positions of tap changing transformers, generator voltages, and compensation capacitor. Therefore, this complicated problem needs to be solved by an accurate optimization algorithm. This paper... 

This paper proposes a new coordinated voltage control scheme to ensure voltage security of power systems. The scheme schedules reactive power injection from VAR sources, including synchronous generators and condensers, capacitor banks, switchable reactors and FACTS devices, to ensure desired loading margin of power systems for a given horizon of time. The problem is treated as voltage security constrained multi-period optimal reactive power flow (VSC-MPORPF). To incorporate scheduling of both continuous and discrete VAR sources, the VSC-MPORPF is formulated as a mixed-integer nonlinear programming problem, and is solved using generalized Benders decomposition (GBD). Multi-period formulation... 

In this paper we proposed a novel inverter to convert a DC voltage to a desired AC voltage. This inverter is designed for variable inductive loads and low output power applications. We proposed a novel simple PWM method which enables the inverter to keep the output current at six times more than the rated output current, without reducing output voltage value. In addition, based on a simple use of resonance in the circuit, the new inverter can raise the output voltage to extremely high amplitude for a relatively short time. These characteristics make the proposed inverter is useful for some industrial applications such as electrical vehicle. The new configuration of the circuit consists of a... 

Management of reactive power resources is vital for stable and secure operation of power systems in the view point of voltage stability. This paper deals with the management of on-load tap changers (OLTCs) and dynamic VAR sources (including synchronous generators, synchronous condensers, and shunt reactive power compensators) to improve voltage stability margin (VSM) of power systems. This problem is usually called optimal reactive power dispatch (ORD) in the literature. The main contribution of the paper is to introduce a new objective function for the ORD problem. The proposed objective function is derived based on a local voltage stability index, called DSY, and has a strong correlation... 

With the increasing penetration of renewable energies as distributed generation (DG) in power systems, technical problems arise in both distribution and transmission system level. Voltage rise is the main barrier for connection of DGs in rural areas, while excessive reactive power demand from transmission system is the major concern for Transmission System Operators (TSO). Here, a centralized control scheme based on the Smart Grid is proposed to reduce the impact on the transmission system voltages and improve its stability, while mitigating the voltage rise issue in the distribution network. Reactive power output of DGs, substation capacitors and tap setting of transmission transformer are... 

This paper proposes a new control strategy for the islanded operation of a multi-bus medium voltage (MV) microgrid. The microgrid consists of several dispatchable electronically-coupled distributed generation (DG) units. Each DG unit supplies a local load which can be unbalanced due to the inclusion of single-phase loads. The proposed control strategy of each DG comprises a proportional resonance (PR) controller with an adjustable resonance frequency, a droop control strategy, and a negative-sequence impedance controller (NSIC). The PR and droop controllers are, respectively, used to regulate the load voltage and share the average power components among the DG units. The NSIC is used to... 

Owing to the local nature of voltage and reactive power control, the voltage control is managed in a zonal or regional basis. A new comprehensive scheme for optimal selection of pilot points is proposed in this study. The uncertainties of operational and topological disturbances of the power system are included to provide the robustness of the pilot node set. To reduce the huge number of probable states (i.e. combined states of load and topological changes), a scenario reduction technique is used. The resulted optimal control problem is solved using a new immune-based genetic algorithm. The performance of the proposed method is verified over IEEE 118-bus and realistic Iranian 1274-bus... 

The introduction of demand response concept, in addition to increment of penetration of distributed generation (DG) based on renewable energies, make opportunities for the novel control schemes to be integrated in power system on a smart grid framework. Voltage control methods in power systems needs proper coordination among reactive power resources and conventional volt/var control equipments. In this work, potential reactive power resources are investigated and then, reactive power output of renewable DG units and controllable loads along with operation of conventional voltage controllers are optimized using a centralized control scheme. Considering the variability of demand and... 

Harmonic pollution minimisation in voltage-source programmed pulse-width modulation (PPWM) inverters is defined as a time-limited optimisation problem in real-time applications with variable DC sources. In order to obtain minimum total harmonic distortion (THD) as the objective function, shuffled-frog-leaping algorithm (SFLA) is modified and employed to calculate the switching angles and compared with non-linear programming as a traditional optimisation method. In addition, particle swarm optimisation and three of its modified versions as popular evolutionary optimisation algorithms are employed to ensure the capability of the proposed optimisation method. Moreover, modified sinusoidal PWM... 

Cúk Converter operating in discontinuous capacitor voltage mode is an inherent PFC converter in which, unity power factor can be achieved using constant duty cycle and switching frequency. In this paper, a reduced-order switch network modeling technique is applied to Cúk converter operating in DCVM in order to derive small-signal model of the converter assuming a dc voltage source as the input source of the converter. This model is extended to derive the small-signal behavior of the converter while operating as a PFC converter. The validity of the proposed model is confirmed by both simulation and experimental results. Afterwards, a new control strategy is proposed in which switching... 

Development of high frequency power electronic devices leads to high performance and flexible switch mode AC voltage stabilizers instead of traditional electromechanical types. This paper introduces a novel double stage topology for switch mode AC voltage regulators. The system produces a continuous adjustable isolated AC voltage providing a constant output voltage for sensitive loads. In order to simplify the control strategy, a symmetrical PWM is used. In contrast with conventional AC choppers, the proposed circuit does not need any snubber circuits or voltage and current sensors which leads to a simpler and more reliable circuit. Detailed analysis and simulation results show the... 

Developing efficient and appropriate modeling and control techniques for DC-DC converters is of major importance in power electronics area and has attracted much attention from automatic control theory. Since DC-DC converters have a complex hybrid nature, recently several techniques based on hybrid modeling and control have been introduced. These techniques have shown better results as compared with conventional averaging-based schemes with limited modeling and control abilities. But the current works in this field have not considered all possible dynamics of the converters in both continuous and discontinuous current modes (CCM, DCM) of operations. These dynamics are results of controlled... 

This paper presents a phase-noise reduction technique for voltage-controlled oscillators (VCOs) using a harmonic tuned (HT) LC tank. The phase-noise suppression is achieved through almost rectangular-shaped VCO oscillating signal which effectively maximizes oscillating signal slope at zero crossing points resulting in-phase-noise degradation. In addition, by shortening down converted noise power around oscillating signal second harmonic, more phase-noise suppression has been achieved. A comprehensive analysis for frequency and amplitude deviations as high as 20% for third harmonic and its effect on output phase-noise suppression has been discussed. In the followings, a comprehensive analysis... 

This paper presents an effective control scheme in dc microgrids to precisely share the load current oscillatory and dc components among distributed generation (DG) units. The proposed control strategy includes current and voltage control blocks. The current control block consists of oscillatory and dc current-sharing units. The main idea of the proposed method is to share the load current oscillatory and dc components among the DG units based on their rated power, by assigning appropriate output impedance values and droop coefficients to each DG unit. The voltage control block is a multiloop voltage control unit employed to control the microgrid voltage. The detailed model of the proposed...