Impact of Converters Interactions on Control Design in a Power Electronics Dense Network: Application to More Electric Aircraft

The aim of the work described in this paper is to analyze the impact that converters interactions, in a power electronics embedded grid, have on the control performance of each subsystem, with particular focus on More Electric Aircraft (MEA) applications. The study has been carried out on a notional electrical system composed by two three-phase power converters - a Voltage Source Inverter (VSI) and an Active Front End (AFE) which are commonly used in More Electric Aircraft applications. The analysis has been conducted in order to show the necessity of using a global control design approach in such electrical systems, rather than on individual converters. The modelling approach and controller design are presented in the paper, supported by simulation and experimental validation.