A Nonlinear Discrete-Time Backstepping Model Predictive Controller Design for Active Arc Suppression Coils in Compensated Power Systems to Mitigate Powerline Bushfire Hazards

This article proposes a backstepping model predictive control scheme for active arc suppression coils used in compensated power systems to minimize the severity of fault characteristics and mitigate powerline bushfire hazards. Since the mitigation of powerline bushfire hazards relies on limiting both fault current and faulty phase voltage through the proper regulation of the neutral current and voltage, respectively; it is important to control these properties to achieve the desired control performance. Therefore, the second-order model of active arc suppression coils incorporating the dynamics of neutral voltage and current is used in this work to design the backstepping model predictive controller. In the proposed scheme, the model predictive controller forms a stabilizing law for the first subsystem of the second-order dynamic model, which is then used to implement a backstepping variable to devise the proposed integrated controller. The backstepping controller, which contains the model predictive portion is formed by satisfying the negative definiteness of a candidate Lyapunov function to inherently affirm its stability. In this way, the integrated backstepping model predictive controller achieves the desired fault compensation characteristic by directly regulating neutral current through the compensation inverter embedded with the active arc suppression coil for compensating the residual current. The validation of the proposed scheme is carried out using the simulation in MATLAB/Simulink and OPAL-RT real-time platforms including the comparison with an integral sliding mode controller.