A new accurate parameter estimation method for

Unbalanced Three-Phase System based on

correlation function.

Omar Cherrak∗† , Mehdi Omari∗ , Hicham Ghennioui∗, M’hammed Lahbabi∗ and El Hossein Abarkan∗
∗ Université
Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah, Faculté des Sciences et Techniques, LSSC
B.P. 2202, Route d’Imouzzer, Fès, Maroc
Email: {omar.cherrak, mehdi.omari, hicham.ghennioui}@usmba.ac.ma
{lahbabi m, habarkan}@yahoo.fr

† Aix-MarseilleUniversité, CNRS, ENSAM, LSIS, UMR 7296, F-13397 Marseille, France

Université de Toulon, CNRS, LSIS, UMR 7296, F-83957 La Garde, France
Email: omar-cherrak@etud.univ-tln.fr

Abstract—This work addresses the problem of the unbalanced
three-phase system accurate estimation parameter. This problem
occurs in various fields of applications, among which is Smart
Grid. It is well known to use the unbalanced three phase power
system for modeling in smart grid applications. In this work,
we propose a new analytical method in order to obtain an
accurate estimation of the unbalanced three-phase system based
on correlation function. The main advantages of the analytical
proposed method, that it gives an exactly accurate estimation of
these parameters. Computer simulations are provided in order to
illustrate the good behavior of the analytical proposed method in
a noiseless context. Finally, this new method is compared to other
put forward in the literature which is based on Newton-Raphson
scheme [1].
Keywords—Smart Grid, Estimation of parameters, Unbalanced
Three-Phase System, Electrical signal, Spectral analysis, Correla-
tion function.
I. I NTRODUCTION
In recent years, the power grid has undergone profound
mutation due to two main factors which are the integration
of new energy sources (wind, solar, etc.) in the energy mix
and the appearance of new electrical purposes (electric cars).
However, because of this mutation, the management of the
power grid is becoming an increasingly complex task. To
overcome this problem, solutions based on integration of infor-
mation technology and communication in the new generation
of electric networks. This new generation of power grids called
Smart Grid [2] must be able to monitor their installation, to
detect possible anomalies and also to optimize their structure to
maintain the balance between the production and consumption
of energy [3]. The smart grid is a mesh network whose nodes
can act as both users (consumers) and generators. Because
of this conversion of role and the terminal operations, the
variations of the fundamental frequency (standardized to 50
Hz in Europe and to 60 Hz in America [4]) and the amplitude
exist, which can cause many serious problems such as the
loss of synchronism, the stabilization of the supply system
and the connection of the equipment [5]. However, it is
978-1-4673-8224-3/15/$31.00 2015
c IEEE
important to monitor the variations accurate as possible to the
corresponding parameters.
It is well known to use the unbalanced three phase power
system for modeling in smart grid applications. Many works
have been dedicated to the estimation of parameters which are
frequency, amplitude and phase [6]-[12]. The classical estima-
tors applied to three phase systems perform poorly because
they are dedicated only to a single-phase signal and which
cannot characterize the unbalanced system [6]. However, we
can make estimate each phase separately, but this method does
not give accurate results due to the fixed phase which its
displacement does not hold. However, the first approach is
based on the spectral analysis of the electrical signals [7], a
second approach uses the multidimensional aspect of the signal
[8]. The third approach is based on converting the three-phase
system via the αβ-transformation and using the estimator
based on Nonlinear Least Square optimization (NLS) using the
Newton-Raphson scheme [1]. Or to exploit the non-circularity
in a signal (CLMS for Complex Least Mean Square [9], LMMP
for Least Mean Magnitude Phase [10], ACLMS for Augmented
CLMS [11], ACKF for Complex Augmented Kalman Filter
[12], etc). In this work, we propose a new analytical method
in order to obtain an accurate estimation of a unbalanced three-
phase system based on correlation function demonstrated by
computer simulations. Finally, this new method is compared to
other put forward in the literature which is based on Newton-
Raphson scheme [1].
II. P ROPOSED METHOD
A. Problem statement
The voltages of a unbalanced three-phase power system
can be represented in the discrete time form as [10]:
ω
va [n] = Va cos( n + φ),
Fs
ω 2π
vb [n] = Vb cos( n + φ − ),
Fs 3
ω 2π
vc [n] = Vc cos( n + φ + ), (1)
Fs 3
where Va , Vb and Vc are the inequivalent amplitudes of each
phase voltage components, where ω = 2πf Fs is the discrete 1 f f
frequency with respectively f and Fs are the voltage frequency Rsα sα (n, m) = [cos(2π (2m)) + cos(2π (2n))], (11)
2 Fs Fs
(rad), and sampling frequency (Hz). Our aim is to find the un-
known parameters which are f, φ, Va , Vb and Vc . In this work, 1 f f
we use the αβ-transformation [13] on the Eq. (1) in order Rsβ sβ (n, m) = [cos(2π (2m)) − cos(2π (2n))], (12)
2 Fs Fs
to reach an accurate parameter estimation. The transformed
signals, denoted by vα and vβ , are calculated as follows: 1 f f
Rsα sβ (n, m) = [sin(2π (2n)) − sin(2π (2m))], (13)
where 2 Fs Fs
    
