Since the permeant magnet synchronous generator (PMSG) has many applications in particular safety-critical applications, enhancing PMSG availability has become essential. An effective tool for enhancing PMSG availability and reliability is continuous monitoring and diagnosis of the machine. Therefore, designing a robust fault diagnosis (FD) and fault tolerant system (FTS) of PMSG is essential for such applications. This paper describes an FD method that monitors online stator winding partial inter-turn faults in PMSGs. The fault appears in the direct and quadrature (dq)-frame equations of the machine. The extended Kalman filter (EKF) and unscented Kalman filter (UKF) were used to detect the percentage and the place of the fault. The proposed techniques have been simulated for different fault scenarios using Matlab^®/Simulink^®. The results of the EKF estimation responses simulation were validated with the practical implementation results of tests that were performed with a prototype PMSG used in the Arab Academy For Science and Technology (AAST) machine lab. The results showed impressive responses with different operating conditions when exposed to different fault states to prevent the development of complete failure.

Power line communication (PLC) is increasingly emerging as an important communication technology for the smart-grid environment. As PLC systems use the existing infrastructure, they are always exposed to conducted electromagnetic interference (EMI) from switching mode power converters, which need to be tightly controlled to meet EMC regulations and to ensure the proper operation of the PLC system. For this purpose, spread-spectrum modulation (SSM) techniques are widely adopted to decrease the amplitude of the generated EMI from the power converters so as to comply with EMC regulations. In this paper, the influence of a spread-spectrum-modulated SiC-based buck converter on the G3-PLC channel performance is described in terms of channel capacity reduction using the Shannon–Hartley equation. The experimental setup was implemented to emulate a specific coupling path between the power and communication circuits and the channel capacity reduction was evaluated by the Shannon–Hartley equation in several operating scenarios and compared with the measured frame error rate. Based on the obtained results, SSM provides the EMI spectral peak amplitude reduction required to pass the electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) tests, but results in increased EMI-induced channel capacity degradation and increased transmission error rate in PLC systems.

The impact of spread-spectrum techniques used to mitigate EMI from power converters on Power Line Communication (PLC) systems is studied in this paper. A buck converter, utilizing a Random Carrier Frequency Modulation with Fixed Duty cycle (RCFMFD) based control is considered as a source of conducted EMI and a narrowband G3-PLC as the victim. It is shown that, although considered to be an EMI mitigating technique, the spread spectrum technique has a detrimental effect on the communication channel, which can be explained in the framework of Shannon’s information theory. Conventional emission evaluation methods are therefore incompatible with modern day’s technology.

Model Predictive Control (MPC) is one of the most suitable controllers for industrial applications, especially for constrained systems. However, it requires high computational burden, which is considered as the main drawback. Proportional Integral Derivative (PID) controller is the most widely used controller in particular for Single Input Single Output (SISO) system and for cascaded control loops, but it is difficult to be tuned especially for a constrained system. Therefore, a combination of PID and MPC is addressed. The basic concept of the proposed technique concentrates on the tuning of PID controller gains based on the MPC performance for the closed loop system considering constraints, which will be applied in a control system consisting of two hierarchical levels structure. The algorithm is applied to control the speed of Permanent Magnet Synchronous Motor (PMSM), which is considered as Multi Input Multi Output (MIMO) system.

Random Pulse Width Modulation (RPWM) allows controlling the switching signal of power converters in order to reduce the harmonic peaks by spreading the noise spectrum. Currently, many manufacturers of power converters are deploying this modulation scheme in order to comply with Electromagnetic Compatibility (EMC) test requirements. However, when the converters coexist with Power Line Communication (PLC) systems, such as in Smart Grid (SG) applications, resorting to RPWM needs further investigations since it potentially affects the communication channel by increasing the bit error rate. This possible detrimental effect is investigated in this work, by considering a PLC system for automatic meter reading (AMR) implemented in a SG application. To this end, the model of a complete PLC system is implemented in SIMULINK, and Quadrature Phase Shift Keying (QPSK) modulation is used to model the PLC modems in the communication channel. Results show that, even if the deployment of RPWM techniques may lead to an appreciable reduction/spreading of the peaks in the noise spectrum, it may also lead to an increase of the bit error rate on the PLC system.

Power line communication (PLC), which is often used in advanced metering infrastructure (AMI), may be disturbed by adjacent high-power converters. Due to the inherent features of this type of communication, classic methods of improving communication reliability (filtration and circuit separation) cannot be fully applied. Information coding (modulation) methods are used in PLC to increase the data transfer rate and improve noise immunity. Random modulations (RanM) are used in converters to lower emission levels. Therefore, we investigate how the converters’ modulation parameters and coding methods may affect PLC communication reliability in the paper. To this end, we employ an experimental approach. In particular, the analysis of the influence of deterministic modulation (DetM) and (RanM) on the performance of narrowband G3-PLC is shown. We emulated an actual situation where EMI generated by the DC/DC converter disturbed the PLC transmission. The experimental results show the transmission error rates for different operating scenarios. The natural (experimental) system results, due to the complexity of the disturbing signals, differ from the literature data obtained by simulation for normalized signals.