IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER ELECTRONICS, VOL. 33, NO.
1, JANUARY 2018
A Hybrid Control Scheme for Three-Phase
Vienna Rectifiers
Xing Li, Yao Sun , Member, IEEE, Hui Wang, Mei Su
Abstract—Vienna rectifier is a kind of power converter with
complicated operating constraints. Thus, it is difficult to control
with conventional control strategies, especially during transients
or under low power factor operation. This study proposes a hybrid
control scheme with dual loops for the three-phase Vienna recti-
fier. In the outer loop, proportional-integral controller is designed
to regulate the dc-link voltage and input reactive power. And in the
inner loop, finite set model predictive control is utilized to control
the input currents and maintain the neutral point voltage balance.
To reduce the costs, an extended state observer is introduced to esti-
mate the load current. In view of the characteristics of the proposed
control scheme, it has the following advantages: 1) good dynamic
performance; 2) wide operating range and enhanced input reactive
power capability; 3) lower computational burden; and 4) without
the need of modulation method. The correctness and effectiveness
of the proposed control scheme are verified by the simulation and
experiment results.
Index Terms—Neutral point balance, predictive control, Vienna
converter.
I. INTRODUCTION
HREE-PHASE Vienna rectifier has attracted much
T attention due to its advantages of low cost, low current
total harmonic distortion (THD), low voltage stress of power
switches, high power density, and high efficiency [1]–[3]. Thus,
it is widely used in telecommunications systems, aircraft and
wind turbine systems and other areas [1], [4]–[7].
The Vienna rectifier is essentially a nonregenerative three-
level boost rectifier, and the related research mainly includes
modulation strategies and control methods. In the former, var-
ious space vector modulation (SVM) with special features
[8]–[10] and carrier-based modulation methods [11]–[14] have
been proposed. In [8] and [9], the SVM methods for the three-
phase Vienna rectifier with LCL filter are investigated, and in
Manuscript received September 4, 2016; revised November 30, 2016; ac-
cepted January 14, 2017. Date of publication January 30, 2017; date of
current version October 6, 2017. This work was supported in part by the
National Key Research and Development Program of China under Grant
2016YFF0203400, in part by the National Natural Science Foundation of China
under Grant 51607063, in part by the Natural Science Foundation of Hunan
Province of China under Grant 2016JJ3038 and 2016JJ1019, and in part by the
Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities. Recommended for
publication by Associate Editor I. Barbi. (Corresponding author: Y. Sun.)
X. Li and S. Huang are with the College of Electrical and Information Engi-
neering, Hunan University, Changsha 410082, China (e-mail: xingliaaa@gmail.
com; hsd1962@hnu.edu.cn).
Y. Sun, H. Wang, and M. Su are with the School of Information Science
and Engineering, Central South University, Changsha 410083, China (e-mail:
yaosuncsu@gmail.com; wanghuicsu@csu.edu.cn; sumeicsu@csu.edu.cn).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TPEL.2017.2661382
0885-8993 © 2017 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See http://www.ieee.org/publications standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
629
, and Shoudao Huang, Senior Member, IEEE
[10], a discontinuous SVM method is presented. Besides, the
equivalence of SVM and carrier-based pulse width modulation
(PWM) in a three-phase Vienna rectifier is studied in detail in
[11]. On the basis of such equivalence, a carrier-based modula-
tion method is proposed in [12]. To improve energy efficiency
and to accommodate variable power factor operation, the dis-
continuous PWM methods are presented [13], [14].
In addition, lots of control schemes concerning the ac current
control and neutral point voltage balance are presented for the
Vienna rectifier. A hysteresis current control method is proposed
to control the ac currents, and a zero-sequence current is injected
to balance the neural point voltage [1]. One of the advantages for
the hysteresis control method is that the modulation strategy can
be omitted. In [15], classic proportional-integral (PI) controllers
are used based on the average d-q model of the Vienna rectifier,
and a new multiple-input multiple-output linear control scheme
is proposed in [16] based on the related small signal model.
To simplify control structure, a basic one cycle control (OCC)
strategy is proposed in [17]. However, the utilization ratio of
dc-link voltage is low, and the neural point balance issue is not
mentioned. Then, a modified OCC control scheme is presented
in [18], which improves the dc-link voltage utilization and op-
erating efficiency, and also introduces the neutral point voltage
control loop. To reduce the cost, a voltage sensor-less control
is introduced for the Vienna rectifier [19], in which the grid
voltage is estimated by an observer. On the other hand, a current
sensor-less control scheme is presented in [20]. According to the
power transmission characteristic, the phase difference between
the grid voltages and the input voltages of Vienna rectifier deter-
mines the active power transmission. Thus, the dc-link voltage
can be controlled by adjusting this phase difference without
any current information [20]. However, dynamic performance
will degrade in a certain degree, and over-current protection no
longer exists. To improve the dynamic response and robustness,
a direct power control scheme based on sliding mode control
is proposed in [21]. Besides, Aim at the cases where the power
supplies are slightly unbalanced, a control scheme based on pos-
itive and negative sequence decomposition is introduced, which
eliminates the dc-link voltage ripples and dc component of the
reactive power [22], [23]. Although a lot of control schemes
have been proposed, most of them do not take the inherent
constraints of the Vienna rectifier into account. Therefore, the
dynamic performance will be limited during transients or under
low power factor conditions.
Compared with the neutral-point-clamped (NPC) three-level
converter [24], Vienna rectifier is a highly-constrained system,
630 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER ELECTRONICS, VOL. 33, NO. 1, JANUARY 2018

