Reconfigurable control and converter topology for wind energy conversion systems with switch failure fault tolerance capability

This paper deals with reconfigurable control associated with switch failure fault tolerant converter topology for Wind Energy Conversion Systems (WECS). A typical WECS with Doubly Fed Induction Generator (DFIG) is concerned. A converter topology without any redundancy is studied. This fault tolerant topology becomes a ldquofive-legrdquo structure after switch failure detection and converter reconfiguration. Consequently, the same control strategy can no more be applied after fault occurrence and a ldquofive-legrdquo control strategy is proposed. The validation of the reconfigurable digital controller for the studied WECS with DFIG topology has been performed using a Hardware-in-the-Loop (HIL) reconfigurable platform including a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) chip. ldquoFPGA in the looprdquo results are presented to show simultaneously the viability of the studied converter topology and of the reconfigurable control.