Experimental Validation of a Flatness-based Control for a Voltage Source Converter

3-phase voltage source converters (VSC) have a number of applications including power flow control in transmission lines. Traditional approaches to VSC control are often based on a linear approximate model. This paper presents a flatness-based control for an averaged nonlinear model of a 3-phase Pulse Width Modulated (PWM) VSC. The control objective is to track q-axis (reactive) current and DC voltage; this objective is typical of D-STATCOM systems. The main contribution of this paper is the experimental validation of the flatness-based control and its comparison with an industry- standard cascade PI structure.