Virtual Synchronous Machine Patents: Who Leads, Where the Gaps Are 2026
- Filings peaked in 2025 at 141 after climbing from 31 in 2017, but the leading assignee's own filings have fallen 100% year-on-year, suggesting the initial claim rush has already passed.
- The top 5 assignees hold just 25.6% of the 664 records in scope, and the top 10 only 40.2% — this is a field with a visible leader but a long tail of single- and few-filing entrants.
- 92.6% of records sit in H02J power supply and grid systems, while AI-based control (G06N, 3.2%) and business/admin layers (G06Q, 2.7%) remain comparatively thin.
Filing growth compares 2021 (74 records) with 2024 (83) — a three-year span. 2024 is the most recent year we treat as complete: publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so 2025 onwards are still filling in and any growth rate that ends there would understate the field. Top-5 share is the combined record count of the five largest assignees divided by all 664 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What virtual synchronous machine control covers, and why filings cluster here
Virtual synchronous machine (VSM) control makes a power-electronic converter — in a wind turbine, battery storage inverter or grid-tied HVDC link — behave like a spinning synchronous generator, synthesising the inertia and damping that inverter-based resources otherwise lack. As grids add wind, solar and storage capacity and lose rotating mass, tuning the virtual inertia and damping parameters that stop frequency nadir events becomes a control-engineering problem with direct grid-code consequences, which is why most claims sit inside grid and converter control rather than in the underlying hardware. The dataset covers 664 published records filed between 2015 and mid-2026, drawn from state grid operators, wind OEMs, power research institutes and universities.
Filing activity rose steadily from 2017 through a 2025 peak of 141 records, though the most recent year is necessarily undercounted because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months. Reading the curve at face value would overstate how much fresh activity has actually stopped; reading it against assignee-level momentum, where several leading filers show sharp year-on-year declines, gives a more grounded picture of a field moving from initial claim-staking toward consolidation.
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Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 664 records: the year-by-year filing trend, and the IPC subclasses those records fall into.
Filings climbed to a 2025 peak, then flattened
Annual filings rose from 31 in 2017 to a peak of 141 in 2025, with the midpoint year (2022) at 58 — a trajectory that grew steadily rather than in a single burst, and one that is still rising through most of the window covered.
Grid-side control dominates; AI and commercial layers are thin
H02J (power supply and grid systems) appears in 92.6% of the 664 records, with motor/generator control (H02P, 11.0%) and power conversion (H02M, 10.4%) as the next-largest classes. Records touching AI-based computing (G06N, 3.2%) or business/admin data processing (G06Q, 2.7%) are comparatively rare, and since a record can carry several IPC codes these shares add up to more than 100%.
Shares are the percentage of the 664 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Virtual Synchronous Machine Control with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about virtual synchronous machine control and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaA representative filing and the most-cited records
Power Supporting Arrangement for a Power Grid Operated as a Virtual Synchronous Machine
A method controls a voltage source converter to act as a virtual synchronous machine: it obtains a measured power level, runs that measurement through a differential equation of the machine's angular velocity to derive a control contribution, sets the converter's phase angle from that contribution, and continuously monitors whether the converter's ability to act as a virtual synchronous machine remains sufficient, adjusting control if it is not.Filed by Hitachi Energy Ltd., published 2023-06-08 as US20230178996A1.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | WO2022036787A1 | 一种利用自适应虚拟参数提高风电并网一次调频性能的方法 | 92 |
| 2 | CN107465189A | 基于自适应旋转惯量的虚拟同步发电机控制方法 | 70 |
| 3 | CN111541274A | 一种基于虚拟同步发电机特性的孤岛微电网控制策略 | 49 |
| 4 | CN110277803A | 一种储能变流器的虚拟同步发电机控制方法及控制装置 | 49 |
| 5 | CN109586343A | 基于虚拟同步发电机控制的光伏-储能发电系统及方法 | 48 |
| 6 | CN106208159A | 基于虚拟同步发电机的柴储混合独立微网动态功率补偿方法 | 45 |
| 7 | US20190222026A1 | Reconfiguration of Inertia, Damping and Fault Ride-Through for a Virtual Synchronous Machine | 44 |
| 8 | CN112994098A | 一种基于前馈控制的并联虚拟同步机功率解耦方法 | 43 |
| 9 | CN105978042A | 用于虚拟同步机的故障保护和穿越控制系统及方法 | 43 |
| 10 | CN107591834A | 基于虚拟同步机的组串式无储能光伏发电系统控制方法 | 39 |
Citation counts favour older filings simply because they have had longer to accumulate them; treat this table as a map of influential prior art, not of current filing activity.
Patent titles are shown in the language they were filed in, not translated, so that each record stays verifiable against the original filing — a translated title will not match in Eureka or in any national register. Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Browse MCP servers →What the numbers say about the field's shape
Three signals worth reading together: where filings concentrate, where they sit technically, and where activity is actually filed geographically.
A leader, then a long tail
The single leading assignee holds 43 records outright, but the top 5 combined hold only 25.6% of the 664 records in scope and the top 10 only 40.2%. That gap between a visible leader and a wide field of smaller filers means freedom-to-operate work has to look well beyond the household names.
Grid-side control is the dominant claim territory
Nearly all records touch H02J, but a meaningful minority also reach into motor/generator control (H02P) and power conversion (H02M), showing that VSM claims routinely span control theory and the converter hardware it runs on rather than sitting in either alone.
