Hierarchical Software-Defined Control Architecture With MPC-Based Power Module to Interface Renewable Sources and Motor Drives

A hierarchical control architecture is designed with model predictive control (MPC)-based power module for generalized renewable applications including single/three-phase grid, solar, battery, electric motor, etc. The hierarchical control architecture is composed of three layers: (1) Central control layer for mode recognition of different types of interfaced load/source, reconstruction of power converter topologies, high level current/voltage/power control, generating references for local power module control and grid services for utility support; (2) Local module control layer for implementing MPC algorithm to track references from central controller with improved dynamic performance, stabilizing common-mode voltage, collecting ADC samplings and generate PWM signals for local power switches; (3) Application layer for the interface with different types of renewable loads/sources including single/three-phase grid, solar, battery, electric motor and so on. The merits of the designed control architecture include: (1) the reconfigurability to be suitable for different types of applications; (2) all non-isolated topologies with common-mode noise attenuation capability for renewable energy interfaces; (3) improved dynamic performance by local MPC power module; (4) high accuracy and robustness of the multi-layer MPC-based control without being influenced by the parametric modeling error from various interfaced applications; (5) grid services for abnormal condition utility support. The experimental results verified the proposed hierarchical control architecture.