whose control inputs are not only determined by the switching

states of the active switches, but also related to the input current
directions. Once the constraints are disobeyed, the Vienna rec-
tifier may lose the controllability, which is more severe during
constraints. The commonly-used PI control and siding mode
control could not deal with the constraints directly. Therefore,
it is difficult for these methods to improve the dynamic perfor-
mance of the Vienna rectifier.
As well known, the model predictive control (MPC) has the
Fig. 1. Circuit configuration of the three-phase Vienna rectifier.
advantage of handling constraints [25]. In [26], a MPC method
is proposed for a Vienna rectifier applied in wind turbine system
with a permanent magnet synchronous generator, where the dc-
link voltage control can be omitted for the Vienna rectifier. This
method develops additional voltage vectors for current control,
and generates the final switching set referred to SVM method,
which is relatively complicated in implementation. Recently, a
finite set-model predictive control (FS-MPC) scheme has been
developed for power converters [25]–[29]. In this scheme, each
switching state is treated directly as a control input. Thus, the
Fig. 2. Equivalent circuit of the three-phase Vienna rectifier.
control inputs belong to a finite set for any power electronic
circuits with finite switches. If the finite set is small enough,
the optimal control input could be obtained by enumeration
method within a short control period. Therefore, the FS-MPC To facilitate modeling, denote Si (i = a, b, c) as the switching
is very suitable for the highly constrained power electronic sys- state of each bidirectional switch in Fig. 1. Si = 1 means the
tems. For instance, it is easier to implement the FS-MPC in switch is on; Si = 0 means the switch is OFF.
the Vienna rectifier than the NPC three-level converter. Because For the ac side of the three-phase Vienna rectifier, the input
there are 27 feasible control inputs (switching states) in NPC current dynamics can be given as follows:
three-level converter [30], whereas there are only eight control
⎧ di
inputs in the three-phase Vienna rectifier. But under the frame- ⎪L a = usa − uaN − uN O
⎪
⎨ dt
work of the conventional control methods, it is more difficult to
control the Vienna rectifier, compared with the NPC three-level L didtb = usb − ubN − uN O (1)
⎪
⎪
⎩ di c
converter. L dt = usc − ucN − uN O
In this study, a hybrid control scheme which combines FS-
MPC and PI control is proposed for the three-phase Vienna where L is input filtering inductance. usi (i = a, b, c) and ii are
rectifier. The ac current regulation and neutral-point voltage the ac source voltages and phase currents, respectively. uiN are
balance are realized by the FS-MPC, and the dc-link voltage is the semicontrollable voltages (referred to the neutral point N ),
controlled by the PI controller. Such control scheme requires less and uN O is the zero-sequence voltage.
computation burden than the only FS-MPC scheme. Besides, Due to the structural characteristics, uiN is determined not
the proposed scheme can also obtain better transient response only by the switching state of the bidirectional switch, but also
and wider operating range, due to the ability of dealing with by the direction of the associated input current.
constraints automatically. For convenience, uiN could be expressed in a compact way,
The remainder of this paper is organized as follows: Section II which is
presents the system model of the three-phase Vienna rectifier. In ⎧
⎨uaN = (1 − Sa ) sgn (ia ) 2
uo
Section III, the proposed control scheme is described in detail. ⎪
In Section IV, the analysis of the operating range is described. In ubN = (1 − Sb ) sgn (ib ) u2o (2)
Section V, the simulation and experimental results are presented ⎪
⎩
and discussed, and finally, the main points of this paper are ucN = (1 − Sc ) sgn (ic ) 2uo

summarized in Section VI.

