Droop Method Based on Model Predictive Control for
DC Microgrid
Omar Abdel-Rahim *, **
* **
Electrical Engineering Department
Aswan Faculty of Engineering, Aswan University
Aswan, Egypt
O.Abdelrahim@aswu.edu.eg
Abstract— Dc structures are acquisitioning acceptance owing
to its high efficiency, high reliability and easy interconnection of
renewable sources as compared to ac systems. In standalone dc
system, parallel dc–dc converters are used to interface storage
element and loads. Use of master–slave controller for paralleling
is restricted on account of its high cost, low reliability and
complexity. Even though conventional droop controllers
overwhelmed these limitations, they cannot concurrently ensure
equal current sharing and low-voltage regulation. This is
attributable to the error in measurement of voltage feedback
signal. To address this limitation, modified droop controller based
on model predictive control is proposed in this study. This work
presents a performance study of a dc micro grid when it is used a
voltage droop technique to regulated the bus voltage and to control
the load sharing between different sources. The structure of the
simple dc micro grid studied consists of renewable energy source,
two-dc sources and a battery storage unit. The main contribution
of this paper is the usage of model predictive control to manage the
micro grid operation and droop control characteristics.
Keywords— voltage droop technique; model predictive control;
dc micro grid
I. INTRODUCTION
The main focus during the design of a dc MicroGrid (MG) is
its stability. The basic unit for stabilization and integration
between loads and sources is the power converter. The power
converters decouple loads and sources from disturbances and
regulate the voltage levels obligatory by each device in the
network. In islanded dc MG without communication, the
system functions in a distributed control scheme where each
unit has a controller whose decision is based on the available
local variables [1]-[2]. In such setting, the stability is commonly
obtained by sources in parallel controlling the bus voltage. A
common practice to guarantee stable and efficient operation of
a dc MG is to include a virtual resistance on the output of the
sources power converter, a technique known as droop control
[1]-[4]. Droop control increases the output resistance of each
source, which makes them farther away from an ideal source,
and consequently, there is greater interaction between sources
and loads. Such interaction causes the stability of the bus
voltage to be more dependent on the type of load coupled to the
system.
In general, MG consists of a number of parallel converters
Hirohito Funato** , and Haruna Junnosuke**
Electronic and Electrical Engineering Department
Utsunomiya University
Utsunomiya, Japan
funato@cc.utsunomiya-u.ac.jp
that work in harmony. Local control functions of these
converters typically cover the following:
1) current, voltage, and droop control for each unit;
2) source-dependent functions, e.g., MPPT for photovoltaic
(PV) modules and wind turbines, or a state-of-charge
estimation;
3) decentralized coordination functions, such as local
adaptive calculation of VRs, distributed dc bus signaling, or
power line signaling.
For local dc current and voltage control systems in dc MGs,
proportional-integral (PI) controllers are commonly used since
they introduce zero steady-state error, can be easily tuned, and
are highly robust. However, the use of other types of
controllers, such as proportional derivative (PD), fuzzy and
boundary controllers has also been reported [5]-[7]. Droop
control is commonly installed on top of inner loops, primarily
for current sharing purposes. Either output power or output
current can be selected as the feedback signal in droop control
[8]-[10].
The simple DC microgrid under study is depicted in Fig. 1,
it consist of two-dc source, PV energy source, battery storage
and DC load. DC-DC converter is mandatory to regulate the DC
bus voltage. Bidirectional converter is used with the battery for
charging and discharging. If load power is lower than PV
maximum power, then PV used to provide power to the load
and charge the battery. Battery and the DC source are managed
by the droop control in order to share the load power in a proper
way according to the capacity of the DC source and the battery.
II. DROOP CONTROL
The sources in a distributed control scheme operate
cooperatively to regulate the bus voltage, but a load sharing
problem arises, where each source must provide power to the
load proportional to its power capacity. In such a context, load
sharing is critical to avoid that some sources become
overloaded, losing the reliability of distributed power systems.
