Computerised on-line voltage controller for an alternator

Abstract

Automatic voltage regu1ator (AVR) is nonna11y employed with an alternator in order to control the excitation of the alternator so that its tenninaI voltage remain within specified limit 'This thesis descn"bes the development of an on-line voltage regulator for a 9 KV A laboratory alternator. The regulator has been implemented using a 80286 processor based personal computer. Necessary interfaces required to establish the conununication between the computer and the alternator have been developed. In order to avoid the requirement of heavy computational1ime for the currently used complex algorithm based on self tuned or adaptive control theory, a rule based algorithm has been formulated and fina11yimplemented for the purpose of instantaneous control. The performance of the regu1ator was tested for a range of tests involving application and withdrawal of loads. Since the speed of data acquisitaion, transmission and processing . of the control algorithm are very fast, excellent performance of the regulator during transients has been achieved.