High-Speed Tracking Controller for Stable Power Control in Discontinuous Charging Systems

Abstract

The global population is rapidly increasing, and the urban population is on an even faster trend; therefore, the population density is expected to rise. As the number of people in cities grows, the demand for high-rise buildings is anticipated to increase to address the problem of limited land resources. Therefore, efficient energy management using distributed resources has become increasingly important. Elevators are a vital vertical means of transportation in high-rise buildings, and reducing the weight of their components can lead to favorable conditions for energy utilization and increased speed. Therefore, this study presents an elevator system that supplies power inside an elevator car by eliminating the traveling cable and applying a small-capacity energy storage system (ESS). Additionally, we propose a charging algorithm suitable for the proposed system. Generally, batteries have sensitive electrical properties among the distributed energy resources (DERs). Therefore, controlling the stable maintenance of the transient state of the charging current—even when the DC power is unstable or the load changes rapidly in a system requiring fast charging—is crucial. Owing to the nature of the elevator system to be applied, discontinuous charging is frequent, and the active and efficient management of the battery state of charge (SOC) may be challenging. In addition, since it is necessary to be able to charge as much as possible during a short discontinuous charging time, a current control algorithm with a stable and high-speed response is required. The proposed transient high-speed tracking controller (THSTC) is a method for tracking the time of applying an inductor’s excitation voltage without pulse–width modulation (PWM) switching, which is less sensitive to the controller gain values and has fast responsiveness as well as stable transient response characteristics. The proposed method has good dynamic characteristics with a simple control structure without a complex design, which is useful for systems with repeated discontinuous charging. We validate the performance and effectiveness of the proposed controller through simulations and experiments. © 2023 by the authors.