Maximum Power Point Tracl<ing of a Wind Power

System Based on The PMSG Using Sliding Mode

Direct Torque Control
Youssef. Errami*, Mohamed. Maaroufi

Mohammed. Ouassaid,

Ecole Mohammadia d'ingenieur, Mohammed V- Agdal

University, Department of Electrical Engineering, Rabat,
Morocco
[email protected], [email protected]

Ecole Nationale des Sciences Appliquees- Safi, Cadi Ayyad

University, Department of Industrial Engineering, Safi,
Morocco
[email protected]

Abstract- This paper investigates the novel Variable Structure

Direct Torque Control

(VS-DTC) scheme for Wind Energy

Conversion System (WECS) based on the Permanent Magnet

Synchronous Generator

(PMSG) to maximize the generated

power from wind turbine. The system includes a wind turbine, a

PMSG, two converters and an intermediate DC link capacitor.
The efficiency of the WECS can be greatly improved using an
appropriate control strategy. Furthermore, the system has strong
nonlinear

multivariable

with

many

uncertain

factors

and

disturbances. Accordingly, the control strategy combines the

technique of Direct Torque Control (DTC) and Sliding Mode
(SM) nonlinear control theory. Considering the variation of wind
speed, the grid-side converter injects the generated power into
the AC network,

regulates DC-link voltage and it's used to

achieve unity power factor, whereas the PMSG side converter is

used

to

achieve

Simulation

Maximum

results,

by

Power

Point

Matlab/Simulink,

Tracking
have

(MPPT).

shown

the

effectiveness of the proposed control strategy for WECS based on

the PMSG.
Keywords-

WEC;

MPPT;

PMSG; DTC; Lyapunov theory;

Sliding mode control; Unity power factor.

I.

INTRODUCTION

In recent years, among various renewable energy sources,

the Wind Energy Conversion System (WECS) has been
concerned as one of the most rapid growing energy sources and
has gained vast populations [1-2]. In the WECS, Wind Turbine
Generator (WTG) can operate with either variable speed or
fixed speed. Besides, for variable speed WECS, power
electronic converters are used to control the generator.
Consequently, these systems have reduced mechanical stress,
aerodynamic noise, and can be controlled to enable the turbine
to operate at its maximum power coefficient over a wide range
of wind speeds [2-3]. In WECS, several types of electric
generators are used such as Doubly Fed Induction Generator
(DFIG), Squired-Cage Induction Generator (SCIG) and
Permanent Magnet Synchronous Generator (PMSG) with
power electronic converter systems [4-8]. Nowadays, the use of
the PMSG configuration is becoming more and more common
for several reasons such as: the elimination of the external
excitation current, lower operational noise is achieved, very
high torque can be achieved and it can reduce again weight,

costs, losses and maintenance requirements [5]. In addition,

because of first decreasing equipment costs, second the
advance of power electronic technology and finally the large
scale exploration, the PMSG is connected to the grid via an
AC-DC-AC converter system [7-8]. Therefore, control strategy
for the system is used. So, there exists a variety of control
schemes such as Vector Control (VC) [5-8]. But the VC can't
follow the changes in system parameters, and shows a limited
performance, especially against uncertainties. So, Sliding
Mode Variable Structure Direct Torque Control (SM-DTC) can
be used so as to accommodate the effects of uncertainties and
to provide an effective way of improving the robustness of the
control system against parameter variation [9]. Also, SM-DTC
approach is insensitive to external disturbances and variations
of system parameters with a minimum of implementation
complexity.
In this paper, Sliding Mode (SM) control of DTC and grid
connected for variable speed WECS based on the PMSG is
investigated to maximize the extracted power with unity power
factor. Then, the system under consideration includes PWM
inverter in grid-side, intermediate DC linl( voltage, PWM
rectifier in generator-side, a PMSG and wind turbine generator.
The SM-DTC strategy is used to control the PMSG rotor
velocity. The speed of generator is derived as the average
optimum speed with MPPT strategy and a Pitch Control
scheme for variable speed wind turbines is proposed to limit
the output power produced by the turbine. DTC has attractive
advantages namely lesser parameter dependence, high
performances and robustness. So, it has low sensitivity to the
WECS parameter variations because it doesn't require current
regulators nor coordinate transformations [10-11]. The grid
side converter is used in order to regulate the DC-link voltage,
to deliver the energy from the PMSG sides to the utility grid,
and to achieve unity power factor [7-8]. Then, sliding mode
nonlinear control scheme is used in the grid side converter.
This paper is structured as follows. A complete modeling of
system is firstly presented in Section 2. In Section 3, control of
WECS will be introduced. The simulations results are given in
Section 4. Finally, some conclusions are presented in Section 5.

