Regulation and design issues of a PWM three-phase rectifier

A PWM rectifier can serve as front end of a variable frequency converter to reduce harmonic content injection into an electric utility, or simply stand alone to provide VAr compensation. This paper demonstrates that a traditional induction machine field oriented control principle on a synchronous frame can be well adapted for the regulation of the rectifier. The difference in formulating the current PI regulator loops is pointed out. Practical operation limits and relationship among line voltage, line inductor and DC bus voltage are fully investigated along with experimental verifications. Other design considerations are summarized into conclusion. Although design and regulation principles are illustrated with a three-level neutral point converter, they are applicable to other conventional topologies as well.