A Novel Discrete Resonant Control Method for Cascaded H-Bridge Rail Balancers
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University of West Bohemia, RICE, Pilsen Czech Republic
Power Electronics and Drives 2025;10 (45):271-290
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ABSTRACT
This paper presents the concept of an advanced rail balancer (ARB) for next-generation traction substations (TSSs), along with its
control algorithm based on a novel advanced resonant controller. The ARB utilises a cascaded H-bridge (CHB) converter topology and
is designed to effectively address several key issues in modern TSSs, including load current symmetrisation in the distribution power
grid, reactive power compensation, harmonic currents from railway vehicles and active filtering of higher-order harmonics in the grid
current. The proposed asymmetric control of the ARB converter includes individual ARB phase current control using an advanced
resonant controller. The resonant controller algorithm provides the desired frequency response without offset and uses direct latency
compensation to mitigate the effects of low switching frequency and large control sampling times. Experimental results show very good
performance of the proposed control algorithm, especially for grid current harmonics filtration with low ARB switching frequency, large
sampling times and control latency.