A sliding-mode voltage regulator for salient pole synchronous generator

This paper presents a sliding-mode control strategy for voltage regulation of synchronous generators connected to the power grid that combines sliding mode and linear control laws. This hybrid control scheme contributes preventing system instability, by suppressing the low-frequency oscillations arising from power grid fault disturbances. In addition, this strategy does not require the estimation of system parameters. This control strategy was designed to be introduced easily in a conventional automatic voltage regulator (AVR) algorithm. Experimental results obtained with a laboratory test set-up, consisting of the synchronous generator connected to the grid and subjected to severe power transients, was employed to validate the proposed control approach. Comparisons with a conventional as well as with two hybrid control schemes demonstrate the advantages of the proposed control strategy.