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Design and manufacturing of digital MOSFET based-AVR for synchronous

generator

Conference Paper · June 2015

DOI: 10.1109/CYBER.2015.7287938

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 The 5th Annual IEEE International Conference on
Cyber Technology in Automation, Control and Intelligent Systems
June 8-12, 2015, Shenyang, China

Design and Manufacturing of Digital MOSFET

Based-AVR for Synchronous Generator
Irfan A. Khan, Student Member, IEEE Yinliang Xu, Member, IEEE, and Bilal Tahir

Abstract— Automatic voltage regulator is designed to keep

the terminal voltage of the generator constant, regardless of all
disturbances. It is done so by controlling field current of
synchronous generator which is directly related to terminal
voltage. Peak detector circuit detects the peak voltage of
generator terminal sinusoidal voltage. This peak voltage is then
converted to binary code by ADC0804 IC. After that, the binary
code is processed by AT89S52 microcontroller. This
microcontroller is used to generate PWM according to the peak
voltage sensed by Peak detector. If the terminal voltage is higher
than desired set point, the PWM duty cycle decreases; if terminal
voltage is lower than desired set point, the PWM duty cycle
increases. PWM signal is fed to IRF740 MOSFET gate terminal.
This PWM gate signal hence increases or decreases the field
Fig. 1 Block diagram of AVR
current of generator which in return, increases or decreases
terminal voltage. The designed close loop feedback system
ensures the stable output voltage that is necessary for sensitive
load. This control strategy can be implemented in an islanded
micro grid with renewable energy sources for a regulated output
voltage, irrespective of the intermittencies of the renewable
energy sources like wind and solar.1

Key Words—Automatic Voltage Regulators; PWM; MOSFET;

Peak Detector; Synchronous Generator; Renewable Energy
Sources

I. INTRODUCTION

Constant voltage at generator terminal is essential for

satisfactory power supply. Generator terminal voltage will not
remain constant if it is affected by many disturbances which
are speed of rotation, machine temperature and load changes
etc. There are some sensitive loads that needs uninterrupted
and fluctuations free power supply, so Automatic Voltage
Regulator (AVR) is designed to overcome disturbances and
control generator terminal voltage.
When disturbance occurs, the fuel governor should
maintain fuel supply to keep generator running at the constant
speed otherwise system frequency will change, and AVR
should vary the field current to keep the voltage constant.
Block diagram and functional Diagram are shown below in
Fig. 1 and Fig. 2, respectively.
Manuscript submitted on Jan. 25, 2015.
I. Khan and Y. Xu are with Sun Yat-Sen University and Carnegie Mellon
University (SYSU-CMU) Joint Institute of Engineering, Sun Yat-sen
University, Guangzhou, 510275, and SYSU-CMU Shunde International Joint
Research Institute, Foshan, 528300 China. (Email: irfank@andrew.cmu.edu,
xuyliang@mail.sysu.edu.cn).
B. Tahir is with Nizam Energy, Lahore, 54000, Pakistan.
Fig. 2 Functional diagram of AVR and Generator
II. SYNCHRONOUS GENERATOR
Synchronous generators or alternators are synchronous
machines used to convert mechanical power to AC electric
power. The operation of a generator is based on Faraday’s law
of electromagnetic induction. If a coil or winding is linked to a
varying magnetic field, then electromotive force or voltage is
induced across the coil [1] [2] [3].
A. Synchronous Generator Parts
A generator has two essential parts, one that creates a
magnetic field, and the other is where the energy is induced.
Magnetic field is generated in field winding and voltage is
induced in armature winding. Mostly, the armature winding of
a synchronous machine is on the stator, and the field winding is
on rotor. The field winding is excited by direct current
conducted to it by means of carbon brushes and slip rings.
Stator, rotor and carbon brushes arrangement is shown in Fig.

978-1-4799-8730-6/15/$31.00 © 2015 IEEE 217

3. Flux Ɏ itself depends on the current flowing in the rotor field
circuit. The field circuit is related to the flux Ɏ in the manner
shown in Fig. 4(a). Since Ea is directly related to the flux the
internal generated voltage Ea is related to the field current as
shown in Fig. 4(b). This plot is called magnetizing curve or
open circuit characteristics.

III. AUTOMATIC VOLTAGE REGULATOR

AVR stands for Automatic Voltage Regulator. It’s an

electronic device used with Generators (gasoline, Diesel) to
regulate output voltage by controlling its field circuit or field
winding. Automatic voltage regulator maintains the constant
voltage up to certain level of load current independently of
generator speed and load [4] [5].

A. Types of AVR
AVR can be classified into the following categories

Fig. 3 Stator Rotor and slip ring arrangement in real time machine • Externally Powered AVR: AVR gets power from any
external source like grid supply or DC batteries.
• Generator Powered AVR: AVR gets power from
generator output
For this research project AVR gets its power from the
generator itself so it’s a generator powered.

