Search

Modern power applications have grown leaps and bounds in various applications spanning from domestic to commercial and industrial applications. The operation of these applications is maintained in general by the employment of feedback-based control architectures in place oriented toward delivering certain control objectives. The reliable operation of such applications is extremely dependent on the quality of feedback in the control architectures. Sensors play a crucial role in providing feedback of different quantities as per the requirement of the control architecture. Any loss in the quality of sensing greatly hinders the feedback quality and, therefore, the control performance of the system. Sensors in general can be vulnerable and might be prone to malfunctions or faults. In such situations of sensor malfunctions, it is highly necessary to preserve the system performance to ensure seamless operation. Fault tolerant control (FTC) strategies are found to be very effective in maintaining the system’s performance even in the presence of sensor faults. This work is, therefore, oriented toward presenting an extensive review and bringing together various FTC approaches reported in the literature for handling sensor faults in the context of modern power applications. Different types of sensor fault scenarios as well as different categories of FTC techniques are also discussed. The modern power applications considered as a part of this work are motor drives, renewable energy and storage systems, and microgrids. This work tries to summarize these contributions effectively and also discusses the possible scope of future research in these lines.

Concern has been raised recently by the increasing usage of diesel engines in both the automotive and industrial sectors. Due of the strict emission regulations, it will be challenging to economically manage exhaust using solely conventional methods. Alternative methods such as electric discharge-based diesel engine exhaust (DEE) treatment have become more popular; however, because this technology requires high voltage, its application in automobiles is restricted. In this study, a dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) reactor with a spike electrode arrangement is suggested for the treatment of diesel exhaust. NOX removal from 5-kVA DEE is evaluated using two types of symmetrical and asymmetrical spike electrode-based DBD reactors in comparison to plane electrode-based DBD. It has been found that while using 50-Hz ac at a lower applied voltage, a spike-configured electrode can inject more power than a plane electrode. As a result, nitric oxides are removed more effectively at lower applied voltages. This research will contribute to the implementation of non-thermal plasma (NTP)-based exhaust treatment in the automotive industry. When compared to other types of electrodes at lower applied voltages, the asymmetrical spike electrode-based DBD with a 10-mm spacing between spikes demonstrated superior NO elimination. Simulation study for electric field of each electrode configuration was conducted using COMSOL Multiphysics and it was in line with the experimental results. The experiments were conducted at 5 L/min keeping the load on the diesel engine at 80%.

Low voltage DC (LVDC) microgrids have recently gained popularity. In applications such as rural electrification, data center power systems, and satellite microgrids stand-alone LVDC microgrids have proven to be extremely beneficial. In the case of standalone LVDC microgrids, voltage control and energy management are crucial. In such standalone and safety-critical systems, sensor faults are especially important to address. Therefore, we present a hybrid sensor fault tolerant control (HSFTC) approach with redundancy features at the software and hardware levels. To address voltage sensor failures, an analytical redundancy component employs a sliding mode observer in conjunction with adaptive passivity-based control. To overcome battery current sensor failures, a double modular hardware redundancy component is included. Both MATLAB simulations and hardware experiments on the microgrid testbed are used to verify the performance of this HSFTC in a variety of scenarios involving sensor malfunctions and load disturbances. We observe that the suggested HSFTC can address sensor faults and load disturbances simultaneously. The effectiveness of our control approach in dealing with sensor malfunctions is evaluated in comparison to reference control strategies.