2904 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 56, NO. 8, AUGUST 2009
A New Control Technique for Three-Phase
Shunt Hybrid Power Filter
Salem Rahmani, Abdelhamid Hamadi, Student Member, IEEE, Nassar Mendalek, Member, IEEE,
and Kamal Al-Haddad, Fellow, IEEE
Abstract—This paper presents a nonlinear control technique
for a three-phase shunt hybrid power filter (SHPF) to enhance
its dynamic response when it is used to compensate for harmonic
currents and reactive power. The dynamic model of the SHPF sys-
tem is first elaborated in the stationary “abc” reference frame and
then transformed into the synchronous orthogonal “dq” reference
frame. The “dq” frame model is divided into two separate loops,
namely, the two current dynamic inner loops and the dc-voltage
dynamic outer loop. Proportional–integral (PI) controllers are uti-
lized to control the SHPF input currents and dc-bus voltage. The
currents track closely their references so that the SHPF behaves
as a quasi-ideal current source connected in parallel with the load.
It provides the reactive power and harmonic currents required by
the nonlinear load, thereby achieving sinusoidal supply currents
in phase with supply voltages under dynamic and steady-state
conditions. The SHPF consists of a small-rating voltage-source
inverter (VSI) in series with a fifth-harmonic tuned LC passive
filter. The rating of the VSI in the SHPF system is much smaller
than that in the conventional shunt active power filter because
the passive filter takes care of the major burden of compensation.
The effectiveness of the control technique is demonstrated through
simulation and experimentation under steady-state and dynamic
operating conditions.
Index Terms—Harmonic compensation, hybrid power filter,
modeling, nonlinear control.
I. I NTRODUCTION
S
EVERAL pieces of electrical equipment in industries are
nowadays using processed power to reduce power con-
sumption, mechanical maintenance, down time, and cost of
production. The processed power is generally achieved through
the use of power converters to control the speed of motors in
modern adjustable speed drives (ASDs). These power convert-
ers draw nonsinusoidal currents contributing to the degradation
of power quality at ac mains. The power converters consist
generally of rectifiers at front end which, due to their nonlinear
nature, inject harmonic currents into the utility. The propagation
of these harmonics causes many problems to the power net-
work, such as transformer overheating, harmonic resonance in
the utility, increased losses, malfunction of protection devices,
Manuscript received July, 27, 2007; revised August 20, 2008. First published
January 9, 2009; current version published July 24, 2009. This work was
supported by the Canada Research Chair in Energy Conversion and Power
Electronics.
S. Rahmani, A. Hamadi, and K. Al-Haddad are with École de Technologie
Supérieure, University of Québec, Montreal, QC H3C 1K3, Canada.
N. Mendalek is with the Department of Electrical, Computer and Communi-
cation Engineering, Notre Dame University, Louaize, Lebanon.
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TIE.2008.2010829
and interference to communication network and electronic
systems. Several techniques of compensation are proposed to
improve the power quality and to reduce the dimensions of the
active filters [1].
Traditionally, passive LC filters have been used to eliminate
harmonic currents and to improve the power factor of ac mains.
However, these passive filters have many drawbacks such as
tuning problems and series and parallel resonances [2] [3]. To
avoid the resonance between an existing passive filter and the
supply impedance, typical shunt or series active filter topologies
have been proposed in the literature [4]–[9]. However, these
topologies suffer from high kilovolt–ampere rating of the ac-
tive filter. The boost converter forming the shunt active filter
requires high dc-link voltage in order to effectively compensate
higher order harmonics. On the other hand, a series active filter
needs a transformer that is capable to withstand full load current
in order to compensate for voltage distortion [10]. Hybrid filters
effectively mitigate the problems of a passive and an active filter
and provide cost-effective harmonic compensation, particularly
for high-power nonlinear loads [3]. A parallel hybrid power
filter system consists of a small-rating active filter in series
with a tuned passive filter. The active filter is controlled to act
as a harmonic compensator for the load by confining all the
harmonic currents into the passive filter. This eliminates the
possibility of series and parallel resonances.
A number of control concepts and strategies of active power
filters have been reported in the literature [11]–[19]. The most
popular are the time domain methods such as the notch filter,
the instantaneous reactive power theory, and the synchronous
reference frame theory. The main advantage of these time
domain control methods compared to the frequency domain
methods based on the fast Fourier transform is the fast response,
whereas the frequency domain methods provide an individual
selective harmonic detection which is not the case in time
domain methods.
In [20], a nonlinear control technique is proposed to enhance
the dynamic performance of a shunt active power filter which is
modeled in the synchronous orthogonal “dq” frame. The exact
feedback linearization theory is applied in the design of the
controller. This control strategy allows the decoupling of the
currents and enhances their tracking behavior and improves
the dc-voltage regulation. In [21], the authors reported an
adaptive nonlinear control law applied to a three-phase three-
level neutral-point-clamped boost rectifier operating under se-
vere conditions. The control technique consists in applying an
adaptive nonlinear control to the exact nonlinear model of the
rectifier obtained in the (d, q, 0) reference frame. In [22], linear
0278-0046/$26.00 © 2009 IEEE