• Journal of Power Electronics
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• 제19권3호
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• pp.702-713
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• 2019

Multilevel Inverters (MLIs) are widely used in medium voltage applications due to their various advantages. In addition, there are numerous types of MLIs for such applications. However, the diode-less 3-level (3L) T-type Neutral Point Clamped (NPC) MLI is the most advantageous due to its low conduction losses and high potential efficiency. The power circuit of a 3L T-type NPC is derived by the conventional two level inverter by a slight modification. In order to explore the MLI performance for various Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) schemes, this paper examines the operation of a 3L (five level line to line) T-type NPC MLI for various types of Multi-Carriers Pulse Width Modulation (MCPWM) schemes. These PWM schemes are compared in terms of their voltage profile, total harmonic distortion (THD) and conduction losses. In addition, a 3L T-type NPC MLI is also compared with the conventional NPC in terms of number of switches, clamping diodes, main diodes and capacitors. Moreover, the capacitor-balancing problem is also investigated using the Neutral Point Fluctuation (NPF) method with all of the MCPWM schemes. A 1kW 3L T-type NPC MLI is simulated in MATLAB/Simulink and implemented experimentally and its performance is tested with a 1HP induction motor. The results indicate that the 3L T-type NPC MLI has better performance than conventional NPC MLIs.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• 제10권4호
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• pp.374-381
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• 2010

Typical power electronic converters employ only pulse width modulation (PWM) to generate specific switching patterns. In this paper, a novel control strategy combining both pulse-width and amplitude modulation strategies (PWAM) has been proposed for power converters. The Pulse Amplitude Modulation (PAM), used in communication systems, has been applied to power electronic converters. This increases the degrees of freedom in eliminating or mitigating harmonics when compared to the conventional PWM strategies. The role of PAM in the novel PWAM strategy is based on the control of the converter's dc sources values. Software implementation of the conventional PWM and the PWAM control strategies has been applied to a five-level inverter for mitigating selective harmonics. Results show the superiority of the proposed strategy from the THD point of view along with a reduction in the inverter power dissipation.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• 제19권5호
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• pp.1162-1170
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• 2019

Finite-control-set model predictive control (FCS-MPC) is a promising control scheme for two-level voltage-source inverters (TL-VSIs). However, two main issues arise in the classical FCS-MPC method: an exponentially-increasing computational time and a low steady-state performance. To solve these two issues, a novel FCS-MPC method has been proposed for n-phase TL-VSIs in this paper. The basic idea of the proposed method is to carry out the FCS-MPC scheme of TL-VSIs for one leg by one leg, like a "pipeline". Based on this idea, the calculations are reduced from exponential time to linear time and its current waveforms are improved by applying more switching states per sampling period. The cases of three-phase and five-phase TL-VSIs were tested to verify the effectiveness of proposed method.

• Journal of Electrical Engineering and Technology
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• 제10권6호
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• pp.2277-2287
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• 2015

In recent times, multilevel inverters are given high priority in many large industrial drive applications. However, the reliability of multilevel inverters are mainly affected by the failure of power electronic switches. In this paper, open-switch and short-switch failure of multilevel inverters and its identification using a high performance diagnostic system is discussed. Experimental and simulation studies were carried out on five level cascaded H-Bridge multilevel inverter and its output voltage waveforms were analyzed at different switch fault cases and at different modulation index values. Salient frequency domain features of the output voltage signal were extracted using the discrete wavelet transform multi resolution signal decomposition technique. Real time application of the proposed fault diagnostic system was implemented through the LabVIEW software. Artificial neural network was trained offline using the Matlab software and the resultant network parameters were transferred to LabVIEW real time system. In the proposed system, it is possible to precisely identify the individual faulty switch (may be due to open-switch (or) short-switch failure) of multilevel inverters.

• Journal of Electrical Engineering and Technology
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• 제8권2호
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• pp.316-325
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• 2013

Multilevel inverters produce a staircase output voltage from DC voltage sources. Requiring great number of semiconductor switches is main disadvantage of multilevel inverters. The multilevel inverters can be divided in two groups: symmetric and asymmetric converters. The asymmetric multilevel inverters provide a large number of output steps without increasing the number of DC voltage sources and components. In this paper, a novel topology for multilevel converters is proposed using cascaded sub-multilevel Cells. This sub-multilevel converters can produce five levels of voltage. Four algorithms for determining the DC voltage sources magnitudes have been presented. Finally, in order to verify the theoretical issues, simulation is presented.

• 전력전자학회:학술대회논문집
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• 전력전자학회 2013년도 전력전자학술대회 논문집
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• pp.433-434
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• 2013

본 논문에서는 절연타입의 Half-bridge 구조를 이용하여 입력단을 구성하고 출력단에 5레벨의 출력전압을 생성할 수 있는 새로운 구조의 멀티레벨 PWM 인버터를 제안한다. 기존의 Cascaded H-bridge 멀티레벨 인버터는 두 대의 H-Bridge 인버터 모듈을 직렬 결합하여 5레벨의 출력전압을 생성하는 방식이며, 제안하는 방식은 기존 멀티레벨 인버터의 기본 모듈인 H-bridge의 전원을 절연타입의 Half-bridge 구조를 이용하여 구성하고 스위칭 소자 1개와 다이오드 1개를 추가한 구조이다. 동일한 5레벨의 출력전압 생성 시 기존 방식은 2차 측에 8개의 스위칭 소자가 사용되는 반면 제안된 방식은 5개의 스위칭 소자와 1개의 다이오드가 사용되기 때문에 스위칭 손실 및 부피를 줄일 수 있으며 입력단과 출력단 사이의 절연으로 인한 시스템의 안정성을 확보할 수 있다. PSIM 기반의 컴퓨터 시뮬레이션을 통해 제안된 멀티레벨 인버터의 타당성을 검증한다.

• 전력전자학회:학술대회논문집
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• 전력전자학회 2016년도 추계학술대회 논문집
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• pp.214-215
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• 2016

본 논문에서는 5-레벨 H-브리지 인버터에서 DC 링크 전압변화로 인하여 야기되는 출력전류 왜곡을 보상하는 기법에 대하여 연구하였다. 제안된 방식에서는 인버터로 모터를 구동할 때 일반적으로 사용되는 모터 상전류 정보를 이용하여 보상 알고리즘을 구성하였다. 또한 제안된 보상 기법은 저속운전에서 전류왜곡을 줄이고 고속운전에서 과변조 영역을 확장하기 위하여 3차 고조파를 주입하는 방식과 함께 사용되었다. 시뮬레이션 테스트 결과, 제안된 간단한 보상기법을 이용하여 전류왜곡이 상당히 줄어드는 것이 확인되었다.

• 전력전자학회논문지
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• 제27권1호
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• pp.56-62
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• 2022

In this paper, the effect of pulse width modulation methods on thermal loadings and power losses of single-phase five-level NPC inverters for photovoltaic systems are analyzed. The pulse width modulation methods affect the power losses of the NPC inverters and thus lead to different thermal loadings of NPC inverters. To identify the reliability-critical power device with respect to thermal stress, the thermal loadings of I- and T-type NPC inverters are analyzed by applying the unipolar pulse modulation method. Then, the effect of the discontinuous pulse width modulation method on power losses and thermal loadings of power devices of I- and T-type NPC inverters are analyzed. Finally, the operation of NPC inverters applying the discontinuous pulse modulation method is confirmed by experiments. The results show that the discontinuous pulse modulation method is able to improve the reliability of NPC inverters by reducing thermal loadings of reliability-critical power devices and it is more effective for T-type NPC inverters than I-type NPC inverters.