1670
4, DECEMBER 2012
A Dual Purpose Triangular Neural Network
Based Module for Monitoring and Protection
in Bi-Directional Off-Board Level-3
Charging of EV/PHEV
Xiaomin Lu, Student Member, IEEE, K. Lakshmi Varaha Iyer, Student Member, IEEE,
Kaushik Mukherjee, Member, IEEE, and Narayan C. Kar, Senior Member, IEEE
AbstractUnderstanding the need for improvement in moni-
toring and protection in high performance charging technology
for a growing demand of EVs/PHEVs, this research manuscript
presents a part of an ongoing project and proposes a novel low
cost dual purpose triangular neural network based module for
power quality monitoring and protection (M&P) and elicits
its performance in times of abnormalities or malfunction in a
high performance off-board level 3 bi-directional charger for
electric vehicles. Firstly, design and implementation of the low
cost dual purpose triangular neural network based device for
monitoring the power quality and hence, protecting the grid has
been explained and its performance has been presented through
numerical investigations. Going a step further, the device has
also been experimentally tested using an in-house electric vehicle
containing a commercially available battery charger and the
measured results are analyzed. Secondly, a high-performance
vector-controlled bi-directional off-board level-3 charger for
faster and efficient charging has been developed and investiga-
tions have been performed on the healthy charger to analyze its
performance. The primary aim of developing this charger was
to elicit the usage and performance of the previously developed
M&P device to protect the grid in case of some typical charger
malfunction problem in such a charger, which is not detectable by
conventional low cost sensors employed with such chargers. Once
the module detects any abnormalities in the chargers operation,
information gathered can be used to tune the controller in the
charger to obtain a constant improved performance of the charger
or the power transfer can be terminated.
Index TermsArtificial neural network, bi-directional off-board
level-3 charger, electric vehicles, monitoring and protection,
plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, triangular functions.
I. INTRODUCTION
R ESEARCH performed in this paper along with literature
obtained from [1][3] show that some commercially
available chargers on-board electric vehicles still have poor
power quality characteristics in terms of injection of harmonics
into the system. These chargers contain power electronic cir-
cuits which, due to their nonlinear nature, cause power quality
problems on the electric utility distribution system. Hence,
the effect of unwanted harmonics beyond a certain level alone
Manuscript received January 23, 2012; revised April 26, 2012; accepted June
05, 2012. Date of publication August 07, 2012; date of current version De-
cember 28, 2012. This work was supported by the Natural Sciences and En-
gineering Research Council of Canada. Paper no. TSG-00038-2012.
The authors are with the Centre for Hybrid Automotive Research and
Green Energy, University of Windsor, Windsor, ON N9B 3P4, Canada
(e-mail: lu117@uwindsor.ca; iyerl@uwindsor.ca; kmukh@uwindsor.ca;
nkar@uwindsor.ca).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TSG.2012.2205950
1949-3053/$31.00 2012 IEEE
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON SMART GRID, VOL. 3, NO.
would be a reason to shut down the power transfer between the
grid and the vehicle [4].
Furthermore, the relatively new lithium-ion battery is very
promising as it is estimated that it can increase the driving range
up to 300 miles and hence, replace the conventional lead-acid
and nickel-cadmium batteries. This increase in driving range at
approximately the same car efficiency in energy/mile implies
a higher charger power is necessary within the same or lesser
charging time [5]. It is estimated that the EV charger current
would be nearly doubled in the immediate future which would
be a potential cause for deterioration in power quality if the har-
monics increase and the power factor degrades.
Over the years there is a lot of research performed to under-
stand and predict the stress on the power system that would be
caused due to the heavy inrush of electric vehicles and their
chargers. Also, there has been a growing concern for the utility
companies to protect the grid as the new concept of distributed
generation has swept in and would be rapidly utilized in the near
future. Since, the power utility companies would have limited
control over the chargers and the quality of power the chargers
consume or supply, it is of paramount importance to monitor the
power quality and protect the grid in case of some typical ab-
normal operation of such chargers [1][3].
Sufficient background literature obtained from [1][6]
makes one understand and conclude that as the market for
EVs/PHEVs keeps increasing, it is of paramount importance
to improve power quality by: 1) improving the state of art
battery charging technology to maintain displacement power
factor to unity, lesser total harmonics distortion (THD) in the
current sourced/sunk (less than 5% as prescribed by IEEE 519
standard), enabling bi-directional power flow, and additionally
charge the battery faster; and 2) protecting the grid against any
malfunction of components through monitoring and protection
devices. The proposed M&P device is mandatory as it would
be useful in monitoring the power quality of the state-of-the-art
commercially available off-board three phase chargers and also
monitor the high performance charger for its malfunction and
component breakdown; and hence protect the grid by issuing
information for proper compensation or termination of power
transfer between the grid and the vehicle.
Stand-alone and combinatorial neural network (NN) based
schemes have been widely used in the field of electric vehi-
cles research in specific areas of the battery state-of-charge es-
timation, control of electric machine drives and electrical dif-
ferential, study of charge/discharge cycles of batteries and en-
ergy management systems (EMS). [7] illustrates the NN based
SOC estimation, [8] studies the charge discharge cycles of the
LU et al.: DUAL PURPOSE TRIANGULAR NEURAL NETWORK BASED MODULE
batteries using recurrent NN based modeling, [9], [10] shows
the development of a NN based indicator for residual capacity
of batteries, [11][13] propose control schemes based on NN
for electrical differential and induction machine drives. Also, a