where uo represents the output dc-link voltage, and sgn() is the
sign function used to distinguish the input current directions.
II. MODELING OF THREE-PHASE VIENNA RECTIFIER In addition, with regard to the dc side of the three-phase
Vienna rectifier, the dynamic equations of the two capacitors
The circuit configuration of the three-phase Vienna rectifier
can be given as
is shown in Fig. 1, which is composed of a three-phase diode
bridge and three bidirectional switches connecting the input  du
phases to the neutral point of the dc-bus. Based on Fig. 1, the C1 dt1 = i+
dc − io
−
(3)
dt = idc − io
C2 du 2
corresponding equivalent circuit can be drawn in Fig. 2.
LI et al.: HYBRID CONTROL SCHEME FOR THREE-PHASE VIENNA RECTIFIERS
Fig. 3. Block diagram of the proposed control scheme, where ipα β and u p1 , 2
represent the predictive quantities iα β (k + 1) and u 1 , 2 (k + 1).
with
⎧   Similarly, the discrete-time equations for (3) are described as
⎪
⎨i+ = (1 − S ) sgn(i i )+1
ii
dc i∈{a,b,c} i 2
  (4)
⎪
⎩i− = i∈{a,b,c} (1 − Si ) sgn(i i )−1 ii
dc 2 u2 (k + 1) = u2 (k) + C i−
where C1 and C2 are the dc capacitances, and C1 = C2 = C;
u1 and u2 are the associated capacitor voltages; i+ − ages, and the control inputs are included in i+
dc and idc are
the currents through the positive and negative dc-bus; io is the
load current.
III. CONTROL SCHEME FOR THE VIENNA RECTIFIER
The control objectives of the three-phase Vienna rectifier
are: 1) to provide load with the expected output voltage; 2) to
maintain the neutral point voltage balance or capacitor voltage
balance; and 3) to achieve sinusoidal input currents with the ex-
pected input power factor. In this section, the proposed control
scheme will be introduced for the three-phase Vienna rectifier.
Fig. 3 shows the proposed control block diagram for the
Vienna rectifier, which involves the outer loop PI control and
inner loop FS-MPC.
A. Outer Loop PI Control
The outer loop PI controllers are designed to regulate the
dc-link voltage and input reactive power. By the usage of PI
control, the input current references can be provided for the
inner loop control, which can reduce the computational burden
for the FS-MPC.
Assume that the neutral point voltage balance has been
realized. According to the power balance principle, the dc-link
voltage can be controlled by properly regulating the active cur-
rent id of ac input currents. Thus, the output of the dc-link
voltage controller is used for the active current reference i∗d . On
the other hand, the reactive current reference i∗q is determined
by the reactive power requirement.
631
B. Inner Loop Predictive Control
The tasks of the FS-MPC are to track the desired input cur-
rents and maintain the neutral point voltage balance.
To predict the future behavior of the system variables, the
discrete-time model of the Vienna rectifier should be devel-
oped. For simplicity, the forward Euler method is used here.
Due to the presence of zero-sequence voltage, it is not easy to
design the controller according to (1). Thus, the equations in
(1) formulated in abc coordinate are transformed to the expres-
sions in αβ coordinate, and such a transformation can reduce
the computational effort.
The discrete-time dynamic equations for input currents in αβ
coordinate are given by

iα (k + 1) = iα (k) + TLs [usα (k) − uα N (k)]
(5)
iβ (k + 1) = iβ (k) + TLs [usβ (k) − uβ N (k)]
where Ts is the sampling period, iα (k + 1) and iβ (k + 1) are
the predicted input currents. The control inputs are included in
uα N (k) and uβ N (k).

