Enhancement of Direct Power Control by Using Artificial Neural Network for a Doubly Fed Induction Generator-Based WECS: An Experimental Validation

Direct power control (DPC) is among the most popular control schemes used in renewable energy because of its many advantages such as simplicity, ease of execution, and speed of response compared to other controls. However, this method is characterized by defects and problems that limit its use, such as a large number of ripples at the levels of torque and active power, and a decrease in the quality of the power as a result of using the hysteresis controller to regulate the capacities. In this paper, a new idea of DPC using artificial neural networks (ANNs) is proposed to overcome these problems and defects, in which the proposed DPC of the doubly fed induction generators (DFIGs) is experimentally verified. ANN algorithms were used to compensate the hysteresis controller and switching table, whereby the results obtained from the proposed intelligent DPC technique are compared with both the classical DPC strategy and backstepping control. A comparison is made between the three proposed controls in terms of ripple ratio, durability, response time, current quality, and reference tracking, using several different tests. The experimental and simulation results extracted from dSPACE DS1104 Controller card Real-Time Interface (RTI) and Matlab/Simulink environment, respectively, have proven the robustness and the effectiveness of the designed intelligence DPC of the DFIG compared to traditional and backstepping controls in terms of the harmonic distortion of the stator current, dynamic response, precision, reference tracking ability, power ripples, robustness, overshoot, and stability.