NN based EMS is illustrated in [14]. However, the NN tech-
nique has not been used until date for M&P during charging
and discharging of electric vehicles as proposed in this paper.
Section II of this research manuscript illustrates the importance
of this research and the need for the developed M&P device.
It also explains in length the mathematical modeling and im-
plementation of the developed triangular neural network based
M&P device along with results of numerical and experimental
investigations performed to elicit the performance of this unit.
Section III elicits the process involved in designing a bi-direc-
tional off-board level 3 high-performance charger, which works
on the principle of vector-controlled ac motor drives, for faster
charging and better power quality. The results obtained from
numerical investigations during V2G and G2V operation under
healthy condition of the charger is analyzed.
The primary aim of developing this charger is to bring out
the merits of the previously developed M&P device to monitor
some typical charger malfunction problems, which can happen
for such a vector-controlled charger, and protect the grid. Such
typical problems are not detectable by conventional low cost in-
strumentation techniques, whereas the proposed low cost M&P
device can detect such problems easily. Once the module detects
any abnormalities in the chargers operation, information gath-
ered can be used to tune the controller in the charger to obtain
a constant improved performance of the charger or the grid can
be protected by terminating the power transfer between the grid
and the vehicle. Thereafter, the performance of the unhealthy
charger is analyzed to demonstrate how the proposed low cost
M&P device detects the malfunction and protects thereafter.
II. DESIGN AND ANALYSIS OF THE DUAL PURPOSE
TRIANGULAR NEURAL NETWORK BASED MONITORING AND
PROTECTION DEVICE
A. Background Literature
The lifetime, energy storage capability, and performance of
the battery will mainly depend on the battery charger. The tra-
ditional single-phase low power charger based on rectifiers is
historically the first ones. The full-wave diode rectifier is the
simplest [15]. However, this conventional charger has the draw-
backs such as high input current harmonics of lower orders, low
power factor and uncontrollable charging state, i.e., there is lim-
ited control over the battery current. Unfortunately, high input
current harmonics of lower frequencies and low power factor
cannot comply with the IEC1000-3-2 or IEEE 519 harmonic
standards and the uncontrollable charging state will shorten the
life of the battery. Also, the ripples in the charging current of
the battery are higher than todays chargers. Hence, the power
quality is worst for such chargers, considering both the grid side
and the battery side.
Controlled charging may be performed by using thyristors in
place of diodes in a single-phase charger but the disadvantages
of high-input current harmonics and lower power factor still
remain due to the varying firing angles of the thyristors [15].
The three-phase versions of the above chargers also have the
similar problems as their single-phase counterparts. However,
the advantage of boost charging the battery in relatively shorter
time duration supports the usage of a three-phase charger.
Also, the important point to be noted is that the currents that
1671
Fig. 1. Architecture of the triangular basis neural network.
the three-phase charger draws from the grid is symmetrical and
balanced under any load and hence better than its single-phase
counterpart which gives rise to unbalanced loading and hence
problems to the utility grid. For the three-phase diode/thyristor
based versions, the voltage at the dc side has a ripple frequency
six times the supply frequency in a three phase charger while
the ripple frequency is twice the supply frequency in a single
phase charger. Hence, the size and cost of the low-pass power
filter components are less for 3-phase chargers. Ferro-resonant
charger produces very little current distortion, less than 5%;
however, it is not a widespread type at present. The IEEE
Standard 519 has established a set of limits to the acceptable
level of current harmonics in the power system which ensures
that each power consumer plays his or her part in keeping the
harmonic distortion levels low [1], [6].
In order to relieve harmonic pollution, accurate monitoring,
and analysis of harmonic components is primary, then compen-
sation techniques are incorporated to correct the waveform or
the power transfer is terminated. Consequently, to strengthen
harmonic supervision, the estimation of harmonic parameters
such as magnitude and phase is essentially important [16].
Over the past decades, significant progress has been made in
the area of power system harmonics measurement. The most
common approach to estimate harmonic components is based
on fast Fourier transform (FFT) [17], but it has certain limita-
tions in harmonics analysis due to picket fence phenomenon
and spectrum leakage [18][20]. These limitations generally
bring about an error in the estimation of amplitude, phase, and
frequency. Thus, a variety of algorithms have been put forward
to improve the reliability of FFT. Among these improvements,
some interpolating algorithms [17] can effectively reduce the
fence phenomenon, but are unable to eliminate the spectrum
leakage. On the other hand, algorithms based on windowed
FFT [21], can achieve more accurate results, but have high
complexity and require more computation time. Previously,
adaptive Kalman filtering approach was proposed for the pro-
tection of power lines. However, if the initial estimate of the
state in the filter design or modeling is wrong, the filter may
quickly diverge due to the linear model chosen [22]. Artificial
neural networks (ANNs) have attracted a great deal of attention
in the past two decades in areas such as pattern classification,
function approximation, digital signal processing, intelligent
control, power system analysis, fault detection, data com-
pression, analysis for power quality problem solution, power
quality assessment, protection, transient analysis, and so on
successfully, because of its computational speed and robustness
and have become an alternative to modeling of physical system
such as a transmission line [23]. In power system, the voltage
1672 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON SMART GRID, VOL. 3, NO. 4, DECEMBER 2012