u1 (k + 1) = u1 (k) + TCs i+ dc (k) − io (k)
(6)
Ts
dc (k) − io (k)
where u1 (k + 1) and u2 (k + 1) are the predicted capacitor volt-
−
dc (k) and idc (k).
From (6), it is found that the load current has to be measured,
which needs an additional current sensor. To reduce cost, an
extended state observer is designed to estimate the load current,
which can be expressed as follows:
 d û 1
C1 dt = i+ dc − îo + k1 (u1 − û1 )
(7)
dt = k2 (u1 − û1 )
d î o
where k1 and k2 are greater than zero, and îo is the estimated
load current. In the implementation of the predictive control, the
estimated value îo is used to replace io in (6).
High requirement of real time is critical in power electronic
circuits. Thus, it is not easy to implement the general MPC
algorithm for the power converters with constraints. The FS-
MPC is a control method that is oriented to power electronics.
In the FS-MPC, there are two critical steps: establishing the cost
function and solving the optimal control inputs.
Based on the discrete-time models and control objectives, it is
not hard to establish the cost function. First, to control the input
currents, the following cost function gk can be considered:
2
gk = [i∗α (k + 1) − iα (k + 1)]2 + i∗β (k + 1) − iβ (k + 1)
(8)
where the superscript “∗” denote the reference quantities that
can be obtained from the outer loop control, and the subscript
“k” represents the present (kth) control period.
Second, to realize the neutral point voltage balance, the fol-
lowing cost function ck could be given as
ck = [u1 (k + 1) − u2 (k + 1)]2 . (9)
632
Fig. 4. Flowchart of the inner loop predictive control method.
For such a multiobjective optimization problem, the weighted
sum method is a simple and effective way. Thus, combining gk
and ck , the total cost function Fk can be written as
Fk = gk + λck
where λ is the weighing factor that adjusts the relative im-
portance of the regulations of the input currents and capacitor
voltage balance. The system performance would vary with the
change of the weighting factor. Usually, the factor λ is adjusted
and selected empirically [31]–[32].
Since there are three directional switches in the three-phase
Vienna rectifier, the computation burden with 23 available
switching states is relatively low. Fig. 4 shows the flow chart
of the predictive control method, where S̄ = [Sa , Sb , Sc ] de-
notes the switching state combination, and the superscript “j”
represents the jth switching state of the 8 options. Besides, x
indicates the predicted variables, Fm in is the minimum value
of the calculated cost functions, and S̄op represents the optimal
switching state that will be used for the next control period.
In addition, only the case with L filter is discussed in this
study. In fact, high order filters could also be applied in the
Vienna rectifier, such as LCL filter, which has the advantages of
better performance and reduced size and weight. As a general
control algorithm, FS-MPC can also be applied to the Vienna
rectifier with LCL filter, and the basic procedures are the same
as the case of L filter above. However, the related mathematical
model and cost function should be rebuilt accordingly. More-
over, if fewer sensors are required due to the cost reason, state
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER ELECTRONICS, VOL. 33, NO. 1, JANUARY 2018
observer design should be considered, which will increase com-
putational burden inevitably.
C. Stability Discussion
In the study of MPC, stability issue is an important topic for
research. In [33], the stability of the MPC has been proved for
the nonlinear systems with some operation constraints. There are
two commonly-used methods to guarantee the stability, which
are the terminal constraint and terminal cost methods. In power
electronic systems, high requirement of real-time should be met.
Therefore, a one-step-ahead FS-MPC is applied in this study,
where Fk in (10) is clearly the terminal cost function. According
to the results in [33], if there exists a control law that admits
(11), then the control system is stable:
Fk +1 − Fk = −α (xk ) (11)
where α ∈ κ∞ , and
⎡ ⎤T
i∗α (k + 1) − iα (k + 1)
⎢ ⎥
xk = ⎣ i∗β (k + 1) − iβ (k + 1) ⎦ .
u1 (k + 1) − u2 (k + 1)
Usually, a long prediction horizon is beneficial for stability
[34]. Therefore, it could be inferred that the region of attrac-
tion may not be large with the proposed method, which is one
disadvantage of FS-MPC.
IV. OPERATING RANGE OF THE VIENNA RECTIFIER
According to (1), the space vector formulation of the ac-side
equations in the steady state can be expressed as follows
(10) us = uN +jωi Li (12)
where ωi represents the input angular frequency, and us , uN ,
and i are the space vectors of usi , uiN , and ii , respectively.
Due to the structural characteristics, the three-phase Vienna
rectifier has the limitation on the regulation angle of the input
power factor angle ϕs . As shown in Fig. 5, the complex plane
can be divided into six sectors (I–VI) based on the location of
the input current vector i. If the angular position of i is within
[− π6 , π6 ] (sector I), the available uN will only be located in the
gray hexagon formed by the voltage switching vectors, which is
a relatively small area. From Fig. 5, it is found that the regulation
range of ϕi that is the displacement angle between i and uN
is within [− π6 , π6 ] in the steady state. Moreover, the regulation
√
range of ϕi is restrained by the modulation index M (= 3| uN |
uo ).
Only if M is no more than 0.577, ϕi could take the maximum
value | π6 |. When M is more than 0.577, the regulation range of ϕi
will reduce accordingly with the increase of M . If neglecting the
filtering inductor voltage, the value of |uN | is close to the source
voltage amplitude |us |. Thus, a relatively large dc-link voltage
uo can be required to guarantee a lower M . During transients
or when the dc-link voltage is not large enough, the desired
uN that should be generated by the controllers may be outside
the gray hexagon. In that case, the system performance of the
Vienna rectifier will degrade, and the input current distortion are
LI et al.: HYBRID CONTROL SCHEME FOR THREE-PHASE VIENNA RECTIFIERS 633

