Optimal Sliding Mode Control of Modular Multilevel Converters Considering Control Input Constraints

This paper investigates the optimal sliding mode control (SMC) of modular multilevel converters (MMCs) by considering control input constraints. Conventional SMC methods for MMCs typically overlook the system’s constraints. To address this, an optimal SMC approach that incorporates control input constraints through quadratic programming (QP) is proposed. The control design problem is formulated in a constrained optimization framework and solved using the infeasible active-set (IAS) method to efficiently achieve the optimal solution. By applying optimal SMC, this work contributes to the advancement of SMC strategies for MMCs by addressing both constraints and performance optimization in a systematic way. This is particularly relevant for real-world applications, where controllers may temporarily exceed their limits before enforcing constraints. To validate the proposed approach, a comparative analysis with conventional SMC methods is performed, and simulation results confirm that the proposed approach provides improved performance.