Improving the energy performance of an ac electric locomotive using a new compensator control structure

Abstract

A device for improving the power factor for ac electric locomotives that are based on an adjustable passive reactive-power compensator is described. This compensator configuration allows an increase in the power factor of an electric locomotive in all its operating modes. The control of the compensator unit is based on the method of extremal voltage control at the output of an autonomous voltage inverter (AVI). The voltage is chosen on the basis of the numerical differentiation of the dependence of the power factor on the AVI voltage. The mathematical simulation of the operation of the compensator with an extremal regulator, which was performed in the MATLAB package, showed that the proposed device is highly efficient.