TABLE I
PARAMETERS USED IN THE SIMULATIONS AND EXPERIMENTS

Symbol Description Value

us l Input line voltage 220 V(rms)

ωi Input angular frequency 314 rad/s
L Input filtering inductance 4.5 mH
C Dc-link capacitance 940 μF
RL Load resistance 80 Ω
Ts Control period 25 μs
Λ Weighing factor 0.2

Fig. 5. Space vector diagram for the three-phase Vienna rectifier, where
[a, b, c] denotes the voltage switching vector and a, b, c represent the switching
states of a, b, c-phase bidirectional switches, respectively.

Fig. 6. Steady state vector diagram of the three-phase Vienna rectifier when
generating (a) capacitive and (b) inductive input reactive power.

inevitable, leading to dc-link voltage fluctuation consequently.
The smaller is the dc-link voltage, the higher are the degrees of
the input current distortion and dc-link voltage fluctuation.
However, the degrees of input current distortion is related to
the control method that the Vienna rectifier uses. Due to the
operating flexibility of FS-MPC, the proposed control scheme
can provide a smooth transition to over-modulation region with-
out extra algorithm, when the linear modulation approaches to
its boundary, such as the border of the gray hexagon in Fig. 5.
More precisely, the Vienna rectifier can still apply the optimal
switching state in that case during each control period by using
the proposed scheme. As a result, the proposed scheme can ob-
tain better dynamic performance and extended operation range
of ϕi in theory, compared to some other methods that do not
take the linear modulation boundary into account. If the over-
modulation region is considered in some modulation methods
such as SVPWM, the complexity of the modulation algorithm
will increase greatly.
Based on (11), Fig. 6 illustrates the corresponding vector dia-
gram of the Vienna rectifier. Fig. 6(a) shows the case where the
input current leads the ac source voltage. As seen, the absolute
value of input power factor angle |ϕs | is no more than |ϕi |.
Thus, the maximum possible value of ϕs is less than π6 , when
the capacitive input reactive power is generated. Furthermore,
Fig. 6(b) shows the case in which the input current lags the ac
source voltage. In this case, the maximum possible value of ϕs
Fig. 7. Simulation results of the proposed control scheme for unity input
power factor when the control system starts up.
will be greater than π6 , when the inductive input reactive power
is generated. Therefore, it can be inferred that maximum input
inductive reactive power capability is greater than that in the
capacitive case.
V. SIMULATION AND EXPERIMENT RESULTS
To illustrate and validate the proposed control scheme, some
simulations and experiments have been carried out on the three-
phase Vienna rectifier system. Table I lists the parameters in-
volved in the simulations and experiments. Besides, the dc-link
voltage reference is set to 340 V or 380 V.
A. Simulations Results
Numerical simulations have been carried out in MAT-
LAB/Simulink platform to illustrate the steady-state and dy-
namic performance of the proposed control scheme. Besides,
an existing method that uses PI control for both dc-link voltage
and input current regulation with carrier-based PWM [12] is
utilized in some cases for comparison.
First, the case of unity input power factor is considered, which
means that the reactive power reference is zero. Besides, the
control system starts up at t = 0.3 s, and the desired dc-link
voltage is set to 340 V. Fig. 7 shows the related simulation results
634
Fig. 8. Simulation results of the proposed control scheme for unity input
power factor.
Fig. 9. Simulation results of the existing method for unity input power factor.
of the proposed control scheme, which include the waveforms of
a-phase input phase voltage and current, two capacitor voltages.
As seen, before the control system starts up, the input current
deviates from the normal sinusoidal waveform with low order
harmonics and the capacitor voltages are pulsating due to the
three-phase diode bridge. However, after t = 0.3 s, the imper-
fect input current waveform turns into sinusoidal quickly, and
the capacitor voltages also change to half of the desired dc-link
voltage. Besides, the input current is in phase with the input
phase voltage, which agrees well with the case of unity input
power factor. Note that the two capacitor voltages are basically
the same, which means that the neutral point voltage is balanced.
To test the dynamic performance, the dc-link voltage ref-
erence changes from 340 V to 380 V at t = 0.3 s. In this
case, Figs. 8 and 9 show the corresponding simulation results of
the proposed control scheme and the existing method, respec-
tively. As seen in Fig. 8, the input current and capacitor voltages
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER ELECTRONICS, VOL. 33, NO. 1, JANUARY 2018
Fig. 10. Simulation results of the proposed control scheme for ϕ s = − 1π8 .
Fig. 11. Simulation results of the proposed control scheme for ϕ s = π
18 .
change quickly to new steady states. Moreover, the capacitor
voltage waveforms are nearly coincided with each other, which
has demonstrated the superiority of the proposed control for the
neutral point voltage balance. Comparatively, the two capacitor
voltage waveforms in Fig. 9 is a little worse than that in Fig. 8,
and the deviation between the two becomes a little larger when
the dc-link voltage reference changes. By comparisons, it can
also be found that the dynamic performance of the proposed
control scheme is better than that of the existing method.
In addition, to exhibit the system behavior with a variable ϕs
and verify the regulation range of ϕs , the cases of ϕs = ± 18 π
,
± 6 will be carried out in the following simulations. And in all
π
the cases, the dc-link voltage reference change from 340 V to
380 V at t = 0.3 s.
Figs. 10 and 11 show the related simulation results of the
proposed control scheme in the cases of ϕs = − 18 π
and 18π
,
respectively. In Fig. 10, the input current is behind the input
LI et al.: HYBRID CONTROL SCHEME FOR THREE-PHASE VIENNA RECTIFIERS 635

