A Fault-Tolerant Direct Controlled PMSG Drive for Wind Energy Conversion Systems

Reliability and availability levels are crucial aspects for assessing the economic viability of wind energy conversion systems. Therefore, fault-tolerant systems can make a valuable contribution. This paper presents a fault-tolerant permanent-magnet synchronous generator (PMSG) drive employing new direct control techniques. For postfault operation, a direct power control (DPC) of a four-switch three-phase converter and a direct torque control of a three-switch three-phase rectifier are proposed. Switching tables are theoretically formulated for both control techniques. Two alternative tables are obtained for the DPC of the grid-side converter, permitting the choice between implementation simplicity and enhanced performance. All necessary reconfigurations to handle open-circuit faults are triggered by a reliable fault diagnostic method, which has a low computational demand, without requiring additional measurements. Experimental results are presented, demonstrating the feasibility of the proposed fault-tolerant PMSG drive.