• Journal of Power Electronics
• /
• 제19권1호
• /
• pp.68-78
• /
• 2019

The emergence of high voltage conversion applications has resulted in a trend of using semiconductor device series associations. Series associations allow for operation at blocking voltages, which are higher than the nominal voltage for each of the semiconductor devices. The main challenge with these topologies is finding a way to guarantee the voltage balance between devices in both blocking and switching transients. Most of the methods that have been proposed to mitigate static and dynamic voltage unbalances result in increased losses within the device. This paper introduces a new series stack topology, where the voltage unbalances are reduced. This in turn, mitigates the switching losses. The proposed topology consists of a circuit that ensures the soft switching of each device, and one auxiliary circuit that allows for switching energy recovery. The principle for the topology operation is presented and experimental tests are performed for two modules. The topology performs excellently for switching transients on each of the devices. The voltage static unbalances were limited to 10%, while the activation/deactivation delay introduced by the lower module IGBT driver takes place in the dynamic unbalances. Thus, the switching losses are reduced by 40%, when compared to hard switching configurations.

• Journal of Electrical Engineering and Technology
• /
• 제13권5호
• /
• pp.1986-1995
• /
• 2018

In this paper, a novel neutral-point voltage balancing scheme for NPC three-level inverters using carrier-based sinusoidal pulse width modulation (SPWM) method is developed. The new modulation approach, based on the obtained expressions of zero sequence voltage in all six sectors, can significantly suppress the low-frequency voltage oscillation in the neutral point at high modulation index and achieve a fast voltage-balancing dynamic performance. The implementation of the proposed method is very simple. Another attractive feature is that the scheme can stably control any voltage difference between the two dc-link capacitors within a certain range without using any extra hardware. Furthermore, the presented scheme is also applicable to the single-phase NPC three-level inverter. It can maintain the neutral-point voltage balance at full modulation index and improve the voltage-balancing dynamic performance of the single-phase NPC three-level inverter. The performance of the proposed strategy and its benefits over other previous techniques are verified experimentally.

• Journal of Power Electronics
• /
• 제17권3호
• /
• pp.653-663
• /
• 2017

Multilevel active neutral-point-clamped (ANPC) converter combines the advantages of three-level ANPC converter and multilevel flying capacitor (FC) converter. However, multilevel ANPC converter often suffers from capacitor voltage balancing problems. In order to solve the capacitor voltage balancing problems for five-level ANPC converter, phase-shifted pulse width modulation (PS-PWM) is used, which generally provides natural voltage balancing ability. However, the natural voltage balancing ability depends on the load conditions and converter parameters. In order to eliminate voltage deviations under steady-state and dynamic conditions, the active voltage-balancing control (AVBC) methods of floating capacitors and dc-link capacitors based on PS-PWM are proposed. First, the neutral-point current is regulated to balance the neutral-point voltage by injecting zero-sequence voltage. After that, the duty cycles of the redundant switch combinations are adjusted to balance the floating-capacitor voltages by introducing moderating variables for each of the phases. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed AVBC methods is verified by experimental results.

• 한국수소및신에너지학회논문집
• /
• 제34권5호
• /
• pp.465-477
• /
• 2023

In proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC), proper thermal management of the stack and moisture generation by electrochemical reactions significantly affect fuel cell performance. In this study, the PEMFC dynamic characteristic model was developed through Simcenter AMESim, a development program. In addition, the developed model aims to understand the thermal resin balance of the stack and performance characteristics for input loads. The developed model applies the thermal management model of the stack and the moisture content and permeability model to simulate voltage loss and stack thermal behavior precisely. This study extended the C based AMESet (adaptive modeling environment submodeling tool) to simulate electrochemical reactions inside the stack. Fuel cell model of AMESet was liberalized with AMESim and then integrated with the balance of plant (BOP) model and analyzed. And It is intended to be used in component design through BOP analysis. The resistance loss of the stack and thermal behavior characteristics were predicted, and the impact of stack performance and efficiency was evaluated.

• ETRI Journal
• /
• 제33권3호
• /
• pp.407-414
• /
• 2011

In an effort to reduce energy consumption, research into adaptive power management in real-time systems has become widespread. In this paper, a novel dynamic voltage scaling scheme is proposed for multiprocessor systems. Based on the concept of the Nash bargaining solution, a processor's clock speed and supply voltage are dynamically adjusted to satisfy these conflicting performance metrics. In addition, the proposed algorithm is implemented to react adaptively to the current system conditions by using an adaptive online approach. Simulation results clearly indicate that the superior performance of the proposed scheme can strike the appropriate performance balance between contradictory requirements.