Fig. 12. Simulation results of the existing method for ϕ s = π

18 . Fig. 14. Simulation results of the proposed control scheme for ϕ s = − π6 .

Fig. 13. Simulation results of the proposed control scheme for ϕ s = π

6 . Fig. 15. Simulation results of the existing method for ϕ s = − π6 .

phase voltage under both of the referenced output voltages,

which means the inductive reactive power is generated under
ϕs = − 18π
. Accordingly, the input current leads the input phase
voltage in Fig. 11, leading to produce capacitive reactive power.
As seen from these waveforms in Figs. 10 and 11, the input
currents and capacitor voltages behave well with ϕs = ± 18 π
.
Besides, the simulation results of the existing method in the
case of ϕs = + 18 π
are also displayed in Fig. 12. Compared the
results in Figs. 11 and 12, it is found that the input current
waveform of the existing method has more small ripples than
the proposed one.
Then, as for the theoretical limit of ϕs , Figs. 13 and 14 show
the corresponding simulation results of the proposed control
scheme in the cases of ϕs = π6 and − π6 . Due to the existence
of input filtering inductors, the maximum possible value of ϕs
in the capacitive case will be smaller than π6 . Thus, the input
current is distorted seriously under the two referenced dc-link Fig. 16. Simulation results of the proposed control scheme for ϕ s = − 4π. 5 .
636
Fig. 17. Simulation waveforms of the input currents and error between the capacitor voltages in (a) Case 1 and (b) Case 2.
Fig. 18. Experimental results for unity input power factor when the control
system starts up.
voltages in Fig. 13, and there are some large fluctuations appear-
ing in the capacitor voltages accordingly. Because the required
control input for input current has been beyond the regulated
range of the Vienna rectifier. However, the related waveforms
in the inductive case are much better, as shown in Fig. 14. The
distortion degree of the input current decreases greatly, and so
does the fluctuation degree of the capacitor voltages. The reason
is that the input filter inductors have generated part of inductive
reactive power. Besides, it can be found in Fig. 14 that the input
current waveform under u∗o = 340 V is a little worse than that
under u∗o =380 V. That is because, with nearly the same |uN |,
the smaller M can help to obtain a wider regulation range of
ϕs , which agrees well with the related analysis in Section IV.
For comparison, the simulation results of the existing method
in the case of ϕs = − π6 are shown in Fig. 15. From the results
in Figs. 14 and 15, it can be found that the corresponding wave-
forms of the proposed control scheme are better than that of the
existing method.
To test the range of ϕs with the proposed scheme, more
rigorous situation of input power factor angle can be considered.
Fig. 16 shows the corresponding simulation results in the case
of ϕs = − 4.5 π
, and the waveforms are still better than that of
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER ELECTRONICS, VOL. 33, NO. 1, JANUARY 2018
ϕs = + π6 . It can be inferred that the inductive reactive power
capability of the three-phase Vienna rectifier is much superior
to the capacitive reactive power capability, due to the impact of
the input filtering inductors.
As the FS-MPC is a control method that relies on the system
model, the system robustness against parametric uncertainties
should be considered, such as the variations of inductance and
capacitance. As a result, two extra cases will be tested with
the desired dc-link voltage being 380 V. Case 1: the parame-
ters used in the prediction model are matched with the practical
plant (L = 4.5 mH and C1 = C2 = 940 μF). Case 2: the pa-
rameters used in the prediction model are unchanged, but some
of the parameters in the practical plant are changed. In this
case, La = 4.5 mH, Lb = 3 mH, Lc = 1.5 mH, C1 = 940 μF,
and C2 = 500 μF, where the subscripts “a, b, c” denote the
corresponding input phases.
Fig. 17(a) and (b) show the related simulation results of three-
phase input currents and the errors ue between the two capacitor
voltages in the two cases, respectively. As seen, when the param-
eters in the prediction model are not matched with the practical
plant, very little ripples appear in the input currents and the error
between the capacitor voltages gets slightly larger. However, it
is clear that these minor changes hardly cause much impact on
the system performance, which means that the proposed con-
trol scheme can still be applied in the presence of parameter
uncertainties.
B. Experimental Results
To validate the proposed control scheme experimentally, a
prototype of three-phase Vienna rectifier rated at 4 kW with
the nominal dc-link voltage of 380 V has been built in the
laboratory. The system parameters are the same with those
in simulation, which are listed in Table I. The bidirectional
switches are made up of two insulated gate bipolar transistors
IKW30N65EL5 (650 V/30 A, Infineon) with common emitter.
LI et al.: HYBRID CONTROL SCHEME FOR THREE-PHASE VIENNA RECTIFIERS 637

