Simulation and experimentation of a voltage source active filter compensating current harmonics and power factor

This paper describes a simple control method of voltage source active filters which compensate simultaneously the harmonics and reactive power absorbed by nonlinear loads. The calculation of active filter current references is based on the principle that the active component of load currents can be estimated by a PI regulator which controls the capacitor voltage of the active filter. By choosing appropriate parameters for the PI regulator, satisfactory static and dynamic performances can be obtained. The theoretical study is firstly confirmed by numerical simulation of a three-phase active filter-rectifier system and then by experimentation through a single-phase low-power model