All parallel converters operate in voltage controlled mode.
Voltage reference for each converter is generated by measuring
its local parameters. Therefore no communication between
converters is required.
 deviation, but voltage regulation (from noload to full-load)
DC Bus increases. Therefore trade-off between voltage regulation and
DCSource 1 current sharing is inherent in conventional droop method.
Droop method does not require communication and
centralised controller. Therefore this low cost and high reliable
alternative is preferred over the master–slave controller.
However, the limiting factor for conventional droop controller
is the trade-off between voltage regulation and current sharing.
Battery When dc voltage is controlled by several converters, it is
DCSource2 difficult to achieve good voltage regulation and sharing at the
same time. As illustrated in Fig. 2, better voltage regulation
requires a higher dc gain, but it can decrease load sharing.
Therefore, we adopt a gain-scheduling control that changes the
gain Kc according to the output power in order to obtain better
voltage regulation and load sharing simultaneously [8].
Figure 3 shows the block diagram of the voltage droop
control scheme. Each droop controller emulates an impedance
PV behavior reducing the converter output voltage with the
increase of the supplied current. This strategy promotes the
current sharing between paralleled converters connected in the
Load dc microgrid without the need of a central control. A low–pass
filter is used to cut-off harmonic frequencies and fast oscilations
of the dc bus voltage. Based on Fig. 3 it is possible to calculate
Fig. 1. DC Microgrid construction. ܲ௥௘௙ as follows [10]
ఠಽು
P ܲ௥௘௙ ൌ ‫ܩ‬ሺ‫ݏ‬ሻ ቂܸ௥௘௙ െ ቀ ቁ ܸ௢ ቃ ܸ௢ (2)
K1 K1 >K2
ௌାఠಽು

where G(s) is the transfer function of the compensator, Vref

is the reference voltage, ߱௅௉ is the cutoff frequency of the low
Power pass filter, and Vo is the dc grid voltage at the point of the
Sharing {
{ K2
converter coupling. From (1) the reference current for each
converter can be calculated as follows,
‫ܫ‬௥௘௙ ൌ
௉ೝ೐೑
௏೔೙
ǡ
Where Vin is the voltage of the dc source.
(3)

A simple and robust technique to calculate the droop

reference voltage is proposed in [8] and it is utilized in this
V paper for reference voltage calculation. Calculation of the two
{

variables ܺ௞ and ‫ܭ‬௩ is explained in details in [8].

Voltage Re gulation
Fig. 2. Droop control feature.
This decentralized controller increases system reliability [9].
Most popularly used droop-based controller is the voltage–
current droop. Voltage reference is calculated using the source
current as follows
௥௘௙
‫ݒ‬௝ ൌ ‫ݒ‬௝଴ െ ݀௝ ݅௝ (1)
௥௘௙
Where ‫ݒ‬௝ , ݀௝ and ‫ݒ‬௝଴ are the reference voltage, droop gain
and nominal voltage (voltage when source current is zero) of
source-j, respectively. Droop gains are selected such that the
product of droop gain and rated current is the same for all
converters. In ideal condition, this ensures that the converters
share the load current in proportion to their rated capacities.
In other words, load current is shared equally among the
converters. However, because of small error in nominal
voltages of converters, source currents significantly deviate
from their ideal values. Increasing the droop gains reduces this
The MPC algorithm proposed to control the bidirectional
converter is depicted in Fig. 4. Bidirectional converter will be
required to charge when the bus voltage increases a certain limit
and must discharge when bus voltage decreases from designed
value. The proposed algorithm used to drive the converter is
depicted in Fig. 3. Algorithm section limited by the red color is
used to drive the dc-dc converter used with the dc source. While
the whole algorithm marked with black dotted line is used to
drive the bidirectional dc-dc converter used by the battery.