Fig. 21. Experimental results for ϕ s = − 1π8 when the dc-link voltage refer-
ence changes from 340 V to 380 V.
Fig. 19. Experimental results for unity input power factor when the dc-link
voltage reference changes from 340 V to 380 V.

Fig. 22. Experimental results for ϕ s = π

Fig. 20. Experimental results for ϕ s = π
18 when the dc-link voltage reference
changes from 340 V to 380 V.
The three-phase diode bridge circuit employs six fast recovery
diodes IDW40E65D1 (650 V/40 A, Infineon). Besides, the con-
trol platform is based on a floating-point digital signal processor
TMS320F28335.
The experiments are performed under the same operating
conditions as those in the simulations. In the case of unity in-
put power factor, Fig. 18 shows the experimental waveforms
of a-phase input phase voltage and current, and two capaci-
tor voltages, before and after the control system starts up (the
desired dc-link voltage is set to 340 V). Fig. 19(a) shows the
6 when the dc-link voltage reference
changes from 340 V to 380 V.
related experimental waveforms, when the referenced dc-link
voltage changes from 340 V to 380 V. By comparisons with
the results in Figs. 7 and 8, the experimental waveforms agree
well with those in the simulations. Moreover, the corresponding
spectrum analysis results of the input current under u∗o = 340 V
and u∗o = 380 V are demonstrated in Fig. 19(b) and (c), respec-
tively. As indicated by the spectrum graphs, there are almost no
harmonic contents in the input current, and the THDs in both
conditions are of little difference.
In the cases of ϕs = 18π
, − 18
π π
, 6 , − π6 , and − 4.5
π
, Figs. 20–24
show the corresponding experimental waveforms and spectrum
analysis results successively, under the same conditions afore-
mentioned. As seen, the simulation and experimental waveforms
638
Fig. 23. Experimental results for ϕ s = − π6 when the dc-link voltage refer-
ence changes from 340 V to 380 V.
Fig. 24. Experimental results for ϕ s = − 4π. 5 when the dc-link voltage refer-
ence changes from 340 V to 380 V.
also show excellent agreement in these cases. From the spec-
trum graphs, it is found that when the input current distortion is
relatively serious, such as that in Fig. 22, low-order harmonics
especially the 5th and/or 7th harmonics will exist. Besides, the
larger the absolute value of ϕs , the higher the THDs of the input
currents, which can also be verified by the change of current
waveforms. However, the THDs of input currents are relatively
low when the inductive reactive power is required, compared
with those under the same |ϕs | when generating the capaci-
tive reactive power. That is because the input filter inductors
can help to generate the inductive reactive power. Note that in
Figs. 20–24, all the THDs of input currents under u∗o = 380 V is
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER ELECTRONICS, VOL. 33, NO. 1, JANUARY 2018
Fig. 25. Experimental results for ϕ s = − 1π8 when another 80Ω resistor is
switched in parallel to the original load (a 80 Ω resistor).
Fig. 26. Efficiency curve of the three-phase Vienna rectifier with regard to the
output power.
lower than those under u∗o = 340 V, which proves the fact that
smaller modulation index M is beneficial for the reactive power
generation under the same operating conditions.
Further, a case of load step is performed in the experiment. In
this case, the dc-link voltage reference is 380 V, and ϕs = − 18 π
.
Fig. 25 shows the related experimental results when another
80 Ω resistor is switched in parallel to the original load. As
seen, after a little voltage drop, the dc-link voltage return to
its reference value quickly without any overshoot. This proves
that the system can obtain good dynamic performance under the
proposed control scheme.
In addition, Fig. 26 illustrates the operating efficiency of the
