On the Development of an FCS-MPC Based Power Amplifier for Power-Hardware-in-the-Loop Tests

Power Hardware-in-the-Loop (PHIL) has emerged as a highly effective tool for testing and validation of hardware before being deployed in the field. Since full-fledged hardware testing may not be possible in a lab environment, PHIL provides a balance between cost and fidelity in testing and therefore plays an important role in renewable energy integration. The power amplifier is one of the main components which facilitates these PHIL tests. Thus, it becomes necessary to develop a robust, dynamic and efficient power amplifier. This work proposes a finite control set model predictive control based power amplifier. The proposed approach demonstrates high dynamic response in addition to high tracking efficiency. The proposed approach is able to emulate voltage sags, swells, distortions and frequency deviations. The efficacy of the proposed approach is validated through exhaustive time-domain simulations in MATLAB/Simulink environment.