Algorithm used to control the converter of the dc source can be
simply explained as follow: input voltage, output voltage,
inductor current and reference current generated by the droop
controller are measured, Then Prediction equation is applied, in
this design traditional boost converter are considered, finally
the controller make optimization in order to decide to turn on or
of the switch. For the battery the proposed needs to control the
converter to charge or discharge the battery depends on the
system conditions. When bus voltage start to increase this gives
indication to the controller to start charging the battery to
absorb the excess energy cause increase in bus voltage. The
controller do the opposite in case of drop in bus voltage. When Vin VO
bus voltage start to decrease this means load demand in higher ILF
than the available energy so battery should start to discharge its
energy to compensate this difference. ILF
Model
III. PRINCIPLE OF MODEL PREDICTIVE CONTROL VO
MPC describes a wide family of controllers, not a specific
Vin Pr edictive
control strategy. The common elements of this kind of
controller are that it uses a model of the system to predict the Iref Control
future behavior of the variables until a predefined horizon in
time, and selection of the optimal actuations by minimizing a
cost function [11]-[13]. This structure has several important * + Pref Iref
advantages: V G(s)
͌ Concepts are very intuitive and easy to understand.
͌ It can be applied to a great variety of systems.
dc
− ωlp
Vin
͌ The multivariable case can be easily considered.
͌ Dead times can be compensated.
͌ Easy inclusion of non linearities in the model.
S + ωlp VO
͌ Simple treatment of constraints.
͌ The resulting controller is easy to implement. 310[V ]
͌ This methodology is suitable for the inclusion of
modifications and extensions depending on specific
applications.
300[V ] + Vdc*
BusVoltage
The basic ideas present in MPC are:
͌ The use of a model to predict the future behavior of the
+
variables until a horizon in time.
Xk + KV 290[V ]
͌ A cost function that represents the desired behavior of the
system.
͌ The optimal actuation is obtained by minimizing the cost
−
1
function.
Fig. 3. Circuit and control diagrams to for the droop control.
 electronics converters can be designed using the following
Bidirectional Converter Control A lg orithm steps:
1) Modeling of the power converter identifying all possible
dcSource Control Alg orithm switching states and its relation to the input or output voltages
or currents;
Start 2) Defining a cost function that represents the desired
behavior of the system;
Read 3) Obtaining discrete-time models that allow one to predict
V in , V o , I LF , I ref
the future behavior of the variables to be controlled.
Discharg e Charg e Prediction of the future value of the controlled variable is
required in MPC. As the target is to control the PV current to
extract maximum power from the PV, the two controlled
variables are PV output voltage and current. Prediction of the
§ T *R · § T *R ·
future value of circuit variables, gives the advantages of fast
*Vin − S *Vo + ILf (k ).¨¨1− S F ¸¸ *Vo − S *Vin + I Lf (k ).¨¨1− S F ¸¸
TS T
© LF ¹
ILf ,1(k +1) = TS T
© LF ¹
I Lf ,1(k +1) =
L L L L reference tracking.
y
G = abs (I LF ,n − I ref ) G = abs (I LF ,n − I ref )
y (K )
Yes yP1(K)
G < GOpt
Yes G < GOpt
yP2 (K)
GOpt = G
J Opt = J
No GOpt = G
J Opt = J No y*
Yes Yes yPn−1(K )
J <2 J <2
No No yPn(K)
ApplyS( J Opt ) ApplyS( J Opt )
TS
tk tk+1 t
Fig. 5. Essential properties of the model predictive control
Fig. 4. Proposed algorithm. strategy.