978-1-4673-6374-7/13/$31.00 2013 IEEE

MODELING O F WECS

II.

(6)

Variabl e speed wind turbine ch aracteristics

A WTG can not fully capture wind energy. Consequently,
the mechanical power extracted from the wind can be
expressed as follows [7]:

A.

1
2
PTurbine = - p1fR Cp(A,j3)v3
2

(1)

where, p is the air density ( kg/m3), R is the blade radius

(m), Cp is the performance coefficient of the turbine which is
a function of the pitch angle of rotor blades 13 ( in degrees )

where Rg is the stator resistance, Lq and Ld are the inductances

and d axis, VI is the permanent
magnetic flux and we is the electrical rotating speed of the
of the generator on the

we = pnwm where wm
is the
mechanical angular velocity and Pn is the number of pole
pairs of the PMSG. For salient pole PMSG, Ld = Lq = L, and

generator, defined by:

the expression for the electromagnetic torque can be described

as:
3

and v is the wind speed (in m/s). The tip-speed ratio A is

given by:
(2)

where wt is the shaft speed (in rad/sec). The wind turbine

mechanical torque output n is given by:
I
I
n =-pACp(A,j3)V 3 2
wt

(3)

The turbine is coupled to the PMSG through a gearbox.

Accordingly: wm = GWt where G and wm are the gear ratio
and the rotor angular speed, respectively.
A generic equation is used in order to model the power
coefficient
Cp(A, 13) based on the modeling turbine
characteristics described in [2] as:

1',; = 2L,
_ _Pn lv, Iv.f sineS)

(7)

where S and V, are the load angle torque and the stator flux,
respectively. Therefore, it's possible that the torque of the
generator is controllable by regulating the torque angle S if
the amplitude of stator flux linkage Vs is constant. So, if the
stator resistance is ignored then voltage vector applied to the
machine remains constant during one period of the control
algorithm: T,. As a result:
V," (k+I) = V," (k)+ vJ ,

(8)

where V," (k) and V, (k+l) are the stator flux vectors at the
sampling times k T, and (k+I) T, , respectively. Then, the
variation of the stator flux vector is [II]:
(9)
Since, according to (9), !1V, is achieved through the

Ai

0.035

A+ 0.0813

133 +I

(4)

The coefficient of power conversion and so the power

extracted are maximum at a certain value of tip speed ratio
called optimum tip speed ratio Aupt' The maximum value of

appIication of the appropriate stator voItage v," . The stator flux

vector rotates in the same direction as the applied stator voltage
vector and with a rotation speed proportional to the stator
voltage magnitude. Consequently, by adequate voltage vector
selection, we can decrease or increase the stator flux phase and
amplitude to obtain the required performances. Besides, the
dynamic equation of the WTG is given as:

Cp(A, 13) , that is CP,n" = 0.41, is achieved for Aopl = 8.1 and

for 13 = 0 . The power extracted is maximized at the particular

rotor angular speed for various wind velocity and it's
fundamental to keep the rotor speed, when the wind velocity
changes, at an optimum value of the tip speed ratio, Aopl .Hence,
the WECS can operate at the peak of the P(wm) curve and the
maximum power is extracted continuously from the wind
(MPPT control) [3]. That's illustrated in Fig.l.
B.

(10)
where F is the viscous friction coefficient, J is the total inertia
and n is the mechanical torque developed by the turbine.
12000
10000

Model l ing of PMSG

"-

The generator mathematical model is described In d-q

reference system as follows [7]:
(5)

Maximum power point

8000
6000
4000
2000
0
0

50
100
Wind generator speed(rd/s)

150

Fig.l. Wind generator power curves at various wind speed.

III.