B. Requirements of AVR
Voltage regulator (AVR) must satisfy the following
conditions
• High speed regulation
• No deviation from desired voltage
Fig. 4 (a) Plot of flux versus field current (b) the magnetizing curve • Short circuit protection
• Overload protection
B. Internal Generated Voltage of a synchronous Generator
• Adjustable desired voltage
The peak voltage in stator of generator is given by (1) [4]

EA = N cφ ω (1)
IV. AVR DESIGN & CONSTRUCTION
Where N c is the number of coils in the stator, φ is flux
generated and Ȧ=2ʌf, thus (1) can also be written as AVR design is divided in four parts i.e. sensing generator
voltage, generating corrective signals, varying field current
E A = 2π N cφ f (2) according to correcting signals and supplying power to all
above circuitry. Sensing will be done by peak detector.
Therefore RMS voltage of stator is Correcting signals part include microcontroller (PWM
2π N cφ f controller). Field control circuit includes a switching element
EA = (3) and some protection circuitry and power supply circuitry
2 supplies the power to all above equipment as well as field
current.
After simplification

E A = 2π N cφ f (4)
A. Peak Detector
Generator voltage is quite high to be sensed by a
microcontroller. So to sense them it is required to lower the
This voltage depends on the flux Ɏ in the machine, the
frequency or speed of rotation, and the machine’s construction.

218

Fig. 5 Peak Detector Circuit
voltage. This can be simply done by a transformer. We are
going to use a microcontroller whose input is digital so ADC
will be used. ADC has a 0 to 5V input range, so transformer
output must be within this range. It is supposed here that at
rated terminal voltage i.e. 220V transformer gives 3V so
transformer of 73 turn ratio will be used.
Operational amplifier is the key element of peak detector.
Operational amplifier is used as voltage follower. In this
configuration whatever is the input same is the output but
within the range of power supply. If input signal goes above
power supply voltage waveform will be clipped. Using op amp
in peak detector adds some properties to the circuit such as
high input impedance, low output impedance and isolation of
output with input.
If a diode is used at output of operational amplifier the
negative portion of waveform is clipped off due to diode
unidirectional current. Using an appropriate value of capacitor
will serve the peak detection phenomenon. If input is higher
that output, the capacitor is charged up to this new higher
value. If input is lower than the capacitor voltage diode will
remain off and the capacitor will keep the previous value and
discharge slowly to the load.
According to AVR requirements terminal voltage should be
easily adjustable from voltage regulator. This requirement can
be easily achieved using a potentiometer. Varying
potentiometer will vary the input signal of microcontroller and
hence the terminal output voltages so output voltage can be set
to any value within the range. Complete design of Peak
Detector is shown below in Fig. 5.
B. PWM Controller
Correcting signal would be generated in this part. Signal
from peak detector is analog and needed to be converted into
binary form so that microcontroller can process it. ADC0804 is
used for this purpose. The ADC0804 IC is an 8-bit parallel
ADC in the family of ADC0800 series from National
Semiconductor. It works with +5 volts and has a resolution of 8
219
bits. Minimum conversion time is 110us. It’s a 20 pin IC [6]
[7].
Choosing a micro controller depends on speed, power
consumption, Packaging, amount of RAM and ROM, I/O pins
availability and cost per unit. On the base of above mentioned
criteria this AVR is designed with AT89S52 microcontroller.
The AT89S52 microcontroller belongs to the famous 8051
family which is low cost and fulfills all design requirements.
After conversion to binary form the signal is processed by
microcontroller. Microcontroller is programmed so that if peak
voltage in binary form is less than the reference binary no
microcontroller starts to decrease PWM Duty cycle and if peak
voltage sensed by peak detector is greater than the reference
binary code microcontroller program starts to increase duty
cycle of PWM. Hence the PWM duty cycle keeps on varying
according to Peak voltage sensed by peak detector circuit.
Field controller circuit is designed so that if PWM duty cycle
decreases field current increases and if PWM duty cycle
increases field current decreases. Microcontroller used here is
in sink mode.
If Load is increased PWM decreases to increase the field
current In case of overload microcontroller PWM decreases to
0% to increase the Field current to maximum and when it hits
0% PWM the microcontroller trip all the circuitry to protect
generator from overloading. To protect generator from short
circuit a fuse is used. If in any case fuse fails to cut power
supply to field microcontroller will consider it same as
overload and will cut the dc supply.
Control strategy used here is Fuzzy because microcontroller
controls the Field current dividing in 65536 equal levels and
tries to maintain the voltage by varying level.
C. Field Controller
This circuit controls the generator field based on the PWM
duty cycle.PWM pulses from microcontroller cannot be fed
directly to MOSFET for switching due to 2 reasons i.e. low
voltage from microcontroller that is not enough for switching
MOSFET and voltage spikes generated from fast switching of
MOSFET can damage microcontroller that’s why opto-isolator
is used which solves above two problems. Opto-isolator
chooses here is 4N25 [8].
Signal from opto-isolator is fed to MOSFET gate terminal.
When PWM duty cycle from microcontroller increases
MOSFET gate voltage increases hence field current. When
PWM duty cycle from microcontroller decreases MOSFET
gate voltage decreases hence the field current also decreases.
Below in Fig. 6 is the final circuit of Field controller. D1
and D2 are the diodes that protect the field coil and MOSFET
during fast switching as inductor reverse its polarity to keep the
current passing when MOSFET is off. R2 is the resistor to
discharge gate to source capacitor to ensure fast switching [9].
 Fig. 8 Power supply block diagram