or current signals can be modeled as a series of sine functions

with unknown amplitudes and phase angles; therefore, finding
out the components from the input signal is a nonlinear opti-
mization problem for conventional artificial neural networks.
A feed-forward neural network using trigonometric orthogonal
activation functions is constructed here to calculate the weights,
then amplitude and phase angle by linear equations. It also has
fast convergence characteristics and noise tolerance.
B. Construction of Triangular Functions Basis Neural
Network for Harmonics Estimation
Generally power system current can be described as the sum
of different harmonics components with parameters such as am-
plitudes and initial phases shown in (1).

(1)
Fig. 2. Flowchart of the step by step process involved in calculating the com-
ponents of the input signal.
According to triangular equality, (1) is then rewritten as in (2)
Based on negative gradient descent method, the weights-itera-
tive formula for the proposed neural network could be defined
as
(2)
Therefore, the triangular functions basis neural network is con- (7)
structed as shown in Fig. 1. The input and output layers of
the constructed neural network each employs a linear function where
,( , is number of samples) as their
activation function, and the hidden neurons are activated with
triangular functions where denotes
the number of hidden neurons and is defined as fol-
lows:

(3)
where denotes the angular frequency of fundamental compo-
nent. The input-output relation in the triangular neural network
could be given as follows: denotes the iterative, is the learning
rate [24]. Now, let be small enough to guarantee the
(4) convergence of training procedure, then the optimal weights of
the triangular neural network can be solved using iterative (7).
For this special structure neural network model, it can globally
The parameters , denote the weights be- converge to its optimal weights if the learning rate is small
tween the hidden-layer and output-layer neurons. According to enough; i.e., following the theorem [25].
(1)(4), by solving the weights vector of the neural network, the Theorem: When , the itera-
dc component and amplitude and phase of the -th harmonic tive weights series in (7) will converge to optimal
could be calculated by (5). weights vector , where denotes the
maximum eigen value of , and denotes the pseu-
doinverse of matrix .
(5) Fig. 2 shows the flowchart of the proposed ANN based
harmonics estimation method. In this investigation, the funda-
mental frequency is considered as 60 Hz, the learning rate is
and the maximum order of signal, , is 9. Therefore,
C. Learning Rules and Global Convergence the number of hidden layers of the ANN is 19 in
Assuming pairs of training data sets this investigation. Ten points (i.e., ) are sampled for
matrix, sampled from the current or voltage signals in power each iteration at a sampling rate of according to
system, the performance function can be defined as follows: Shannons theorem. The objective error is set to be 0.001.

D. Numerical Investigation Performed Using the Developed

Triangular Neural Network Scheme
In order to evaluate the performance of the triangular neural
(6) network in estimating the amplitude and phase of the harmonic
LU et al.: DUAL PURPOSE TRIANGULAR NEURAL NETWORK BASED MODULE 1673

TABLE I
CURRENT HARMONICS DATA

Fig. 3. Representation of the signal with/without noise under consideration in

the numerical investigation.