Filing activity is heavily China-weighted
China accounts for the large majority of receiving-office filings, with the United States, EPO, India, WIPO and the UK each receiving a much smaller share. Strategies built only around US or EPO prior art will miss most of the documented activity.
Leading filers are pulling back
Several of the assignees with the deepest filing histories show sharp year-on-year drops in the latest year, including full pullbacks to zero. Combined with the 18-month publication lag, this points to a field where the initial land-grab is largely done rather than one still accelerating.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to virtual synchronous machine control, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where the claim space is still open
The ranked assignee list spans state grid operators, wind OEMs, power research institutes and universities, with concentration modest enough that smaller and newer filers still have room to establish position.
State-affiliated grid research leads by volume
The single largest filer sits well ahead of fifth place (24 records) and tenth place (15), reflecting a national grid operator's research arm rather than a single product team. Co-assignee pairings in the data show these entities frequently filing jointly with affiliated research institutes.
Wind OEMs anchor the converter-hardware side
Wind turbine manufacturers and converter suppliers appear consistently across the ranked list, with F03D classification touching 4.1% of records — a smaller but strategically important slice tied directly to grid-code compliance for wind assets.
Academic filers are numerous but individually small
Several universities appear in the ranked list, each typically contributing a handful of records rather than dozens, consistent with the long tail below the top 10's 40.2% combined share.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Guilin University of Technology | 1 | -91% |
| Southeast University | 1 | -50% |
| State Grid Corporation of China | 0 | -100% |
| Vestas Wind Systems A/S | 0 | — |
| North China Electric Power University | 0 | -100% |
| General Electric Renovables Espana SL | 0 | -100% |
| China Electric Power Research Institute Co., Ltd. | 0 | -100% |
| Hitachi Energy Ltd. | 0 | — |
Where to take this next
The trend and composition data point to a field consolidating around grid-side control, with adjacent branches still open.
Check freedom-to-operate against the long tail
With the top 10 holding only 40.2% of records, a clearance search limited to the largest filers will miss most of the field's documented prior art.
Run a clearance search in EurekaTrack the pullback among leading filers
Several top assignees show sharp year-on-year declines in the latest year; watching whether this reflects a genuine slowdown or the publication lag matters for timing a filing strategy.
Monitor assignee activity in EurekaExplore the under-claimed branches
AI-based parameter tuning and business-layer grid-services claims remain thin relative to core H02J grid control, leaving room for differentiated claims.
Explore white space in EurekaCommon questions about virtual synchronous machine control patents
It refers to converter control methods that make a power-electronic device, such as a wind turbine or battery storage inverter, emulate the inertial and damping response of a spinning synchronous generator. In patent classification terms, most of this activity falls under H02J (power supply and grid systems), with meaningful overlap into H02P (motor/generator control) and H02M (power conversion). Claims typically cover the control algorithm — how a differential equation of angular velocity or an adaptive inertia parameter is computed and applied to a converter's phase angle — rather than new physical hardware.
The dataset's ranked list of 100 assignees is led by a single filer with 43 records, well ahead of the fifth-ranked assignee at 24 and the tenth at 15. The leaders include state grid operators, power research institutes, wind turbine OEMs and universities, but concentration is modest: the top 5 combined hold only 25.6% of all 664 records and the top 10 hold 40.2%, so there is a long tail of smaller filers rather than a two- or three-way race.
Filings rose from 31 in 2017 to a peak of 141 in 2025, but several of the leading assignees show sharp year-on-year declines in the latest year, some down to zero. Because patent publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, the most recent year in any dataset understates real activity, so the apparent flattening should be read cautiously rather than as confirmed proof the field has peaked.
The large majority of records in this dataset were filed via the China receiving office (505 of 664), with the United States, European Patent Office, India, WIPO's PCT route and the UK each accounting for a much smaller share. A freedom-to-operate or competitive review limited to US or EPO filings alone would miss most of the documented patent activity in this technology.
Relative to the dominant H02J grid-control claims, subclasses tied to AI-based parameter estimation (G06N, 3.2% of records) and business or commercial data processing (G06Q, 2.7%) are comparatively thin. Areas such as AI-driven inertia and damping tuning, digital-twin-based frequency nadir prediction, and multi-converter interaction control appear less densely claimed than the core grid-side control space, making them worth a closer look before assuming the ground is already occupied.
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Disclaimer. This page is generated from Patsnap Eureka data drawn from a limited snapshot of global patent and scientific-literature records, and is provided for general information and reference only.
Patent data carries inherent limitations: recent filings (typically the most recent 18–24 months) are under-counted due to standard publication lag; counts may be reported at either a patent-family or a patent-record basis and are not always directly comparable; classification, applicant-name, and citation data may contain errors, duplicates, or omissions; and the underlying search query defines and constrains the scope shown. As a result, the analysis may be incomplete or inaccurate and may not reflect the full technology landscape.
Nothing on this page constitutes an exhaustive prior-art, novelty, freedom-to-operate, or validity search, nor does it constitute legal, financial, investment, or professional advice, and it should not be relied upon as such. Any patent, commercial, or strategic decision should be verified independently and reviewed with qualified patent, legal, and domain professionals. Patsnap makes no warranties, express or implied, as to the accuracy, completeness, or fitness for any particular purpose of the information presented.
Machine translation. Assignee and organisation names originally recorded in Chinese, Japanese or Korean have been rendered into English by an AI translation step so that the tables stay readable. These renderings are best-effort and may not match a company’s registered English name; the original name is what the underlying patent record carries, and it is what any Eureka query launched from this page uses.