DSP BASED ONLINE UPS

ABSTRACT

Many facilities such as patient health care centers, data

processing systems, critical telecommunication links, LAN servers, offices
etc rely on uninterruptible power supplies (UPS) to maintain a continuous
supply of power in case of line outage. In addition to requiring continuous
power, many critical nonlinear loads are sensitive to the incoming line
transients and input harmonic voltage distortion. Conventional UPS
systems operate to protect against such disturbances using complex
filtering schemes, often employing large passive components. Among the
various UPS systems online UPS provides maximum protection to such
loads against any power problems. Because of multiple power conversion
stages, online UPSs have been the most complex and expensive type of
systems. Today’s low cost, high performance Digital Signal Processors(DSPs)
provide an improved and cost- effective solution for online UPS design,
making them software controllable, adding some facilities like remote
configuration and monitoring and other network management facilities.
Here I’m going to presents the basic design and merits of using real time
digital signal processing (DSP) control of UPS systems.

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DSP BASED ONLINE UPS

CONTENTS

1. INTRODUCTION

2. TYPICAL ON-LINE UPS

3. NEED FOR PULSEWIDTH MODULATION

4. GENERAL PWM TECHNIQUES FOR UPS

5. REASONS FOR USING DSPs

6. DSP CONTROL OF UPS SYSTEMs

7. DESCRIPTION

8. ADVANTAGES OF USING DSPs IN UPS

9. CONCLUSION

10. BIBLIOGRAPHY

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DSP BASED ONLINE UPS

1. INTRODUCTION:

Un-interruptible power supplies (UPS) play an important role in

interfacing critical loads such as computers, telecommunication links, data-
processing systems, life supporting systems and industrial controls, etc. to
the power grid .Among the various UPS topologies, on –line UPSs provides
maximum protection to such loads against any utility power problem, as it
protects against power blackout. However, because of multiple power
conversion stages, on-line UPSs have been most complex and expensive
type of systems.

Today’s low cost, high performance Digital Signal Processors (DSPs)

provide an improved and cost- effective solution for online UPS design.

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DSP BASED ONLINE UPS

2. TYPICAL ON-LINE UPS:

A typical UPS consists of a rectifier supplied battery bank & a static

inverter-filter system to convert a dc voltage to a sinusoidal ac output.
Modern UPS systems minimize the harmonic content of the inverter output
voltage through the use of complex filtering schemes employing large
passive components.

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DSP BASED ONLINE UPS

3. NEED FOR PULSEWIDTH MODULATION:

PWM is nothing but the control of UPS inverter switching, under

feedback control to realize the desired output waveform and also to
minimize the harmonic content of the output voltage. Pulses are generated
whenever a carrier signal & modulating signal crosses each other. These
pulses are given to thyristors and pulsating output is generated. Depending
on the number of output pulses generated, switching frequency of inverter
is determined. Width of the pulses is proportional to magnitude of the
output sine wave and if the number of pulses per half cycle is more, lower
order harmonics will be eliminated.

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DSP BASED ONLINE UPS

4. GENERAL PWM TECHNIQUES FOR UPS:

1. Using Analog devices:

Analog PWM uses natural sampling technique, which compares a

sinusoidal modulating wave form with a triangular wave (from a time-base
generator) to generate pulses.

2. Using Microprocessors:

A digital PWM signal generator is interfaced with a microprocessor. It

calculates the pulse width at every sampling instant. According to this
calculated width, the pulse generator generates the pulses with a constant
switching frequency.

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DSP BASED ONLINE UPS

Then, Why DSP?

Most of the Microprocessor –aided UPS systems continue to

depend on the analog op-amp controls and they lack speed required for
high frequency inverter control.

Therefore, harmonics are not eliminated in the output wave form, insisting
on the large output LC-filter circuit.

With the availability of low cost- high performance DSP chips

characterised by the execution of most instructions in one instruction cycle,
complicated control algorithms can be executed with speed, making very
high sampling rate possible for digitally controlled inverters. High speed
DSPs are now capable of executing over 30 million instructions per second
(MIPS).

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DSP BASED ONLINE UPS

5. REASONS FOR USING DSPs:

 No analog circuitry. Thus no offsets( i.e. installation & maintenance

cost saved)
 High speed DSP control allows for real time harmonic cancellation.
 Flexible configuration for many power sizes.
 Sophisticated switching algorithm saving overall system costs.
 Features may be upgraded in the same hardware, to fulfill different
incoming needs.

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DSP BASED ONLINE UPS

6. DSP CONTROL OF UPS SYSTEMS:

Most electronic loads served by UPS systems are non-linear

and thus generate harmonic currents that must be filtered at the inverter
output to reduce the distortion to acceptable levels. The DSP controlled
UPS systems employs software controlled harmonic conditioners with the
ability to dynamically adopt to changing load conditions for compensating
load harmonics without manual intervention.

The functional block diagram is as shown below:

Thus, the application of advanced signal processing using a DSP operates to

provide sinusoidal load voltages even under varying load situations, while
eliminating the need of large passive filters.

