Robust MPC-based Current Controller against Grid Impedance Variations for Single-Phase Grid-Connected Inverters

Recently, LCL filters have been widely used in the output of single phase inverters. Since, the grid side inductor in these filters is in series with the grid impedance at the Point of Common Coupling (PCC), it may create new resonances. This phenomena may take the control loop toward instability. In this case, in order to have a reliable operation, the current controller should be insensitive to the grid impedance variation. In order to damp these resonances, researchers have presented some methods using active or passive damping. These methods added an extra loop to the control loop, an extra passive component in the filter or extra sensor in the control process. But in most of them, the complexity and the cost of controller have been increased. Therefore, presenting a simple control method without extra sensor, passive component or extra arrangement can be a promising approach. This paper presents an MPC-based current controller, which is simple and robust against the grid impedance variation and even the variation of the LCL filter parameters. In contrast to classical multi-loop controller like Proportional-Resonant (PR) controllers, the proposed control method does not need any parameter tuning. In the proposed controller, the switching plan and duty cycles are determined by a cost function and a switching table. Therefore, at the same time with any variation in grid impedance, the proposed controller changes the next switching state and duty cycle. Operating performance like look-up table, searching in all possible switching states to find the best state for the next switching period, makes the controller adaptive and robust against the variation of LCL filter parameters. In order to confirm the effectiveness of the proposed controller, simulations and experimental results of the proposed controller are compared with a classical PR controller.