Phantom load: a simulator of non-periodic currents

A great variety of features of nonperiodic currents make experimental study on their properties, identification and compensation confined to only particular cases dependent on the loads used. To overcome this obstacle, a device can be developed that, supplied from a three-phase power grid, would have the line currents controlled, at the operator´s discretion, by a computer. This device is referred to as a phantom load in the paper. The phantom load described is built of two three-phase current inverters, a measurement and digital signal processing unit for the vector control of the inverters, a PC for generating the required waveform of the phantom load line currents and for its control, as well as a synchronization unit. The synchronization unit provides the synchronization of the current waveform generated in the computer with the supply voltage of the supply power grid of 60 Hz frequency. The paper discusses the operational principle of such a device