Optimal $\mathcal {H}_{\infty }$ Control Design for MMC-Based HVDC Links

The modular multilevel converter (MMC) has emerged as the preferred choice for voltage source converter (VSC)-based high voltage direct current (HVDC) systems due to its low losses, low harmonic distortion, modularity, and redundancy. These advantages come at the expense of a complex control system with the strong coupling among its control variables, which complicates the design procedure of both its individual control loops and the DC link controllers. In fact, the performance improvement of a control loop could lead to degraded performance of other loops. Hence, to deal with such a complex dynamic system, this article suggests adopting multivariable H optimal control techniques in order to ensure stability and optimized performance of a VSC-HVDC link. First, a full-order, centralized multi-input-multi-output (MIMO) controller is derived based on H optimization and used as a benchmark for the system performance level. Then, a fixed-structure, decentralized MIMO controller is synthesized to make a compromise between the optimal performance and feasibility of practical implementation. Finally, simulations are conducted to evaluate and compare the performance and robustness degradation due to the migration from a high-order, centralized controller towards a low-order, decentralized controller.