• Journal of Power Electronics
• /
• 제19권2호
• /
• pp.487-496
• /
• 2019

For a solid-state transformer (SST), some factors, such as signal delay, switching loss and differences in the system parameters, lead to unbalanced DC-link voltages among the cascaded H-bridges (CHB). With a control method implemented in the ${\alpha}{\beta}$ frame, the DC-link voltages are balanced, and the reactive power is equally distributed among all of the H-bridges. Based on the ${\alpha}{\beta}$ frame control, the system can achieve independent active current and reactive current control. In addition, the control method of the high-voltage stage is easy to implement without decoupling or a phase-locked loop. Furthermore, the method can eliminate additional current delays during transients and get the dynamic response rapidly without an imaginary current component. In order to carry out the controller design, the vector refactoring relations that are used to balance DC-link voltages are derived. Different strategies are discussed and simulated under the unbalanced load condition. Finally, a three-cell CHB rectifier is constructed to conduct further research, and the steady and transient experimental results verify the effectiveness and correctness of the proposed method.

• Journal of Power Electronics
• /
• 제14권6호
• /
• pp.1147-1156
• /
• 2014

This study proposes a quasi-fixed-frequency hysteresis current tracking control strategy for modular multilevel converters (MMCs) on the basis of voltage partition principle. First, by monitoring the grid voltage and the deviation between the output and reference currents, the output voltage is determined, thus prompting the output current to quickly and efficiently track the given current. Second, the voltages of the upper/lower capacitor of the arm and the voltages between the upper and lower arms are balanced by combining these arms with virtual loop mapping and arm voltage balance control, respectively. In particular, the proposed method is designed for any level and number of sub-modules. The validity of the proposed method is verified by simulations and experimental results of a five-level MMC prototype.

• Journal of Power Electronics
• /
• 제13권5호
• /
• pp.798-805
• /
• 2013

This paper presents the control and implementation of the dual-stator-winding induction generator for variable frequency AC (VFAC) generating system. This generator has two sets of stator windings embedded into the stator slots. The power winding produces the VFAC power to feed the loads, and the control winding is connected to the static excitation controller to control the generator for output voltage regulation with speed and load variations. On the basis of the idea of power balance, an instantaneous slip frequency control (ISFC) strategy using the information of both the output voltage and the output power is used in this system. A series of experiments is carried out on a 15 kW prototype for verification. Results show that the system has good static and dynamic performance in a wide speed range, which demonstrates that the ISFC strategy is suitable for this system.

• Journal of Power Electronics
• /
• 제14권6호
• /
• pp.1263-1271
• /
• 2014

A novel hysteresis PWM control strategy for synchronous buck converter is proposed. The proposed control strategy is based on ampere-second balance of the modulate capacitor, which not only offers faster transient response to meet the challenges of the power supply requirements of fast dynamic load changes, but also provides better stability and solves the compensation problem of error amplifier in the conversional voltage PWM control. Finally, the steady-state and dynamic operation of the control method is analyzed and verified by simulation and experimental results.

• Journal of Information Processing Systems
• /
• 제5권4호
• /
• pp.175-186
• /
• 2009

Power consumed by modern computer systems, particularly servers in data centers has almost reached an unacceptable level. However, their energy consumption is often not justifiable when their utilization is considered; that is, they tend to consume more energy than needed for their computing related jobs. Task scheduling in distributed computing systems (DCSs) can play a crucial role in increasing utilization; this will lead to the reduction in energy consumption. In this paper, we address the problem of scheduling precedence-constrained parallel applications in DCSs, and present two energy- conscious scheduling algorithms. Our scheduling algorithms adopt dynamic voltage and frequency scaling (DVFS) to minimize energy consumption. DVFS, as an efficient power management technology, has been increasingly integrated into many recent commodity processors. DVFS enables these processors to operate with different voltage supply levels at the expense of sacrificing clock frequencies. In the context of scheduling, this multiple voltage facility implies that there is a trade-off between the quality of schedules and energy consumption. Our algorithms effectively balance these two performance goals using a novel objective function and its variant, which take into account both goals; this claim is verified by the results obtained from our extensive comparative evaluation study.