Power converter unit including a rectifier and an active power filter

1. A power converter unit comprising:

a rectifier arranged to receive AC input from an AC power source;

an active power filter connected as a shunt between the AC input and the rectifier, wherein the active power filter comprises a control algorithm to cause removal of current harmonic frequencies from the AC input but not of the current fundamental frequency of the AC input;

means for transforming sensed AC input currents to a synchronous reference frame;

means for filtering out a fundamental harmonic from a sensed load current and providing only harmonics of the fundamental at an output;

adaptive current control means for providing a high control loop gain at the frequency of the harmonics from the output of the means for filtering regardless of AC power source fundamental frequency; and

means for modulating the output of the adaptive current control means.

2. The power converter unit of claim 1 where the rectifier is arranged to receive AC input from a fixed or variable frequency AC power source.

3. The power converter unit of claim 1 , wherein the rectifier comprises a 3-phase diode bridge.

4. The power converter unit of claim 1 , wherein the active power filter comprises a plurality of semiconductor switches and a storage element.

5. The power converter unit of claim 1 , wherein the adaptive current control includes adaptive band-pass filters implemented using a Schur-Lattice LLR structure.

6. The power converter unit of claim 1 , wherein the control algorithm further comprises means for synchronising the active power filter with the AC power source.

7. The power converter unit of claim 6 , wherein the means for synchronising is an algorithm using Adaptive Lattice Synchronous Reference Frame Phase Locked Loop (ALSRF-PLL) synchronisation.

8. The power converter unit of claim 7 , wherein the algorithm comprises

means for transforming an AC voltage vector of the AC input to a synchronous reference phase;

a regulator and an integrator connected in series to provide an input to the means for transforming;

a plurality of adaptive band-stop filters arranged to reject undesired variable frequency harmonic content from the sensed AC input voltage, regardless of AC power source fundamental frequency.

9. The power converter unit of claim 8 , wherein the band-stop filters are implemented using a Schur-Lattice IIR structure.

10. The power converter unit of claim 9 , wherein the band-stop filters centre frequencies are adapted in real-time to track AC power source frequency variations using a Gradient Lattice Algorithm.