Perturbation estimation based nonlinear adaptive control of VSC flexible excitation system

A new type of flexible excitation system (FES) is proposed by using fully-controlled power electronic devices such as IGBTs to replace the half controlled devices in the conventional static excitation system, which has the merit of independent control of rotor angle and terminal voltage of the synchronous generator. This paper proposes nonlinear adaptive control (NAC) strategies for synchronous generator with FES in a single machine infinite bus system. External disturbances and the uncertainties of all parameters as well as modelling are defined as lumped perturbation terms and estimated by perturbation observers or state and perturbation observer. The estimated perturbation terms are used to compensate the real perturbations and achieve a model-independent and robust NAC. Merits of the FES against the conventional static excitation system and effectiveness of the proposed NAC scheme against the accurate model based multi-variable feedback linearisation control are verified via small-signal stability analysis and simulation studies. The simulation results have shown that the proposed NAC can achieve superior control performance with less states feedback during a three-phase short circuit and better robustness against parameter uncertainties, compared with linear control and multi-variable feedback linearisation control.