components, several numerical tests have been conducted. This

data is chosen according to realistic components of current in
power system. The components of the signal under considera-
tion for numerical investigations performed in this section are
as shown in Table I. Therefore, the input current signal can
be calculated according to (2) and the corresponding number
in Table I and the waveform of the dashed signal as shown in
Fig. 3.
In order to replicate real-time field operation, Gaussian white
noise with a signal to noise ratio 60 dB has been in injected Fig. 4. Performance of the triangular neural network and the Fourier transform
into the signal as shown in Fig. 3. Figs. 4 and 5 show the per- model in determining the amplitudes of different components. (a) Fundamental.
formance of the triangular neural network compared to the Fast (b) 3rd order. (c) DC component.
Fourier Transform (FFT). Fig. 4(a) to (c) show the estimated
amplitude of the fundamental, 3rd and dc components of the
signal under consideration. Fig. 5 shows the phase angle of the
fundamental component of the signal. The green line in each
figure shows the actual amplitude or phase of the signal. The
red and black dashed lines represent the estimated amplitude
or phase by ANN and FFT, respectively. As can be observed
from the figures, both methods are capable of tracking the am-
plitude and the phase of the fundamental, all the other compo-
nents and the dc current, if it exists. Both methods take cer-
tain time to achieve acceptable error at the initial stage. FFT
needs at least one cycle, around 0.016 s, to calculate the corre- Fig. 5. Performance of the triangular neural network model and the Fourier
sponding amplitude or phase, while ANN takes less than half transform model in determining the phase angle of fundamental component.
cycle, around 0.007 s, which is a great attribute for real-time
monitoring and faster protection. Also, ANN shows higher ac-
curacy and better noise toleration capability, especially for the proper reconstruction of the signal. The 16-bit digital signal con-
estimation of phase. troller dsPIC30F4013 has 12-bit 20 Ksps analog-digital con-
verter capability and phase-locked loop (PLL). The chip has
its own digital signal processor engines capable of conducting
E. Implementation of the Proposed M&P Device
single cycle multiplication and accumulation. The filtered and
Fig. 6 shows the overall block diagram of the M&P device sampled data is processed using the triangular basis neural net-
integrated to the developed 3-phase bi-directional charger. Hall work analyzer which is implemented in the microcontroller.
Effect sensor, AC S712, is connected to the power line to ac- The output of the analyzer is then shown on the LCD with de-
quire instantaneous phase current amplitude which is later fed tails of harmonic numbers, their corresponding amplitudes and
to the filter and sampler on the M&P unit. A low pass filter phase angles. Also, the information gathered from the analyzer
is designed to remove unnecessary noise information from the is sent to the comparator and decider block to perform condi-
signal and retain the low frequency information. The filtered tional threshold check and indicate in case of certain malfunc-
signal is then sampled by the dsPIC30F4013 with a sampling tion or abnormalities of the charger and thereafter activate an
frequency at 1 kHz based on Nyquists criterion to ensure action to protect the grid.
1674
Fig. 6. Overall block diagram of the M&P device integrated with the developed three-phase bi-directional charger.
TABLE II
TYPICAL MEASURED DATA OF VOLTAGE, CURRENT AND HARMONIC COMPONENTS DURING BATTERY CHARGING AT THE GRID SIDE
F. Experimental Investigation Performed on a Commercially
Available In-House Electric Vehicle
In order to study the quality of voltage and current profiles
during charging of the battery, experiments were performed
using a commercially available, state-of-the-art battery electric
vehicle. Phase current, voltage, total harmonic distortion, and
other components of current were measured using a Tektronix
2024 digital storage oscilloscope, Fluke 434 power quality
analyzer. The measured values of phase current, voltage are as
shown in Table II for two different states of charging, i.e., Case
I and Case II. Table II also shows the measured total harmonic
distortion (THD) and amplitude of all the components of the
current waveform.