vα [n] M11 M12 sα [n] 1 f f
= , (2) Rsβ sα (n, m) = [sin(2π (2n)) + sin(2π (2m))]. (14)
vβ [n] M21 M22 sβ [n] 2 Fs Fs
where
Based on correlation function of v which is defined by Eq.
f
sα [n] = cos(2π n), (3) (10). It consists in building particular matrices P(1) and P(2)
Fs using two correlation matrices taken at different delays we
f found:
sβ [n] = sin(2π n), (4) f
Fs P(2) = 2 cos(2π 2p)P(1) , (15)
Fs
M11 = A cos(φ) − B sin(φ),
where
M12 = −(A sin(φ) + B cos(φ)),
M21 = −B cos(φ) + C sin(φ), P(1) = Rvv (n, m + τ1 ) − Rvv (n, m − τ1 ) = P[n, p],
M22 = B sin(φ) + C cos(φ), (5) P(2) = Rvv (n, m + τ2 ) − Rvv (n, m − τ2 ) = P[n, 2p],
(16)
and
√
6 where τ means the delay considered (τ1 =p and τ2 =2p).
A = (4Va + Vb + V c),
12
√ The estimate of the fundamental frequency can then be calcu-
2 lated analytically, using the nonzero singular values of vsP(1) ,
B = (Vb − Vc ),
√4 vsP(2) of the particular matrices P(1) and P(2) respectively
6 as:
C = (Vb + Vc ). (6)
4 arccos(r̂)
fˆ = , (17)
4πFs
Considering that we have N samples for each channel (Eq. (2))
which can be written in matrix form in the following way: where  
1 vsP(1)
v = Ms, (7) r̂ = , (18)
2 vsP(2)
where
We can estimate also the different elements of M̂. To that aim,
T
v = [vα [n], vβ [n]] , we calculate the square matrices R(0) (resp. R(1) ) outcome
s =
T
[sα [n], sβ [n]] , from Rvv [n, m] whose expression is given by Eq. (10) as
  follows:
M11 M12
M = , (8)
M21 M22

and [.]T denotes the transpose operator. M̂11 =
(0)
R11 , (19)

(0)
B. Approach based on correlation function: M̂21 = R , (20)
 22 
(1) 2
1) Principle of the approach: The correlation function of R11 − α̂M̂11
the transformed signals v in the noiseless context denoted by M̂12 =   , (21)
Rvv [n, m], is: β̂ M̂11
 
(1) 2
R22 − α̂M̂21
Rvv [n, m] = M Rss [n, m]M H , (9) M̂22 =   , (22)
β̂ M̂21
Rvv [n, m] = E{v[n + m]v∗ [n − m]}, (10)
where [.]∗ denotes the conjugaison operator, E{.} is the where
statistical expectation operator and Rss [n, m] represents the fˆ
correlation function of s given by Eqs. ((3)-(4)) whose auto- α̂ = cos(2π 2),
correlation and cross-correlation functions of s are defined by Fs

(See the Appendix for more details of calculations): β̂ = 1 − α̂2 , (23)
with −4
x 10
4


(0) (0)
(0) R11 R12

Mse for f
R = (0) (0)
R21 R22 2 Proposed
= Rvr vr [0, 0] Chen’s estimation
 
1 0
= M MT , (24) 0
0 0 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1 000
−4
Data length N
x 10
and 1.5

