Applied Soft Computing 13 (2013) 1750–1758 Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Applied Soft Computing j ourna l ho me p age: www.elsevier.com/l ocate/asoc Design of artificial neuron controller for STATCOM in dSPACE environment S. Arockia Edwin Xavier ∗ , P. Venkatesh, M. Saravanan EEE Department, Thiagarajar College of Engineering, Madurai 625 015, Tamilnadu, India a r t i c l e i n f o Article history: Received 29 July 2011 Received in revised form 3 January 2013 Accepted 6 January 2013 Available online 17 January 2013 Keywords: Artificial Neural Network dSPACE DS1104 STATCOM PI controller Pulse width modulation a b s t r a c t Reactive power compensation is an important issue in the control of electric power system. Reactive power from the source increases the transmission losses and reduces the power transmission capability of the transmission lines. Moreover, reactive power should not be transmitted through the transmission line to a longer distance. Hence Flexible AC Transmission Systems (FACTS) devices such as static com- pensator (STATCOM) unified power flow controller (UPFC) and static volt–ampere compensator (SVC) are used to alleviate these problems. In this paper, a voltage source converter (VSC) based STATCOM is developed with PI and Artificial Neural Network Controller (ANNC). The conventional PI controller has more tuning difficulties while the system parameter changes, whereas a trained neural network requires less computation time. The ANNC has the ability to generalize and can interpolate in between the training data. The ANNC designed was tested on a 75 V, ±3KVAR STATCOM in real time environment via state- of-the-art of digital signal processor advanced control engineering (dSPACE) DS1104 board and it was found that it was producing better results than the PI controller. © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction The improvement in power semiconductor devices acts as a major factor for the increased importance of power electronics in future power system. A power electronic converter based high speed 360 ◦ phase shifter can control power flow between two sys- tems, regardless of frequency, voltage and impedance variations [1]. The operation of different FACTS devices such as SSR damper, phase angle regulator, static condenser, STATCOM and Thyristor Controlled Series Capacitor (TCSC) were discussed and the role of the above devices in the future power system was also studied [2]. STATCOM is designed based on VSC topology and sinusoidal PWM technique is used to control the amplitude and phase of converter output voltage. TMS320F240 DSP based ±3 KVAR rating STATCOM is reported for compensating lagging and leading power factor loads [3]. A high power self commutating inverter based static condenser (STATCON) is developed and two types of modules for voltage and phase angle control are explained from the basic fundamental equations and transient response curve is given [4]. Experimental ±5 KVAR STATCOM model using DSP, with sinusoidal PWM control having the carrier frequency of 2.8 kHz is developed. PI controller is designed using ‘dq’ frame linearized model and sys- tem parameters variations such as, variation of load of 2.3 kW and closed loop dynamics are observed in 30 kVA and 110 V system [5]. The mathematical model of STATCOM based on space vector theory and also the behavior of STATCOM for voltage regulation ∗ Corresponding authors. Tel.: +91 452 2482240; fax: +91 452 2483427. E-mail address: saexeee@tce.edu (S. Arockia Edwin Xavier). with simple PI controller is simulated with ATP-EMTP. The value of the capacitor is changed in steps and the frequency of oscilla- tions for various steps is studied. Magnitude of reactive current injected/absorbed by STATCOM is linearly proportional to phase angle. It is also observed that the bus voltage is recovered within three cycles after the load disturbance is given [6]. A discrete linear time varying model of the three-phase VSC is developed and this model is employed to determine the steady-state operating char- acteristics of a VSC in closed loop form, as a function of converter duty cycle and phase angle [7]. A schematic for the reconfigurable FACTS system is designed and a real time control for the above FACTS system is also developed. The state models for STATCOM, Static Synchronous Series Compensator (SSSC) and Unified Power Flow Controller (UPFC) are designed using ‘dq’ co-ordinates. A PI based controller is developed for the above models. Simulations and experimental results are compared and verified [8]. A novel switching function model for the STATCOM, SSSC and the UPFC based on a multi-pulse voltage-sourced converter topology had been developed [9]. Recent advances in computing hardware, sophisticated power system, and component modeling techniques are significantly increasing the application of real time digital simulation in power system industry. Real time operation implies that an event in the system which lasts for 1 s is simulated on the simulator exactly in 1 s. The performance of the STATCOM controller is validated in real time using a detailed model of the power system implemented using Linux PC-based, multi-processor technology [10]. In the hardware in loop (HIL) simulation, an actual controller for STATCOM is connected in closed loop with a real- time virtual plant model. The challenges of real-time simulation such as, achieving a very small time step with a power system 1568-4946/$ – see front matter © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.asoc.2013.01.005