When the battery was charged from a very low SOC of 5%
the on-board charger controller keeps the reference charging
current closer to 1.5 A (Case 1). The measured THD at this
instant is closer to 9.5%. It can be inferred that the amount
of harmonics inserted into the current waveform is rather high
(keeping in view IEEE 519 power quality standard) at lower
levels of charging current under trickle mode (Case I). This
is typical of the single-phase PWM rectifier based resistor-emu-
lating dc-dc converter based battery-chargers [26]. The charging
current later rises to close to 15 A after a particular SOC has
reached (Case II). The THD at this instant is measured to be
around 5.2%. As discussed in the previous section these har-
monics injected into the system might cause detrimental effects
on the distribution grids transformers and feeders. Also, the bat-
tery charger readily fitted on-board takes around 8 h to charge
the battery from 0% to 100% SOC.
In order to perform experimental verification of the devel-
oped M&P device, it was installed between the vehicles single-
phase charger and the distribution grid to monitor the grid cur-
rent waveform for THD and harmonic components. Table II also
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON SMART GRID, VOL. 3, NO. 4, DECEMBER 2012
shows the measured results obtained as output of the M&P de-
vice. The measured results obtained as outputs of the M&P de-
vice are in closer agreement with the values measured by the
measuring devices, thus validating the performance of the M&P
device.
III. ROLE OF THE PROPOSED M&P DEVICE FOR PROTECTION
AGAINST MALFUNCTIONING OF CONTROLLER IN A
BI-DIRECTIONAL OFF-BOARD LEVEL-3 CHARGER
This section initially presents the development of a high-per-
formance level-3 off-board G2V/V2G battery charger operating
under vector control strategy. It then focuses on some peculiar
problems manifested in terms of its ac side currents if the con-
trol algorithm malfunctions for reasons, namely, error in on-
line estimation of an important control parameter, noises etc.
These problems may be potentially dangerous for the distribu-
tion mains but may not be detectable by conventional inexpen-
sive protection schemes. Finally, it has been demonstrated how
the developed ANN-based low cost M&P device has been found
to detect such problems effectively to protect the system under
such abnormal conditions.
A. Description of the Battery Charger System
The proposed high-performance 3-phase battery charger em-
ploys a two-stage power converter system consisting of a grid-
side 2-level IGBT-based voltage source converter (VSC) and
a two-quadrant buck-boost current-controlled dc-dc converter
at the battery side. The dc-dc converter is employed to control
the charging rate for its optimal performance and the grid-side
VSC is employed to ensure that the power factor at the point
of common coupling (PCC) can be ideally maintained at unity,
thereby maximizing the power flow in either direction. The grid-
side VSC is generally controlled by adopting a technique very
LU et al.: DUAL PURPOSE TRIANGULAR NEURAL NETWORK BASED MODULE
Fig. 7. Overall block diagram showing the comprehensive control technique.
similar to the field-oriented/vector control of electrical ac ma-
chines [27], [28].
Marwali, Dai et al. have worked extensively on some papers
on significant issues of robust control and stability [29] of
bi-directional active and reactive power flow in two-level,
H-bridge converters used in distributed generation and/or UPS
applications in grid-connected and/or islanded mode [30],
using advanced novel Robust Servomechanism Controller
for voltage control and Discrete Sliding Mode Controller
for current control [31][33]. Their work encompasses bal-
anced, unbalanced as well as nonlinear loading effects [32]. In
spite of the complex computation-intensive control structure,
they have successfully implemented the strategies through
high-end DSP platforms in real time, achieving superior per-
formance indices, namely, voltage THD below 1%, current
THD almost negligible and settling time for active and reactive
power to within 300800 ms [29], [31], [33]. Fig. 6 shows
the scheme for implementing the G2V-V2G power converter
based charger based on the vector-control technique, which
has been considered in this paper ultimately yielding settling
time to less than one power frequency cycle. The rating of the
high-performance battery charger system with bi-directional