MSE for φ
(1) (1) 1
(1) R11 R12
R = (1) (1)
R21 R22 0.5 Proposed
= Rvr vr [1, 1] Chen’s estimation

 0
cos(2π Ffs 2) 0 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1 000
= M MT . (25) Data length N
sin(2π Ffs 2) 0

Fig. 1: Performance for MSE versus data length N of analytical

Finally, after obtaining fˆ and the elements M̂11 , M̂12 , M̂21 and proposed method compared with Chen’s Estimation approach.
M̂22 of the matrix M̂ , the estimated φ̂, V̂a , V̂b and V̂c are Up: MSE for f . Bottom: MSE for φ.
straightforwardly computed from M̂ as:


M̂21 − M̂12
φ̂ = tan−1 , (26)
M̂11 + M̂22
 = M̂11 cos(φ̂) − M̂12 sin(φ̂), (27) Also, in the Fig. (2), we plot the performance for MSE versus
the data length N =1000 (up: we plot MSE for Va , bottom: we
B̂ = −M̂11 sin(φ̂) − M̂12 cos(φ̂), (28) plot MSE for Vc , middle: we plot MSE for Vb ). The analytical
Ĉ = M̂21 sin(φ̂) + M̂22 cos(φ̂), (29) proposed method keeps the same behavior for estimation of
1 12 Va , Vb and Vc . These graphs illustrate the good behavior of the
V̂a = (√ − v̂b − v̂c ), (30) analytical proposed method. We observe an accurate estimation
4 6Â
in the performances shown by the MSE throughout the Data
B̂ Ĉ length.
V̂b = 2( √ + √ ), (31)
2 6
B̂ Ĉ
V̂c = 2(− √ + √ ). (32) x 10
−7
2 6
a
MSE for V

2
Proposed
1 Chen’s Estimation
III. C OMPUTER SIMULATIONS 0
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000
−7
x 10
In order to illustrate the good behavior of the analytical 1
Proposed
b

proposed estimator for the unbalanced three phase power

MSE for V

Chen’s Estimation
system, computer simulations are provided. We consider the 0.5
Mean Square Error (MSE) of different parameters (E{(fˆ −
f )2 }, E{(φ̂ − φ)2 }, E{(V̂a − Va )2 }, E{(V̂b − Vb )2 } and
0
E{(V̂c − Vc )2 }) are employed to show the performance of the 0 −7 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000
estimation. We compare the results (in terms of performance x 10
1
c

using MSE) obtained of our analytical proposed method thanks Proposed

MSE for V

to estimator proposed in [1] (denoted Chen’s Estimation) Chen’s Estimation

0.5
versus the data length N fixed in 1000. We choose f = 50, 5
Hz Fs = 5000, Va = 1, Vb = 0.7, Vc = 0.6. All the displayed 0
results have been averaged over 10 Monte-Carlo trials. 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000
Data length N
We study the MSE for f , φ, Va , Vb and Vc versus the
data length N . In the Fig. (1), we plot the performance for
MSE versus the data length N = 1000, respectively up : for Fig. 2: Performance for MSE versus data length N of our
frequency f and bottom : for phase φ. It is shown that, the analytical proposed method compared with Chen’s Estimation
MSE for the two parameters using our analytical proposed approach. Up: MSE for Va . Middle: MSE for Vb . Bottom: MSE
method gives excellent results and this accurately estimate the for Vc .
frequency f and the phase φ verus all the samples of the Data.
 IV. C ONCLUSION
In this work, we have suggested a new analytical method
which relies on a correlation function. This approach of-
fers enhanced accuracy and faster convergence. The αβ-
transformation is exploited to produce a pair of in-phase
and quadrature signals from the three-phase waveforms. It
is demonstrated that the MSE performance of the frequency,
phase, and voltages estimated can outperform the method exist-
ing in the literature which based on Newton-Raphson scheme.
Extensions for future research would be to demonstrate the
interest of this method in noisy context.
APPENDIX
Considering two values a, b ∈ Z. Our developments are
based on the following properties:
P1 . cos(a) cos(b) = 12 [cos(a − b) + cos(a + b)],
P2 . cos(a) sin(b) = 12 [sin(a + b) − sin(a − b)],
[8] Choqueuse, V. , Benbouzid, M.E.H., Amirat, Y., Turri, “Diagnosis of
Three-Phase Electrical Machines Using Multidimensional Demodulation
Techniques”, Industrial Electronics, IEEE Transactions on, vo. 59, no.4,
pp. 2014–2023, April 2012.
[9] Pradhan, A. K., Routray, A., Basak, A. “Power system frequency
estimation using least mean square technique,” IEEE Transactions on
Power Delivery, vol. 20, no. 3, pp. 1812-1816, 2005.
[10] Xia, Y. L., Douglas, S. C., P.Mandic, D. “Adaptive frequency estimation
in smart grid applications: exploiting noncircularity and widely linear
adaptive estimators,” IEEE Signal Processing Magazine, vol. 29, no. 5,
pp. 44–54, 2012.
[11] Javidi, S.,Goh, L., Pedzisz, M., Mandic, D. P.“The augmented complex
least mean square algorithm with application to adaptive prediction
problems,” in Proceedings of the 1st IARP Workshop on Cognitive
Information Processing, pp. 54-57, Santorini, Greece, May 2008.
[12] Dini, D. H., Mandic, D. P.“Class of widely linear complex Kalman
filters,” IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks and Learning Systems,
2012, In print.
[13] Akke, M. “Frequency estimation by demodulation of two complex
signals,” IEEE Transactionson Power Delivery, vol. 12, no. 1, pp. 157–
163, 1997.

