Single-phase inverters with an output LC filter, can generate low distortion output voltages, which are suitable for uninterruptible power supply (UPS) systems. The UPS system provides emergency power in the case of utility power failure, requiring high reliability and clean power. The sensorless control method is actually a soft-sensing technique, that reduces system cost, measurement-related losses, and, especially important for UPS systems, enhances the system reliability. This paper proposes a load current sensorless finite control set model predictive control (FCS-MPC) scheme for a single-phase UPS inverter. A time varying observer is proposed, which offers the accurate estimation for individual components simultaneously in periodic load current signal, without subsequent complex calculations. Compared with another two typical sensorless methods (the low-pass filter and the Kalman filter), the proposed observer-based FCS-MPC strategy has smaller load current estimation error and lower output voltage distortion, under both linear and nonlinear loads. The theoretical analysis is verified through simulation and experiment. A single-phase inverter rapid control prototype (RCP) is set up with the Speedgoat real-time target machine, to confirm the effectiveness of the system.

With the further development of harmonic pollution in the power system, scientists have carried out research on harmonics. Among them, harmonic detection is the first step in harmonic research. In this paper, a harmonic detection method based on an observer is proposed. This method first uses the cascaded Second-Order Generalized Integration (SOGI) algorithm, which can filter the Direct Current (DC) component of the input signal to extract the fundamental frequency, and then uses a time-varying observer to extract the harmonics. This can be used to extract harmonics from a distorted online grid signal. The effectiveness of the proposed method was evaluated on the Speedgoat Rapid Control Prototype (RCP) platform. The results show that it can complete the convergence within 0.05 s, and the standard deviation after stability will not exceed 1%.

The existence of harmonics will cause the quality of power supply in a power system to decline and will affect the normal use of the power system. Therefore, it is important to suppress harmonics in the power system, and the first step of harmonic suppression is harmonic detection. To address this phenomenon, a fast harmonic detection method is proposed in this paper. It is based on the input observer theory to construct a state space model based on the original signal and harmonic components and estimate the state variables so as to achieve harmonic extraction. The characteristic roots are used to prove the convergence of the observer. In addition, the Second-Order Generalized Integration (SOGI) frequency estimation method is chosen to cascade with it so that harmonic detection can be accomplished with unknown frequencies. The simulation results prove that the proposed method can quickly converge and accurately extract each harmonic in the case of fluctuations in the fundamental amplitude, fundamental frequency and phase of the input signal, and the whole process can be completed in 0.02 s. The possible effects of white noise on harmonic extraction are also simulated, and the results prove that the accuracy of harmonic extraction can still be guaranteed in the presence of white noise. By using the Speedgoat real-time target machine built Rapid Control Prototype (RCP) as a testbed, experiments with similar simulation conditions were performed. The results show that the method has fast and accurate harmonic detection performance.