power flow capability considered is 10 kW. The maximum
controlled charging current of 20 A at 500 V dc level
has been considered to be ultimately derived from/feeding the
3-phase 60 Hz, 208 V ac grid, depending on the direction of
power flow. The IGBT-based VSC has a bank of electrolytic ca-
pacitors (equivalent capacitance ) at its dc side and a bank of
ac chokes ( and represent the loss-emulating component
and the inductance value of each choke) connected between its
ac side and the grid. This arrangement makes the VSC act as
a boost converter, whose dc link voltage would be controlled
at 500 V dc, which is much greater than the peak of the ac side
line-to-line voltage. A 20 A dc current at 500 V dc corresponds
to 27.76 A (rms) line current at the 208 V (rms, line to line)
ac side at unity power factor, which will be maintained by
properly controlling the switching of the transistors (IGBTs) of
the VSC. The current controlled bi-directional dc-dc converter
at the battery end should be a 2-quadrant one, where the voltage
polarity does not change but the dc current polarity should
change depending whether it is a G2V or V2G application. The
direction of average power flow or current (Fig. 6) for G2V
application has been considered positive in the calculations and
analysis, and would therefore be negative for V2G. The design
of the bi-directional dc-dc converter is not considered in detail
in this work and the load of the VSC at the dc side is modeled as
a variable dc current source, representing the equivalent effect
of the actual dc current that may be the charging/discharging
1675
current of the battery, as would be dictated by the battery
management system of the electric vehicle in practice. The
focus of the paper is kept on the VSC power stage design and
its control, as the main purpose of the paper is to justify the
relevance of the proposed neural network based M&P scheme
that is mandatory for certain noteworthy situations arising in
case of malfunctioning of the high-performance vector control
scheme and would be discussed in a later section.
B. The Comprehensive Control Scheme
The block diagram for the comprehensive control technique
of the static charger, similar to vector control of electrical ma-
chines, is presented in Fig. 7. As the principle of vector control
is well-established, it is not detailed here and only key findings
are mentioned. The outer dc link voltage control loop here is
similar to the outer speed control loop for a speed controlled
machine drive application. The concepts of inner current con-
trol loops are almost similar here. In this charger control, the
d-axis and q-axis current control loops control the active and
reactive power, whereas in electrical machine drives, the d-axis
and the q-axis currents would have controlled flux and torque of
the rotating machine, respectively.
The control structure initiates with the reference value of the
dc link voltage and the q-axis reference current .
They are set at 500 V and 0 respectively as the VSC has to act
as a boost converter and a unity power factor has to be main-
tained at the utility grid respectively. It is noteworthy in the con-
trol scheme (Fig. 7) that, for healthy vector control with proper
decoupling, a feedforward of the VSC dc side current
by a factor of , (where is the ratio of the magnitude
of the utility voltage space vector and the value of the dc link
voltage) is a must, for finding the proper d-axis current refer-
ence. A proper online estimation technique to determine the
value of , even in the transient conditions is particularly
challenging and has been performed successfully in dynamic as
well as steady operating conditions, as would be evident from
the calculated waveforms, presented in Section III-C. However,
abnormal situations are additionally simulated by deliberately
disturbing the successful estimation technique in dynamic con-
ditions and have given rise to some noteworthy phenomena, dis-
cussed in Section III-D.
C. Performance of the Proposed Battery Charger
The waveforms illustrated in Fig. 8(a) to (c) which depict
the performance of the charger, under healthy conditions, are
corresponding to the following operating conditions:
At the uncharged state of the dc link capacitor, initially it is
ensured that the battery does not draw any current. The dc link
1676 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON SMART GRID, VOL. 3, NO. 4, DECEMBER 2012

