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Shipboard Voltage Source Inverter Control System to Meet MIL-STD-1399-300 Limits for Pulsed Power Loads

Shipboard Voltage Source Inverter Control System to Meet MIL-STD-1399-300 Limits for Pulsed Power Loads

By LT Danial DeToma, USN

As the Navy, Marine Corps, and DoD continue to research and deploy advanced radars, sonars, railguns, and directed energy weapons, the demand for electrical energy will continue to increase. These weapons and sensors can require repetitive power inputs for a few seconds at a time. As a radar changes its search pattern and transmits power, for example, the power consumed will pulse. Similarly, a laser may generate a repetitive pulse, that if left uncontrolled, could result in unacceptable voltage and frequency transients on the power source. The MIL-STD-1399-300 revised in 2018 has new requirements for pulsed loads.

This research seeks to minimize the effect of pulsed loads on a microgrid, whether that microgrid is a Marine Forward Operating Base (FOB) or the shipboard power distribution system, by designing a controller for a three-phase voltage source inverter (VSI) that limits the effect of pulses on the power source. In a shipboard environment or FOB, traditional generators are smaller than those on a utility-scale power grid and are therefore more susceptible to pulsed loads. Increasingly FOBs are making use of solar, wind, and other renewables and storing that energy in supercapacitors or batteries, which can be utilized by the VSI. 

The proposed control system supplies the instantaneous power to pulsed loads from the energy storage system and limits the generator’s real power output deviation from average, as required by MIL-STD-1399-300. Thus, the generator can slowly adjust to more loading within its mechanical limitations. Additionally, the current waveform from the VSI can be controlled to correct the grid power factor to unity, thus reducing the overall size of a generator. A physics-based model has been developed to simulate the functionality of the controller and compare the generator’s output power to the limits in MIL-STD-1399-300. A hardware implementation of a three-phase grid and VSI is currently under development to validate the model.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

LT Danial DeToma, USN, is a student of the Electrical Engineering Department at the Naval Postgraduate School. Contact Dr. Giovanna Oriti at goriti@nps.edu for more information about this research.

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