Using dSPACE in the Shunt Static Compensators Control Vlad Suru, Mihaela Popescu, Alexandra Pătraşcu Department of Electromechanics, Environment and Industrial Informatics University of Craiova, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Craiova, Romania vsuru@em.ucv.ro, mpopescu@em.ucv.ro, apatrascu@em.ucv.ro Abstract— This paper presents the design and implementation of an active filtering system based on a DSP acquisition board. This approach has the advantage of versatility regarding the command and control section of the filtering system, for a given power topology. The power section contains the typically components of an active filter, such as the three phase voltage source inverter, the first order interface filter, and the compensating capacitor. Thus, the rated power of the filtering system is imposed by the compensating capacitor value, and by the power transistors rated current and voltage. On the other hand, the command and control section of the filter is limited only by the system transducers. Therefore, the system can have any compensating current computation algorithm, which can also be changed at any moment, and, at the same time, the system can have any topology for the current and voltage regulating loops. Although the active compensator can be controlled using a physical control panel, the easiest and most versatile way is to use a virtual control panel, which can be built using the acquisition board specific software. The disadvantage of this system is that the industrial computer which contains the acquisition board must be located in the close vicinity of the inverter. Keywords: DSP, acquisition board, active filtering I. INTRODUCTION The command and control algorithm of the active filter is based on the dSpace DS1103 acquisition board [1]. This board has all the required interfaces with the active filtering system, such as: analog to digital converters, digital to analog converters, digital I/O ports, PWM modulators, etc [2]. The active filter control algorithm for the DS1103 board consists of a Matlab Simulink model, which uses generic or user defined blocks, and of course, the model input and output blocks, specific for the DS1103 [1][2]. These specific blocks are the software interface between the Simulink signals and the board input and output ports. Consequently, there are blocks in conjunction with the ADCs for the monitored signals acquisition and blocks in conjunction with the DACs and digital I/O ports, which outputs the command signals to the system. II. THE ACTIVE FILTERING SYSTEM The active filtering system illustrated in Fig. 1 contains two important sections, besides the power grid and the load [3]. Fig. 1. The active filtration system block diagram 94 Annals of the University of Craiova, Electrical Engineering series, No. 37, 2013; ISSN 1842-4805 _____________________________________________________________