Fig. 8. Calculated results illustrating the healthy performance of the developed high performance level-3 bi-directional battery charger. (a) DC-link voltage
and current waveforms ( Voltage, Current). (b) d and q axis grid currents ( d- axis current, q-axis current). (c) Grid phase voltage and phase current
( Voltage, Current).

electrolytic capacitor bank is to be first precharged from an TABLE III

uncharged state to a level close to the peak value of the grid CURRENT HARMONICS DATA
line voltage. This may be done by another small auxiliary diode
bridge rectifier as shown in Fig. 6. Then, the dc link voltage ref-
erence of 500 V dc is given to the controller so that the switching
of the IGBTs in the VSC start and the dc link capacitor voltage
starts boosting. This is considered as instant in the
presented waveforms. After 0.4 s from this instant, a constant
battery charging current of 20 A is drawn as a step input from
the charger to examine the high performance of the VSC under
G2V operation. At , a negative step battery current
of 20 A is drawn, mimicking the effect of V2G operation. The
waveforms under this testing condition are presented next.
Fig. 8(a) shows the dc link voltage waveform with time. It
is seen to settle at the reference value within 15 ms after an the requirement to maintain proper dc link voltage. Fig. 8(c)
overshoot well within 800 V, which is considered as the safe dc shows the a phase grid current and the corresponding a
bus voltage level, as mentioned earlier. It is found to undergo phase voltage waveform (equivalent star connected system). It
minimal changes at the instants of introduction of the battery is found that the distortions in the current is minimal, almost
charging/discharging current. The overshoot in the dynamics is near-unity power factor is achieved regardless of the battery
within safe limit, the settling time is low enough and the dc link current is positive or negative, and the tran sition from a pos-
voltage restores to the reference value. This has only been pos- itive power flow to negative power flow ensuring unity power
sible due to proper design of the dc link voltage control loop, the factor occurs in few milliseconds. All these waveforms prove
d-axis current control loop and proper evaluation of the constant the soundness of the implemented vector control strategy of
. the battery charger. Results of the analysis performed to find
Fig. 8(b) shows the and waveforms of current with out the THD and harmonic components in the phase current of
time, under the same testing condition. The average value of the the developed charger and the experimental results obtained in
waveform is found to remain almost at zero all throughout, the Section II performed on the existing EV battery charger is
tracking its reference value ( kept at 0). This ensures near presented in Table III. The developed charger is found to have
unity power factor operation. The changes depending on lower level of THD.
LU et al.: DUAL PURPOSE TRIANGULAR NEURAL NETWORK BASED MODULE 1677