Fig. 6 Field controller Circuit

Fig. 7 +/- 5V supply circuit

Fig. 10 Microcontroller based AVR design

Fig 9. Final circuit of PWM controller

220
D. Power supply Circuit
Power supply required to drive all circuitry and field coil is
designed here in this section. A DC battery that is built in with
generator for starter motor will be the primary source of power
after that generator will supply all the power required.
The microcontroller require +5v supply. LM741 require +/-
5v supply. Field coil is derived with a110v DC supply at
maximum. First of all LM7805 voltage regulator drives
microcontroller through battery power and field coil is supplied
Fig. 11 Peak detector waveform
Fig. 12 PWM waveform 80% duty cycle approximately
with 12v DC power. Generator Stator or armature coil produce
small amount of AC power which is rectified and again
supplied to generator hence this new higher voltage DC field
supply produces more terminal voltage. Generator terminal
voltage will keep on increasing until it reaches the desired set
point. +/- 5V supply circuit is shown in Fig. 7 and power
supply block diagram is shown in Fig. 8 [10].
E. Final PWM controller circuit
Final circuit of PWM controller in Fig. 9. Here LED1 and
LED 2 is the indicator for voltage status and fault respectively.
221
F. Implementation
All 4 parts implemented on PCB’s and connected together
as block diagram. The hardware prototype generated is shown
below in Fig. 10.
V. RESULTS
A. Peak Detector
Peak voltage detected from sinusoidal voltage is shown in
oscilloscope graph in Fig. 11. The sinusoidal voltage is 3V
RMS at 50 Hz.
B. PWM Controller
PWM waveform generated from microcontroller at
different Duty cycles is shown below in Fig. 12, Fig. 13 and
Fig. 14.
Fig. 13 PWM waveform 60% duty cycle approximately
These different duty cycles were captured when load was
varied, output voltage changed depending upon load and hence
to maintain the terminal voltage of generator, PWM control
signal of microcontroller varied itself.
5V PWM duty cycle keep on decreasing to overcome load
changes at generator terminals. Microcontroller PWM varies
rapidly and ensures the rapid change of voltage at generator
terminals.
C. Generator Output
Regulated generator terminal voltage is shown below in
Fig.15 which shows that the output is 220V (22V×10). Fig. 16
and Fig. 17 show the voltage variations during load changing
without AVR card. Without AVR voltage drops to 180V
during heavy loads. Without AVR voltage goes up to 280V
when heavy load is removed.
VI. CONCLUSION
After all the discussion, it can be concluded that this AVR
control card is capable of controlling voltage of any
synchronous generator used by renewable energy sources of
any ratings. Three phase generators with balanced loading can
also be controlled with this AVR system.

Fig. 14 PWM waveform 20% duty cycle approximately
Fig. 15 Generator terminal voltage with AVR
Fig. 16 Generator terminal voltage without AVR
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Fig. 17 Generator terminal voltage during load variation
without AVR
Due to microcontroller based design, this AVR is quite
reliable, accurate and easy to design and this AVR is precise in
measurement and control as compared to other analog AVR.
Even the single volt variation can also be sensed and corrected.
PWM can be controlled from 0 to 100 duty cycle in a period of
2 seconds. Short circuit and overload protection is also covered
in this design. If voltage level is to be set other than 220V, it
can still be done with a single calibration knob. This design is
user friendly, easy to install and use, adjustable and accurate.
This project can be manufactured commercially with little
improvements and compatibility issues.
REFERENCES
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McGraw-Hill Higher Education.
[2] Bakshi, U A, 2008. DC machines & Synchronous machines. 1st ed.
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[3] Theodore, Wildi, 2007. Electrical Machines Drives and Power Systems.
5th ed.: Pearson Education.
[4] Yahia Baghzouz," Synchronous Generators I" for course EE 340, Spring
2011,accessedat:
http://www.egr.unlv.edu/~eebag/Synchronous%20Generator%20I.pdf
[5] Htay, Myinzu, 2008. International Science Index. Design and
Construction of Automatic Voltage Regulator for Diesel Engine Type
Stand-alone Synchronous Generator, 2/6, 634-641.
[6] Alam, M. Rabiul, 2011. Single Phase Automatic Voltage Regulator
Design for Synchronous Generator Single Phase Automatic Voltage
Regulator Design for Synchronous Generator, 11/5, 37-42.
[7] Mazidi, Muhammad Ali, 2006. The 8051 microcontroller &Embeded
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[8] Ayala, Kenneth J., 2005. The 8051 microcontroller. 3rd ed. Canada:
Thomas Delmar Learning.
[9] Quercioli, Valter , 1993. Pulse width modulated (PWM) power supplies.
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[10] Rashid, Muhammad Harunur, 2009. Power Electronics: Circuits,
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[11] Robert j., 1979. DC power supplies. 2nd ed. UK: Reston publishing
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