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DSP BASED ONLINE UPS

7. DESCRIPTION:

The output of the UPS PWM inverter is sampled and converted to an

rms voltage that is processed in a negative feedback loop. The actual
inverter output is compared to a software rms reference value to
determine the error voltage. The error voltage is then passed through a
proportional integral (PI) control to eliminate any steady state errors
present. The result is the necessary error compensation signal. A harmonic
distortion correction signal is then subtracted from the error compensation
signal and the result is applied to the input of PWM inverter.

The figure shown gives the basic block diagram of DSP control with PWM inverter control circuit :

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DSP BASED ONLINE UPS

The above mentioned harmonic distortion correction signal is

generated in the negative feedback loop. The Digital Signal Processor
detects the harmonic distortion signal within the output voltage waveform
and determines the amplitude of real and imaginary parts of the harmonic
components. This process will be described for the cancellation of the 5 th
harmonic, however, any harmonic whose frequency is below half the
sampling frequency can be cancelled in the same manner.

Each frame of the converted digital output from the A/D converter
passes to a real and imaginary component harmonic detectors for phases
a,b and c. For example, the harmonic distortion waveform (A a5) is processed
by a signal correlation function in order to detect the real and imaginary
values of the 5th harmonic. This function can be written for phase ‘a’ as,
Where va (n) is the output voltage of phase a for sometime n.

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DSP BASED ONLINE UPS

The distortion signal may be represented more simply as

Where λa5r is the real component of Aa5, and λa5i is the imaginary component
of Aa5.

Once the harmonic distortion signal (A a5, Ab5 and Ac5) is detected by
the signal correlation function, the amplitudes of the real and imaginary
components of the 5th harmonic are computed by averaging the amplitude
components of the three phases as shown below.

The amplitude components are then applied to a PI compensator to

generate the harmonic distortion correction signal necessary to cancel
harmonic distortion from the output voltage. The resulting harmonic
distortion correction signal is then subtracted from the error compensation
signal and applied to the input of the PWM inverter to produce an output
voltage waveform free of harmonic distortion. The same technique can be
applied to eliminate still higher harmonics like 7th, 9th etc.

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DSP BASED ONLINE UPS

Below figure shows the operation of UPS without harmonic conditioner

But with all-harmonic conditioners enabled, the output voltage wave is like below :

Hence, the DSP controlled inverter and harmonic conditioners operate to

provide
Sinusoidal load voltages even under varying non-linear load conditions
while preventing higher operating temperatures due to additional
harmonic currents.

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DSP BASED ONLINE UPS

8. ADVANTAGES OF USING DSPs IN UPS:

 High reliability and low dimensions: with the DSP, the number of
electronic components is halved, thereby reducing processing time
and failure probability and increasing reliability and eliminating the
use of redundant current and voltage sensors.
 Precision: the DSP controls the electrical values directly,
guaranteeing extreme precision and stability of output voltage and
avoidance of noise due to distorting loads.
 Interactive communication: DSP controls the UPS in its entirety and
outputs on a serial interface all the supervision reports, for automatic
shutdown of servers, for communication on a LAN network, the
Internet and Intranet and for IT maintenance which is carried out
without switching the equipment off.
 Knowing the history: The control software provides users with
operating and historical data in the form of clear read-out monitors,
aiding them in taking any decisions. More over the control system
upgrade can be implemented in software, making the latest
features available to any compatible UPS without changes to the
hardware.

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DSP BASED ONLINE UPS

9. CONCLUSION:

The conventional methods of UPS control and with using DSP, how
the UPS control can be made more users friendly, its advantages are
discussed in the paper.

No doubt, DSPs are going to lead the market of control inverters in near
future and already big players in the market like Texas Instruments, Eaton
group, Intel etc are in the arena to make use the technology in a full swing.

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DSP BASED ONLINE UPS

10. BIBLIOGRAPHY

(1)”DSP control of high-power UPS systems feeding nonlinear loads” by

Annette Von Jouanne and Prasad N.Enjeti sen.IEEE member, from IEEE
transactions on Industrial Electronics, Vol 43,no.1,Feb,1996.

(2)”Digital signal processing based online UPS” manual by

www.cranessoftware.com

(3) “Power Electronics Analysis Design & Apllications” by Ned Mohan, Tore
M. Undeland, William P. Robbins

(4)”Interfacing DSPs with high performance analog converters” Jim Ryan,

Raheen Industrial estate, Ireland.

(5)WEMPEC-25th anniversary review meeting, R&D dept. innovation center

Eaton Corporation.

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DSP BASED ONLINE UPS

Flow chart for voltage control:

No

DSPs vs. Microprocessors

1.Per cycle 1-8 instructions 1-4

access: instructions
2.Software Can be linked with Can be linked
compatibility: MATLAB with GUI
3.Performanc Compound instructions RISC
e: perform multiple instructions
Operations. perform single
eg:multiply+load+modifi operation. eg:
es the address register. add ,load or
store.

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DSP BASED ONLINE UPS

4.SIMD: Limited SIMD features. No SIMD

support.
DSP chips used are Microprocessor
TMC62X, Blackfin etc s used are
P4,powerpc etc

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