D. Noteworthy Phenomena in the Charger Performance

Under Desired Conditions
Two noteworthy phenomena are observed under two unde-
sired operating conditions of the vector controlled charger.
1) The operation is healthy till 140% of the designed rating
(10 kW) of the charger. If it is overloaded more than 40%,
the average value of the dc link voltage is still maintained
at its reference value (500 V) but low frequency oscilla-
tions start appearing. This happens if the online computa-
tion of the constant (responsible for proper feed-for-
ward control) does not occur properly in the overloaded
mode. This gives rise to bounded amplitude oscillating
low frequency components in wave forms and it trans-
lates into lower order harmonic phase currents drawn from
the grid. The current THD increases and the harmonic
spectrum denote existence of subharmonics and interhar-
monics, of low magnitude.
2) Similar low frequency oscillations may become super-
imposed on the and signals due to measurement
noises, plant noise, EMI problems or quantization errors
inside the digital controller, which computes the equations
online for achieving real-time control. These additional
bounded low amplitude, low frequency oscillations have
been found to again give rise to low-frequency harmonics,
subharmonics, interharmonics and even dc component of
very small magnitudes in the grid side ac currents of the
VSC. However, detrimental effects of subharmonics and
interharmonics, despite being low, on electrical power
system are well known and should not be tolerated [33].
The unhealthy situation discussed above was replicated by
introducing small amplitude sinusoidal signals of a lower fre-
quency (at a time, effect of a single varying frequency was
studied) into the healthy and waveforms to study the
performance of the battery charger keeping the original control Fig. 9. Calculated results illustrating the unhealthy performance of the devel-
structure. The unhealthy and waveforms are shown in oped high performance level-3 bi-directional battery charger. (a) d- and q-axis
Fig. 9(a) with a 60 Hz noise. Fig. 9(b) shows the charging and grid currents ( d-axis current at charging, d-axis current discharging,
discharging phase current. We can see from the figures that the q-axis current charging, q-axis current discharging). (b) Phase a current
grid phase current waveform contains low amplitude dc com- waveforms ( charging, discharging). (c) DC component ( charging,
discharging).
ponent which is evident from Fig. 9(c). Depending on the fre-
quency of the noise signal subharmonics and interharmonics
are found to exist with low amplitudes. It is to be noted that need for the protection and monitoring device even in a high
identifying such malfunctioning condition cannot be done by performance charger to protect against some typical abnormal
employing standard over current and/or overvoltage protection conditions has been justified, where conventional over-current
techniques as amplitudes are less and oscillations are bounded. or over-voltage based protection will fail as oscillations would
Hence, the developed neural network based module finds a sig- never get unbounded. The justification has been corroborated
nificant position in monitoring the above issues and protecting with necessary discussions and results.
the grid by deactivating the gate switching signals of the IGBTs
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0161.
Xiaomin Lu received the B.S. degree in engineering
from Sun-Yet Sen University, China in 2010. She is
currently working toward the Ph.D. degree in elec-
trical and computer engineering at the University of
Windsor, ON, Canada.
Her research areas include modeling and analysis
of electric machine drives and condition monitoring
for electric vehicle drive-train system and power
system applications.
K. Lakshmi Varaha Iyer received the B.Tech.
degree in electronics and communication engi-
neering from SASTRA University, India, in 2009
and the M.A.Sc. degree in electrical and computer
engineering from the University of Windsor, ON,
Canada in 2011. He is currently working toward the
Ph.D. degree at the University of Windsor.
His research presently focuses on design and con-
trol of electric machines, condition monitoring, and
grid integration of renewable energy applications.
Kaushik Mukherjee (M03) was born in 1970.
He received the B.E. degree from the Department
of Electrical Engineering, Jadavpur University,
Calcutta, India, in 1993, the M.E. degree from
the Department of Electrical Engineering, Bengal
Engineering College, Howrah, India, in 1998, and
the Ph.D. degree from the Department of Elec-
trical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology,
Kharagpur, in 2003.
Since 1993, he has spent almost two and a half
years in the industry. In 2002, he joined the Depart-
ment of Electrical Engineering, Jadavpur University, India as a Lecturer. From
2006 onwards, he is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical En-
gineering, Bengal Engineering and Science University, Howrah. He is presently
a Visiting Professor at the Centre for Hybrid Automotive Research & Green En-
ergy, University of Windsor, ON, Canada. His research interests include elec-
trical machine drives and power electronics applications in general.
Narayan C. Kar (S97M00SM07) received
the B.Sc. degree in electrical engineering from
Bangladesh University of Engineering and Tech-
nology, Dhaka, in 1992 and the M.Sc. and Ph.D.
degrees in electrical engineering from Kitami Insti-
tute of Technology, Hokkaido, Japan, in 1997 and
2000, respectively.
He is an Associate Professor in the Electrical and
Computer Engineering Department at the University
of Windsor, ON, Canada, where he holds the Canada
Research Chair position in hybrid drivetrain systems.
His research presently focuses on the analysis, design and control of permanent
magnet synchronous, induction and switched reluctance machines for hybrid
electric vehicle and wind power applications, testing and performance analysis
of batteries, and development of optimization techniques for hybrid energy man-
agement systems.