Finite-Control-Set Model Predictive Control for DFIG Wind Turbines

This paper presents a time efficient finite-control-set model predictive control (FCS-MPC) scheme for the doubly fed induction generator system. In this scheme, the switching states of the rotor side converter are directly taken as control inputs. This way, the optimized control action can be directly applied to the converter. Compared with the existing FCS-MPC approaches, the salient feature of the proposed scheme is the reduction of the computation time. By introducing a set of augmented decision variables, the original intractable binary quadratic programming problem in FCS-MPC can be analytically transformed to a binary linear programming problem, which can be solved efficiently. By this means, the computation time of the proposed scheme is much less than that of the existing schemes. This reduction in computation time enables FCS-MPC with longer prediction horizons, thus yielding better control performance.Note to Practitioners - This paper was motivated by the problem of improving the control performance for the doubly fed induction generator (DFIG). Because of its advantages, such as high energy efficiency, low acoustic noise, variable speed operation, and reduced converter rating, DFIG has emerged as a promising solution for the wind power generation. However, existing DFIG controllers have limitations, such as difficult to tune the parameters, inefficient to handle constraints, and do not consider the discrete operation of the power converters. To overcome these limitations, this paper proposes a new DFIG control scheme based on finite-control-set model predictive control (FCS-MPC), which has the abilities of online optimal control, explicitly handling constraints, and directly generating the switching signals for the power converters. A computationally efficient algorithm is proposed to reformulate the FCS-MPC problem as a linear program, thereby significantly reducing the computational efforts and rendering the proposed scheme more practical for implementation. Simulation results validate the effectiveness of the proposed control scheme. This scheme can be implemented in the field-programmable gate array, which will be our future work.