Analysis and design of a novel three-phase active power filter

A novel three-phase active power filter is analyzed and designed. A low cost power circuit configuration of the active power filter is proposed, along with a fast peak detector for synthetic sinusoidal generation technique, in order to achieve almost real time compensating current calculation. This technique avoids the use of mains voltage signal in the calculation of reference compensation current. Therefore, the mains current, after compensation, is still a pure sinusoidal waveform, irrespective of the distortion in the mains voltage. Furthermore, a critical value for the magnitude of capacitor voltage on the dc side, and a critical value for the reactor inductance on the ac side have also been derived, for the successful harmonic current tracking in various design applications. Finally, the performance of the active power filter is demonstrated by simulations as well as experimental results.