Grid-Connected, Data-Driven Inverter Control, Theory to Hardware

Abstract: Grid-connected inverter control is challenging to implement due to the difficulty of obtaining and maintaining an accurate grid model. Direct Data-Driven Predictive Control provides a model-free alternative to traditional model-based control methods. This paper describes how the recently-proposed Transient Predictive Control (TPC) can be used for real-world, plug-and-play inverter control. The following hypotheses were tested: 1) The TPC algorithm can be run online using standard hardware, and 2) TPC, which is derived using Linear Time-Invariant assumptions, is effective for grid-connected inverter control, which is a nonlinear and time-varying system. Experiments conducted on a two-converter benchtop setup and at the CoSES Laboratory on a 25 kVA converter connected to the Munich grid support these hypotheses.