THE PROPOSED CONTROL STRATEGY

Adopted MPPT control strategy and P itch Control

The objective of the MPPT controller is to generate the
reference speed command which will enable the WECS to
extract maximum power from the available wind power [7].
Also, for each instantaneous wind speed, the optimal rotational
velocity of the WTG can be simply estimated as follows :

A.

vAoptG
OJm-opt = -- R-

(11)

OJm-opt is the reference speed which, when applied to the speed

control loop of the generator side converter control system,

maximum power will be produced by the WTG. The maximum
mechanical extracted power of the turbine is given as follows:
1

PTurbine_max ="2 p ACp max

ROJm-opt
Aopt

]3

PMSG torque reference is derived based on MPPT strategy.

Then, to satisty the sliding mode condition, it's necessary to
define the sliding surface for the speed controller [12]:
(13)
In addition, to determine the stabilizing function, the following
Lyapunov function is defmed as [13]:
2
(14)
= ..!. S
0)
2 0)
Lyapunovs stability theory is often deployed to proof the
system stability. Then, to attract the rotor speed to the
reference OJm_ opt' the following condition must be fulfilled
y

[12-13]: YO) = SO) SO) -< 0

Besides, when the sliding mode occurs on the sliding surface:

(12)

Consequently, we can get the maximum power P/urhine_max

by

regulating the generator velocity in different wind speed under

rated power of the WECS. Furthermore, the pitch angle
controller is to keep the system operating at rated active power.
For this reason, it's only active in high wind speeds and it's
designed to prevent generator power exceeding rated. In this
context, where wind speed is medium or low, the pitch angle is
controlled so as to allow the wind turbine to operate at its
optimum condition. But, when the wind speed reached the
nominal value, the pitch angle controller enters in operation to
decrease the coefficient of power and the blade pitch angle, fJ,
will increase until the wind turbine generator is at the rated
speed. Since, by reducing the coefficient of power conversion,
both the power and rated rotor speed of WTG are maintained
for above rated wind speeds. The turbine blade pitch angle
controller is illustrated in Fig. 2 where P g is the generated

(15)
So, to obtain commutation around the surface and good
dynamic performances, the control includes two terms [13]:
(16)
where ueq is valid only in the sliding surface. During the
sliding mode and in permanent regime, ueq is calculated from
(15), while un is used so as to guarantee the attractiveness of
the variable to be controlled towards the commutation surface.
Then
(17)
where kO)>- O. Moreover, nonlinear control Sliding Mode is a
discontinuous control. In order to reduce the chattering, the
continuous function as exposed in (18) where sgn(SO)) is a
sign function defined as [13]:

power.
B.

Control strategy for generator side converter with VS

DTC andMPPT

The generator side converter is used as a rectifier with a

Variable Structure Direct Torque Control (VS-DTC) strategy.
It works as a driver controlling the PMSG operating at optimal
rotor speed OJm-opt' The control diagram for generator-side
converter is shown as Fig.3.

P_ra_te_d
> _.
Pg
Fig.2.

WECS

-------'

Pitch angle controller.

,gn(s)

-1

SO)>-t:
t: ISO)I

(18)

- t:>-SO)

t: is a small positive number. If the t: is too large or too small,

the dynamic quality of the system will be reduced.
Consequently, the value of t: should be chosen vigilantly.
Hence, to ensure the PMSG speed convergence to the optimum
speed, torque reference is derived from equations (10), (13),
(15), (16), (17) and (18):
(19)
where k>-O . Along the stationary a - fJ axis, the equivalent
two-phase stator voltages are obtained as:
(20)

(21)

current and q- axis current respectively. Therefore the reactive

power and active power can be given as follows:
(28)

where Ude is the DC-bus voltage and (SI ,S2' S3) the
switching states of the rectifier. FigA illustrates the voltage
vectors obtained this way [11]. Accordingly, the component of
the stator flux linkage, in the two phase stationary axis is given:

If/la = f (u,a - R1,l,a ) dt

(22)

= (u'/3 -Ri'/3 )dt

(23)

1f/1/3

(29)
Consequentely, reactive and active power control can be
achieved by controlling quadrature and direct current
components, respectively. The DC-side equation can be given
by:
(30)

The flux amplitude and its phase are derived respectively from:

If/\ = If/;a + If/;/3

(24)

/3

0, = arctg(If/s )

(25)

If/\a

The VS-DTC strategy is based on two discrete hysteresis

comparators in which the stator flux and the torque are
controlled directly. The basic principle is that the errors of
torque and stator flux that exist between the reference and
feedback values are inputs to the hysteresis controllers, to
select appropriate voltage vector with the help of a pre-defmed
switching table as shown in Table I. The three inputs of this
switching table are the outputs of these comparators (CIf/' CT )

and the position of stator flux linkage space vector (0, ). That's
illustrated in Fig.3. Therefore, the vector of voltage makes the
flux rotate and produce the desired torque. Also, with
comparators, the amplitude of the flux is kept in a pre-defmed
band.
C.

