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Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Stability Methods for Regulated Loads

Abstract

dc:description.abstract

Power electronic circuits often regulate load power and present a constant power profile to the utility or other electrical source. These constant power loads (CPLs) therefore exhibit a negative incremental input impedance and pose stability challenges when present in either dc or ac systems. This thesis presents CPL design techniques to mitigate these issues, as well as tools to determine in which applications CPL instabilities may occur. For stability analysis of a dc distribution system, an equivalent circuit model for limited-bandwidth CPLs is presented. This model quantifies the intrinsic damping properties of regulated converters and how they relate to the control bandwidth. A control architecture based on this equivalent circuit model is then analyzed. The control scheme limits the destabilizing impact of CPL operation by adding a lossless internal damping component and shaping the effective input impedance to resemble that of a CPL operating under reduced control bandwidth. An intermediate, internal energy buffer is used to support high-bandwidth output load regulation while enabling the programmable or selectable input impedance on desired time scales. The effectiveness of this strategy on system stability is shown using a stability analysis and experimental results. In addition, for a collection of loads on a dc distribution system, a participation factor analysis is presented which can help identify likely sources of instability. Finally, an ac application is presented in which an adaptation of the previously discussed control architecture can be used to promote stable interaction between ac CPLs implementing power factor correction and an ac source.

Degree

thesis:*
Name thesis:degree_name
Doctoral
Department dc:contributor.department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Grantor dc:publisher
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Year dc:date.issued
2021

Author and committee

dc:creator, dc:contributor.*
Author dc:creator
  • Gutierrez, Manuel
Advisor dc:contributor.advisor
  • Leeb, Steven B.

Rights

dc:rights
Statement dc:rights
  • In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted
  • Copyright MIT

Identifiers

dc:identifier.*
Handle dc:identifier.uri
https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/140361
OAI identifier oai:identifier
oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/140361

Chain of custody

source
Harvested from
MIT
Base URL
dspace.mit.edu/oai/request
Last updated
2026-07-22
Source record
OAI-PMH GetRecord
related terms
citation

Gutierrez, Manuel. Stability Methods for Regulated Loads. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2021. https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/140361