three-phase Vienna rectifier, which indicates that this converter
can operate with high efficiency by using the proposed control
scheme.
VI. CONCLUSION
In this paper, a hybrid control scheme is proposed for the
three-phase Vienna rectifier, which combines PI control and
FS-MPC. The PI controller is used to obtain the desired output
dc-link voltage and input reactive power. The FS-MPC is used
to realize the ac current regulation and neutral point voltage
balance. Due to the special structure of the Vienna rectifier, it
is easier to implement the FS-MPC in the Vienna rectifiers than
the NPC three level converters. Besides, the proposed control
scheme can obtain good dynamic performance and extended
operating range. Therefore, the proposed control scheme could
be viewed as the best choice for the converters with complicated
constraints, such as the Vienna rectifier, from the standpoints
of computational burden and control performance. However,
LI et al.: HYBRID CONTROL SCHEME FOR THREE-PHASE VIENNA RECTIFIERS
the proposed scheme also has the following drawbacks: 1) the
switching frequency is not fixed and 2) the region of attraction
for stability may not be large due to a small prediction horizon.
For wider applications, these drawbacks need to be overcome.
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Xing Li was born in Hunan, China, in 1988. She
received the B.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical en-
gineering from the School of Information Science
and Engineering, Central South University, Chang-
sha, China, in 2009 and 2014, respectively.
She is currently an Assistant Professor in the
College of Electrical and Information Engineering,
Hunan University, China. Her research interests in-
clude power electronic converter and wind energy
conversion system.
Yao Sun (M’13) was born in Hunan, china, in 1981.
He received the B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in elec-
trical engineering from the School of Information
Science and Engineering, Central South University,
Changsha, China, in 2004, 2007, and 2010, respec-
tively.
He has been an Associate Professor in the School
of Information Science and Engineering, Central
South University, China.
His research interests include matrix converter,
micro-grid, and wind energy conversion system.
640 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER ELECTRONICS, VOL. 33, NO. 1, JANUARY 2018

Hui Wang was born in Hunan, China, in 1984. He re-
ceived the B.S., M.S., and Ph. D degrees in electrical
engineering from the School of Information Science
and Engineering, Central South University, Chang-
sha, China, in 2008, 2011, and 2014, respectively.
He is currently a Lecturer in the School of In-
formation Science and Engineering, Central South
University. His research interests include matrix con-
verter, dc/dc converters, and solid-state transformer.
Shoudao Huang (SM’14) was born in Hunan, China,
in 1962. He received the B.S. and Ph.D. degrees in
electrical engineering from the College of Electri-
cal and Information Engineering, Hunan University,
Changsha, China, in 1983, and 2005, respectively.
He is currently a Full Professor in the College of
Electrical and Information Engineering, Hunan Uni-
versity, China.
His research interests include motor design and
control, power electronic system and control, and
wind energy conversion system.

Mei Su was born in Hunan, China, in 1967. She re-

ceived the B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical
engineering from the School of Information Science
and Engineering, Central South University, Chang-
sha, China, in 1989, 1992, and 2005, respectively.
Since 2006, she has been a Full Professor in the
School of Information Science and Engineering, Cen-
tral South University. Her research interests include
matrix converter, adjustable speed drives, and wind
energy conversion system.