Implementation of a Modular Distributed Fault-Tolerant Controller for MMC Applications

Semih Isik, Vasishta Burugula, Mohammed Alharbi, Ali Azidehak and Subhashish Bhattacharya
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Semih Isik: Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC 27606, USA
Vasishta Burugula: Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC 27606, USA
Mohammed Alharbi: Department of Electrical Engineering, College of Engineering, King Saud University, Riyadh 11421, Saudi Arabia
Ali Azidehak: Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC 27606, USA
Subhashish Bhattacharya: Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC 27606, USA

Energies, 2022, vol. 15, issue 22, 1-18

Abstract: Centralized control algorithm limits the hardware flexibility of a modular multilevel converter (MMC). Therefore, distributed control structure has recently started to be seen in the industry application. Even though distributed controller reduces a single point of failure risk compared to the centralized controller, the failure risk of the entire control systems increases due to the number of local controllers. However, the distributed controller can be programmed in such a way as to replace the faulty local controller and sustain the MMC operation. In this paper, the distributed modular fault-tolerant controller is implemented in a laboratory-scale MMC prototype. The controller is built to control four SMs per phase for the proof-of-concept. Therefore, the MMC prototype is also built by two SMs per arm. The controller capability is validated with experimental and the Opal-RT result-time simulator results in a control-hardware-in-loop (CHIL) environment.

Keywords: controller; centralized; distributed; CHIL; fault-tolerant; MMC; prototype; opal-RT (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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