Abstract
With the increase of converter-based renewable energy generation connected into the power grid, the interaction between renewable energy and grid impedance has introduced lots of new issues, among which the sub- and super-synchronous oscillation phenomenon makes a big concern. The linear active disturbance rejection control (LADRC) is a potential way to improve the damping characteristics of the grid-connected system, but the key factors and influencing mechanism on system stability are unknown. This paper establishes the equivalent impedance and coupling admittance models of a typical three-phase grid-connected converter. Then, the influence of the key factors such as the bandwidth of the LADRC and grid impedance on the stability and frequency coupling effect is assessed in detail. Finally, the theoretical analysis results are verified by simulations and experiments.
NOWADAYS, more and more renewable energy generations are being connected into the power grid, where the grid-connected converters play an irreplaceable role between the renewable energy and the power grid [
The interaction between the renewable energy generation and weak grid may lead to serious stability issues. For instance, in Hami wind farm located in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region of China, a sub-synchronous oscillation accident caused by the interaction between the wind converters and the weak grid occurred in 2015 [
It is essential to point out that this kind of oscillation is quite different from that in the conventional single input and single output (SISO) system [
Consequently, the original stability criterion for the SISO system is no longer applicable. Instead, a generalized Nyquist criterion (GNC) can be utilized [
Various methods have been presented to suppress the oscillation components [
As an alternative, the linear active disturbance rejection control (LADRC) is applied into the PLL in [
Although the LADRC has been applied in converter-based grid-connected systems, the stability issue has not yet been sufficiently investigated, especially when the grid impedance is considerable. In addition, the LADRC is a potential way to improve the damping characteristics of grid-connected systems, but the key factors and the influencing mechanism on stability are unknown.
To address this issue, this paper presents a comprehensive stability assessment of LADRC-based converter control system with weak grid connection. And the single-parameter LADRC is adopted in the grid-connected system, considering that it cannot only effectively reduce the number of parameters to be tuned, but also has a ideal phase margin, compared with the traditional PI control [

Fig. 1 Main circuit and control structure of three-phase grid-connected converter with LADRC.
As for the DC-link circuit, it can be given as:
(1) |
where idc and iload are the total DC-link current and the equivalent load current, respectively.
In order to obtain the parameters in LADRC, the relation between Udc and idref needs to be determined firstly. Note that Udc is a dynamic quantity, while idref is a steady-state one. Thus, it is necessary to make the following assumptions: ① the power losses on the converters and the internal resistor of the inductive filter can be neglected, i.e., PAC≈PDC; ② the DC-link voltage and grid-connected current are well controlled, i.e., Udc≈Udcref and id≈idref [
(2) |
where U1 is the fundamental magnitude of grid voltage.
Based on (1) and (2), the relation between idref and Udc can be expressed by:
(3) |
It is notable that this is a transitional expression that can be used to derive the control parameters of LADRC.
Suppose that a second-order LADRC is applied in the DC-link voltage loop. Then, its model can be represented by:
(4) |
where u, y, and w are the input, output and unknown external disturbances, respectively; a1 and a2 are the parameters of the unknown system; b is the unknown input gain, while b0 is a known value; and ftotal is the total disturbance, containing both the internal and external uncertainties.
Assume that and . By taking the derivation of (3), the expression of b0 can be obtained, as show in (5).
(5) |
Introduce state variables x1, x2, and extended state variable x3, with , , and . Then, the LESO can be organized as:
(6) |
where z1, z2, and z3 are the estimations of x1, x2, and ftotal, respectively; and k1, k2 and k3 are the observer gains, respectively.
If the estimation error between z3 and ftotal can be neglected, i.e., , the original nonlinear control system becomes a linear integrated series control system. Therefore, the linear state error feedback (LESF) law can be designed as:
(7) |
where r is the input reference.
Finally, the expression of LESO (6) and the expression of LSEF law (7) make up the whole LADRC system.
Note that there are five parameters to be confirmed, i.e., l1, l2, k1, k2, and k3. In [
(8) |
It is worth noting that corresponds to the control bandwidth of the traditional PI controller, and is different from the controller bandwidth , which is usually 3-10 times the observer bandwidth in the traditional LADRC. In other words, . Consequently, this design can reduce the number of control parameters, which further simplifies the tuning process of parameters. In addition, it can also make the system have a satisfactory phase margin [
Taking the design of d-axis current controller as an example, and considering the signal-sampling delay of the inner current loop, the relationship between idref and Udc is shown in

Fig. 2 Control structure of inner current loop.
According to
(9) |
where Ts is the sampling time.

Fig. 3 DC-link voltage control loop.

Fig. 4 Simplified control structure of LADRC.
(10) |
where CLADRC_PID(s) and CLADRC_LPF(s) are the equivalent proportional integral differential (PID) and second-order filter parts in C(s), respectively.
The frequency response characteristics of the open-loop transfer function are shown in

Fig. 5 Frequency characteristic curves of L(s). (a) , . (b).
To make it more clear,
Then, according to
(11) |

Fig. 6 Frequency characteristic curves with different . (a) Tracking characteristic. (b) Anti-interference characteristic.
When the grid impedance Lg is considered, the coupling current disturbance is superimposed with the original one, which intensifies the frequency coupling effect of the system. This disturbance transfer process can be represented as the signal flow diagram shown in

