An Efficient Sub-Cycle Alternative to Instantaneous Power Metrics

In this article, we discuss the relationship between subcycle and instantaneous power metrics in polyphase ac systems. While both approaches have very low computational cost, which makes them suitable for real-time control of industrial processes, the two-sample subcycle scheme offers several distinct advantages over the purely-instantaneous approach. In particular, we show that: a) the level of steady-state fluctuation of subcycle power metrics that use only two time-domain samples is significantly lower than that of purely-instantaneous metrics, and b) the subcycle scheme generates several additional power metrics, which can be used to detect onset of faults, and accurately determine their duration. We illustrate our points using both synthetic and (real-life) industrial examples. In addition, we examine the connection between the two-sample subcycle scheme and other near-instantaneous approaches, based on derivatives of currents and voltages. We again observe a significantly lower numerical sensitivity for the two-sample subcycle quantities. Furthermore, two-sample quantities have a unique feature that they can naturally be extended to more samples, with concomitant reduction in fluctuations, better accuracy and with only moderate increase in computational cost. We posit that the subcycle approach has promise in detection, control, and classification applications.