P3 . sin(a) sin(b) = 12 [cos(a − b) − cos(a + b)].

Using the previous properties (P1 -P3 ) in the expression of the
auto-correlation function of sα and sβ defined in Eq.(10), we
found respectively that:
f f
Rsα sα (n, m) = cos(2π
(n + m)) cos(2π (n − m)),
Fs Fs
f f
Rsβ sβ (n, m) = sin(2π (n + m)) sin(2π (n − m)).
Fs Fs
Finally, from these previous expressions, it leads to the results
stated by Eqs.(11-12). Then, we use the previous propertie (P2 )
in the expression of the cross-correlation between sα and sβ
defined in Eq.(10), we found that:
f f
Rsα sβ (n, m) = cos(2π
(n + m)) sin(2π (n − m)),
Fs Fs
f f
Rsβ sα (n, m) = sin(2π (n + m)) cos(2π (n − m)).
Fs Fs
From the previous expressions, it leads to the results stated by
Eqs.(13-14).

R EFERENCES
[1] Chen, Y. and So, H.C. “Accurate Parameter Estimation for Unbalanced
Three-Phase System,” The Scientific World Journal, vol. 2014, 2014.
[2] Yan, Y. Qian, Y., Sharif, H., Tipper, D.“A survey on smart grid communi-
cation infrastructures: Motivations, requirements and challenges,” IEEE
Communications Surveys & Tutorials, vol. 15, no. 1, pp. 5-20, 2013.
[3] Giannakis, G. ,Kekatos, G., Gatsis, N., Kim, S.-J., Zhu, H. Wollenberg,
B. “Monitoring and Optimization for Power Grids: A Signal Processing
Perspective”, Signal Processing Magazine, IEEE, vo.30, no.5, pp. 107–
128 September 2013.
[4] Top, P., Bell, M., Coyle, E., Wasynczuk, O. “Observing the power grid:
Working toward a more intelligent, efficient and reliable smart grid with
increasing user visibility,” IEEE Signal Processing Magazine, vo.29, no.5,
pp. 24–32, 2012
[5] Unsal, A. , Von Jouanne, A. R., Stonick, V. L. “A DSP controlled
resonant active filter for power conditioning in threephase industrial
power systems”, Signal Processing, vol. 82, no. 11, pp. 1743–1752, 2002.
[6] Eckhardt, V. , Hippe, P., Hosemann, G. “Dynamic measuring of fre-
quency and frequency oscillations in multiphase power systems,” IEEE
Transactions on Power Delivery, vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 95-102, 1989.
[7] Choqueuse, V. , El Bouchikhi, E.H., Benbouzid, M.“Analyse Spectrale
Paramétrique dans un contexte Smart-Grid,” GRETSI 2013, Sep 2013,
pp.1–4, France, September 2013.