The model used for prediction is a discrete-time model
which can be expressed as a state space model as follows: IV. DISCUSSION
Case study #1: in this case study the dc microgrid consists of
ܺሺ݇ ൅ ͳሻ ൌ ‫ܺܣ‬ሺ݇ሻ ൅ ‫ݑܤ‬ሺ݇ሻ (4)
one PV module with maximum power around 300 W, one dc
‫ݕ‬ሺ݇ ൅ ͳሻ ൌ ‫ܺܥ‬ሺ݇ሻ ൅ ‫ݑܦ‬ሺ݇ሻ (5) source and one battery storage, the result of this case study is
A cost function that represents the desired behavior of the depicted in Fig. 6. PV module delivers its maximum power, dc
system needs to be defined. This function considers the source provides 4 A and battery are charging. At t=3.5 sec load
references, future states, and future actuations: demand power is increased, which force the battery to discharge
‫ ܬ‬ൌ ݂൫ܺሺ݇ሻǡ ‫ݑ‬ሺ݇ሻǡ ǥ ǥ ǥ ǡ ‫ݑ‬ሺ݇ ൅ ܰሻ൯ (6) its energy at t=4 sec the system restored to initial conditions.
MPC is an optimization problem that consist of minimizing Case study #2: in this case study the dc micro grid consists
the cost function J, for a predefined horizon in time N, subject of one PV module with maximum power around 300 W, and
to the model of the system and the restrictions of the system. one battery storage, the result of this case study is depicted in
The result is a sequence of N optimal actuations. The controller Fig. 7. From t=0 sec till t=3.5 sec load demand power is lower
will apply only the first element of the sequence than the PV module power, so PV module deliver power to the
‫ݑ‬ሺ݇ሻ ൌ ሾͳͲ ǥ Ͳሿ ƒ”‰ ݉݅݊௨ ‫ܬ‬ (7) load and charge the battery. At time t=3.5 sec load demand
increased, so battery start to discharge to provides the excess
Figure. 5 clearly illustrates the essential properties of the power to the load.
model predictive control strategy. All possible system Case study #3: in this case study the dc microgrid consists of
transitions ‫ݕ‬௉௡ ሺ‫ ܭ‬൅ ͳሻ can be predicted using the discrete-time one PV module with maximum power around 300 W, two dc
model of the system for all control actions of N (N = 1, 2,3 . . . source with the same power and voltage rating and one battery
n). Take N = 1 as an example; the system behavior at k + 1 storage, the result of this case study is depicted in Fig. 8. PV
instant can be predicted with the measured value y(k) and n module delivers its maximum power, while the two dc sources
possible voltage vectors, resulting in n possible values provides the same current rating around 1.5 A and battery are
‫ݕ‬௉ଵǡ ‫ݕ‬௉ଶǡ ǥ ǥ Ǥ ‫ݕ‬௉௡ . Now, suppose that ‫ݕ‬௉ଶ is closest to‫ ; כ ݕ‬the charging. A load demand power is increased, which force the
voltage vector producing ‫ݕ‬௉ଶ will be selected and applied battery to discharge its energy, while still PV provides its
between the k and (k + 1) instants. The MPC for power maximum power.
 Case study #4: in this case study the dc microgrid consists of
one PV module with maximum power around 300 W, two dc
source with different power and voltage rating and one battery
storage, the result of this case study is depicted in Fig. 9. PV
module delivers its maximum power, while the two dc sources
provides different current rating, the one has higher power
rating provides higher current and the other provides less
current.
Fig. 6. Results of dc microgrid case #1.
Fig. 7. Results of dc microgrid case #2.
Fig. 8. Results of dc microgrid case #3.
Fig. 9. Results of dc microgrid case #3.
V. CONCLUSION
This paper presented dc distribution voltage control for dc/dc
converters with an energy storage unit. The proposed control
combines a gain-scheduling technique with model predictive
control. The simulation results show that the dc distribution
voltage was within 300 V s 5%, and the ratios of the storage
units were approximately equal. This indicates that dc voltage
regulation and stored energy balancing control are realized
simultaneously.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The author would like to thank the Egyptian higher ministry
of education for supporting him to complete his study in Japan.
This work was supported by JSPS KAKENHI grant number
15K05929.
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