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As a powerful optimization algorithm, Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) has been widely applied to power systems researches. However, because of the unavoidable evaluation time for tentative solutions, most of these applications have been implemented offline. Recently, PSO was realized in real time to identify parameters of a PMSM control systems. In this paper, the Real-Time PSO (RT-PSO) algorithm was applied to current harmonic cancellation problem. RT-PSO is used to identify the fundamental current from a measured current that contains harmonics. The identified fundamental current is then used as a reference current for current harmonics cancellation. Simulation studies show that the RT-PSO algorithm can provide accurate estimation of the reference current for harmonics cancellation control using active power filters. As a capable online optimization algorithm, RT-PSO can be extensively applied to many optimization and control problems.

A new control scheme is proposed to utilize the active front-end of a high performance adjustable speed drives (ASD) to solve power quality problems caused by conventional diode/thyristor drives. Under the proposed control scheme, a fully controlled active front-end ASD acts as a local power quality conditioner in order to compensate harmonic currents as well as reactive power generated by other neighboring drives. In this way, power quality problems caused by multiple motor drives can be solved locally. The proposed solution can fully utilize the capability of the active front-end of ASDs and does not require vast replacement of conventional diode/thyristor ASD sets. Therefore, it can provide flexible and economical solutions for power quality improvement compared to other custom power devices. Simulation results verify the performance of the proposed active front-end configuration and control schemes.