The grid side inverter is used to feed generated energy into

the grid, to adjust the quantity of the reactive and active powers
delivered to the grid during wind variation and to keep the DC
linl( voltage stable [3]. There are many strategies used to
control grid side converter [5-8]. In this work, the Sliding
Mode (SM) controllers are used to regulate the output voltage
and currents in the inner control loops and the DC voltage
controller in the second loop (Fig.3). In a rotating dq reference

frame, if the grid voltage space vector u is oriented on d-axis,

then the voltage balance across the inductor Lj is given by [3]:
did-f

On the other hand, the reference signal of the q-axis current

iq r-f is produced by the reactive power Qr according to (28).
Let us introduce the following sliding surfaces:
Sd-f = idr-f- id_/ and Sq-f = iq r-f- iq_/
where idr-f, iq r-f are the desired values of d-axis current and
q-axis

current

respectively.

The

reference

iq r-f for

the iq-f current is derived from the desired power factor. So:

Grid-Side Control l er Meth odol ogy

-- =-(ed -Rjld_j + WLjlq_j-V)

.
.
.
.
Lf
dt

where PI!, is the output power of PMSG stator. The d-axis

reference current is determined by DC-linl( voltage controller
so as to control the converter output power. There are two
closed-loop controls for the power converter. The fast
dynamics are associated with the line current control in the
inner loop where the SM control is adopted to track the line
current control, while in the outer loop slow dynamics is
associated with the DC voltage control. Furthermore, the PI
regulator is employed so as to generate the reference source
current idr-f and regulate the DC voltage.

(26)
(27)

where Lj and Rf are the filter inductance and resistance

respectively; ed and eq are the inverter d-axis q-axis voltage
components respectively. id-f, iq-f are the values of d-axis

As a result, the controls voltage of d axis and q aXIs are

defined:
Vdr-f = L.f
.

didr-f
.
-_-

dt

+ R f 1 d-f - L.f wl'J-.f + V

(31)

+ kd-f sgn( Sd_f )

vq r-f = Rfiq_f + Lfwid-f + kq-f sgn( Sq_f )

(32)

Finally, PWM is used in order to produce the control signal.

The structure of the DC-Iink voItage and current controlIers for
grid-side converter is shown in Fig.3.
IV.

SIMULATION RESULTS

The complete WECS with PMSG was simulated by

Matlab/Simulink using the parameters given in Table II. Fig.5
illustrates the waveforms of wind speed and rated wind speed
(vn =12 m/s). Fig. 6, Fig. 7 and Fig.8 show the waveforms of
pitch angle, power coefficient and generated power,
respectively. Fig.9 shows the optimum speed and the speed of

Generator Side Converter

AC/DC

fp

'w.

MPPT
Prated CONTROL

------+

(1Jm

roled

8,

Flux
&
Torque
calculation

C C1

Grid Side Converter

DCIAC

Rj;Lj

SMC,

Q,.

3V

Fig.3. Schematic of control strategy for WECS.

TABLE I .
C'I'

CT

C =O

CT=I

CT=O
CT= -I
CT=I

C'I'=I

CrO
CT= -I

81

SWITCHING VECTORS

82

V
Vo
V,
V2
V7
V6

83

V4
V7
V6
V3
Vo
VI

84

V6
V7
V2
V,
Vo
V3

V,
Vo
VI
V4
V7
V2

86

8,

VI
Vo
V3
V6
V7
V4

V2
V7
V4
VI
Vo
V,

V1(OIO); V2(11O); V1(IOO) ; V4(IOI); V5(OOI); Vo(OII) ; V7(111) ; Vo(OOO)

Fig.4. The control of stator flux linkage.

