Low Frequency Injection as a Method of Low-Level DC Microgrid Communication

Abstract

This paper provides a simple low-level unidirectional global communication method for DC microgrids, and requires no hardware modifications to the microgrid and interfacing power electronic converters. The underlying premise to this communication method is injecting low-frequency low-voltage sinusoidal components into the DC microgrid power lines. This method deviates from the common bit-level communication scheme by relating parameters and commands with certain frequency components. Communication structures are included as a basis for communication protocols, and a detection method is proposed for detecting the injected frequencies. The injection method, communication structure, and detection method are implemented on a live-scale DC microgrid.