Fig. 7 Disturbance transfer process considering Lg.
In
(12) |
(13) |
where and are the influence coefficients of each disturbance component on the PWM waveforms, respectively; is the fundamental component of PWM waveform; U1 and I1 are the fundamental voltage and current, respectively; is the coupling voltage disturbance; ‘*’ represents a conjugation of the variable.
Note that and can be deduced by and [
(14) |
Therefore, the equivalent impedance of the grid-side converter considering FC under the weak grid condition can be written as:
(15) |
where is the equivalent admittance of reactive frequency-coupling effect in
The disturbance component of DC-link voltage in frequency domain can be expressed as:
(16) |
(17) |
where and are the disturbances of PWM waveform at frequency of and , respectively.
As a result, a disturbance component with frequency will be contained in the reference of inner current loop or the DC-link output of the voltage loop controller, i.e.,
(18) |
In addition, θPLL will be affected by the existence of voltage disturbance component. Further, the d- and q-axis components of the grid-connected current will be influenced by the angle disturbance in the output of PLL. Considering the coordinate transformation links, the disturbance of output angle [
(19) |
(20) |
where is the forward channel transfer function of PLL, and kpp and kip are the control parameters of PLL.
Then, the d- and q-axis components of the grid-connected current affected by the disturbance of output angle can be deduced by:
(21) |
where is the angle of fundamental current.
According to
(22) |
where Hi(s)=kpi+kii/s is the transfer function of current PI controller.
And the PWM waveform of phase a can be expressed as:
(23) |
By considering (16)-(23), the coefficients in (12) and (13) can be solved and obtained as:
(24) |
(25) |
(26) |
(27) |
According to the impedance-based stability criterion, if the ratio between the grid impedance Zg and the inverter output impedance Zeq satisfies the Nyquist criterion, the system would be stable [

Fig. 8 Frequency characteristic curves with PI controller (and 8). (a) Zeq(s) and Zg(s). (b) Ycouple(s).
In addition, as demonstrated in

Fig. 9 Nyquist curves with PI controller. (a) and 8. (b) and 40 Hz.
In [

Fig. 10 Frequency characteristic curves with various kinds of control strategy. (a) Zeq(s) and Zg(s). (b) Ycouple(s).
From
In order to study the influence of LADRC parameters and grid impedance on the stability of the system, the frequency characteristic curves and Nyquist curves of and are drawn when the values of the and are changed.
Figures

Fig. 11 Frequency characteristic curves with LADRC when and 2. (a) Zeq(s) and Zg(s). (b) Ycouple(s).

Fig. 12 Frequency characteristic curves with LADRC when , 500, 700, and 1000 rad/s. (a) Zeq(s) and Zg(s). (b) Ycouple(s).

Fig. 13 Nyquist curves with LADRC. (a) . (b) .
As shown in
Meanwhile, as shown in
In summary, it can be concluded that the LADRC is able to enhance the stability and robustness of the system under weak grid. Furthermore, it can effectively suppress the FC effect caused by the grid impedance and asymmetrical control links. But the bandwidth of LADRC should not be too large, otherwise the contrary results may be obtained.
In this section, simulation and experiments are carried out to verify the stability analysis of the grid-connected converter system with LADRC. A 2 kW converter prototype is built in the lab, as shown in

Fig. 14 Hardware of experimental platform.
The simulation results with different control strategies are shown in

Fig. 15 Simulation results with different control strategies. (a) , , and THD with PI controller. (b) , , and THD with LADRC. (c) Magnitude with PI controller. (d) Magnitude with LADRC.

Fig. 16 Experimental results with different control strategies. (a) Udc and Ia with PI controller when . (b) Fast Fourier transform (FFT) result of Ia with PI controller when . (c) Udc and Ia with LADRC controller when . (d) FFT result of Ia with LADRC controller when . (e) Udc and Ia with PI controller when . (f) FFT result of Ia with PI controller when . (g) Udc and Ia with LADRC controller when . (h) FFT result of Ia with LADRC controller when.
As mentioned above, changing the bandwidth of LADRC will have a certain impact on the system stability. As shown in

Fig. 17 Experimental results with different . (a) . (b) = . (c) (d)
To test the dynamic performance of the system after the introduction of the LADRC, the value of the is suddenly changed from 440 V to 450 V when .

Fig. 18 Experimental results with different ωL when Udcref increases from 440 V to 450 V. (a) . (b) . (c) . (d) .

Fig. 19 Experimental results with different ωL when Iqref increases from 0 to 3 A. (a) . (b) . (c) . (d) .
In summary, the system stability is greatly improved by LADRC. Although the bandwidth of LADRC can be adjusted in a large range, attention should be paid to avoid the influence of system stability due to more ripple.
This paper establishes the equivalent impedance and the coupling admittance models considering the influence of LADRC, inner current loop controller, PLL, and the grid impedance. Based on these models, the influences of several key factors are studied. And the specific conclusions can be summarized as follows.
1) Based on the analysis of the established impedance model, the damping characteristic of system at low SCR is significantly enhanced with the introduction of LADRC, and the FC effect can be greatly suppressed.
2) Only needs to be adjusted during the tuning process of single-parameter structure LADRC. Moreover, the system can keep robust when is changed in a wide range.
3) Though can be tuned in a wide range, it is necessary to set the selection at 2-5 times of the bandwidth of the traditional PI controller to guarantee a good dynamic performance. This can be used as a guide in the tuning of LADRC parameters.
4) Considering the satisfactory dynamic and static performance of the LADRC, it can also be used in other control loops of the grid-connected system, e.g., the PLL and the current control. Similarly, the stability issue needs to be evaluated carefully when adopting the LADRC.
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