PMSG. Then, it can be seen that if the wind speed increases,

rotor angular velocity increases proportionally too, with a
limitation due to the pitch angle variation. Besides, Cp will

0.5,----_-_--_-_
0.4

drop to maintain the rated output power and the variable

velocity WECS operates under MPPT control. Consequently,
the performance coefficient Cp is maintained to its maximum
value ( Cpmax

0.2

0.41 ) until generated power and generator

rotor speed exceed rated values. Also, Cp

0.1

0:c------;--;2O---;--

is decreasing

because the operation of the pitch angle control is actuated and

the pitch angle fJ will increase if the wind speed is up the
rated wind speed ( vn =12 m/s). In addition, the wind speed is
up the rated wind velocity, the power generated reaches its
maximum level. In Fig.9, it can be seen that the speed follows
the optimum speed quite well. The stator flux locus of
generator is shown in Fig.I O. It's clearly shown that the stator
flux follows a predetermined path and as expected, its
trajectory in the stationary reference frame is a circle. Fig.ll
shows the simulation result of DC link voltage that remains a
invariable value. Fig.12 shows the variation and a closer
observation of three phase current and voltage of GRID. The
frequency imposed by the grid is 50 Hz. It's obvious that unity
power factor is achieved approximatively.

l r
U

0.3-

2
Time(s)

Time(s)

Fig. 7. power coefficient Cp

Fig.5. Instantaneous wind

speed (m/s).
3.5 ,----_-_--_-_
2.5

1.5

1.5
0.5

0.5

-0.5

,O:c------:--;2O---::--:
Fig.6. Pitch angle fJ (in degree
Time(s)

0.5

1.5

2
2.5
Time(s)

3.5

Fig.8. Generated power(W)

120
.00
80

TABLE II.

03
02

- Generator speed
- Optimal speed

01

60
<I

40
20

0------2--7---
Time(s)

Fig.9. Speed and optimal speed

(2)

-0.2

.0.1

0.1

0.2

OJm

OJ

Fig.l0. Stator flux vector trajectory

Voltage

-- Current

-200
_ 400 L--L-----L-----
0.42
0.44
0.46
0.48
0.5

Q)

0.635 m(H)

/fff permanent magnet flux

0.192(Wb)

pole pairs

[2]

M.A . Abdullah, AH.M. Yatim, Chee Wei Tan, " A study of maximum
power point tracking algorithms for wind energy system, " Proceedings
of Clean Energy and Technology (CET), IEEE First Conference on, pp.
321 - 326,201l.

[3]

Md. Enamul Haque, Michael Negnevitsky and Kashem M. Muttaqi,"A

Novel Control Strategy for a Variable-Speed Wind Turbine With a
Permanent-Magnet Synchronous Generator," IEEE Transactions On
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2010.

[4]

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[5]

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[9]

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CONCLUSIONS

This paper presents a novel Sliding Mode (SM) control of

DTC and grid connected for variable speed WECS based on
the PMSG. The model, implemented in the simulation,
includes wind turbine generator, PMSG, PWM rectifier in
generator-side, intermediate DC linl( capacitor and PWM
inverter in grid-side. The control strategy can implement the
concept of MPPT in terms of the adjustment of the PMSG rotor
velocity according to instantaneous wind speed and limitation
by Pitch angle strategy for high wind speed. The SM-DTC
strategy is used to control the PMSG rotor velocity, while SM
control, of PWM inverter, is adopted. In addition, grid side
converter can deliver the energy from the PMSG to the grid
with unity power factor. The performance of WECS has been
demonstrated under varying wind conditions. Then, the system
can't only capture the maximum wind power, but also can
maintain the frequency and amplitude of the output voltage
with unity power factor. Simulation results show clearly that
the proposed control strategy provides an optimal control
solution for WECS based on the PMSG.

0.05(

Lq , Ld stator d-axis and q-axis inductance

Mukhtiar Singh, Ambrish Chandra, "Application of Adaptive Network

Based Fuzzy Inference System for Sensorless Control of PMSG-Based
Wind Turbine With Nonlinear-Load-Compensation Capabilities," IEEE
Transactions On Power Electronics, Vol. 26, No. I, pp. 165-175,
January 2011.

Time(s)

Fig.12. The waveforms of three phase current and voltage of GRID

100 (rd/s)

[I]

V.

rated mechanical speed

REFERENCES

Fig.ll. DC link voltage.

10 (kW)

Pn

II

200

Value

Pr rated power
R stator resistance

of PMSG

400

PARAMETERS OF THE PMSG

Parameter

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on
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