• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Power Electronics
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• v.5 no.4
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• pp.386-393
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• 2000

This paper presents an improved ZVS partial series resonant DC/DC converter (PSRC) with low conduction losses, suitable for high power and high frequency applications. The proposed PSRC have advantages of zero-voltage-switching (ZVS) of main switches for entire load ranges low conduction losses of main switches by decreasing current stresses. Also the reduction of the effective duty cycle is not occurred during the resonant period of the main circuit because the auxiliary circuit of the proposed converter is placed out of the main power path. The auxiliary circuit is composed with passive components, which are an inductor, two capacitors, two diodes, and a saturable inductor. An improved ZVS PSRC has so much characteristics with respect to the overall system efficiency and to the reduction of current stresses. The operation principles of the proposed converter are explained in detail and the various simulated and experimental results show the validity of the proposed converter.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.445-455
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• 2018

A novel algorithm is proposed to regulate the neutral point potential in neutral point clamped three-level inverters. Oscillations of the neutral point potential and an unbalanced dc-link voltage cause distortions of the output voltage. Large capacitors, which make the application costly and bulky, are needed to eliminate oscillations. Thus, the algorithm proposed in this paper utilizes the finite-control-set model predictive control and the multistage medium vector to solve these issues. The proposed strategy consists of a two-step prediction and a cost function to evaluate the selected multistage medium vector. Unlike the virtual vector method, the multistage medium vector is a mixture of the virtual vector and the original vector. In addition, its amplitude is variable. The neutral point current generated by it can be used to adjust the neutral point potential. When compared with the virtual vector method, the multistage medium vector contributes to decreasing the regulation time when the modulation index is high. The vectors are rearranged to cope with the variable switching frequency of the model predictive control. Simulation and experimental results verify the validity of the proposed strategy.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.344-356
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• 2012

In recent years, multilevel technology has become an effective and practical solution in the field of moderate and high voltage applications. This paper discusses an APF with a three-level NPC inverter. Obviously, the application of such converter to APFs is hindered by the problem of the voltage unbalance of DC capacitors, which leads to system instability. This paper comprehensively analyzes the theoretical limitations of the neutral-point voltage balancing problem for tracking different harmonic currents utilizing current switching functions from the space vector PWM (SVPWM) point of view. The fluctuation of the neutral point caused by the load currents of certain order harmonic frequency is reported and quantified. Furthermore, this paper presents a close-loop digital control algorithm of the DC voltage for this APF. A PI controller regulates the DC voltage in the outer-loop controller. In the current-loop controller, this paper proposes a simple neutral-point voltage control method. The neutral-point voltage imbalance is restrained by selecting small vectors that will move the neutral-point voltage in the direction opposite the direction of the unbalance. The experiment results illustrate that the performance of the proposed approach is satisfactory.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 1999.07e
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• pp.2035-2037
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• 1999

This paper describes an ASM(All Solid-state Modulator) pulsed power generator for non-thermal plasma applications. The proposed generator can produce 20kV, 500A, 100ns pulses at repetition rates up to 10kHz, and it is composed of 30 series connections of power circuit card assembly which contains paralleled MOSFETs, MOSFET drivers, energy storage capacitors and specially designed 1:1 pulse transformer. Higher pulse voltages and currents can easily be obtained by increasing the numbers of series and parallel connections of power circuit card and MOSFETs, respectively. Component layouts are optimized to minimize the leakage inductance and the voltage spikes across switching devices. Especially it put emphasis on the over-current protection (including short circuit) for the reliable operation in real situations. Experimental results show that the proposed pulser is very efficient in air pollution control application and could be useful for other applications such as synthesis of nanosize powders and non-thermal food processing.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea TE
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• v.37 no.3
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• pp.66-71
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• 2000

A new Soft Recovery Quasi-Resonant Converter (SR QRC) haying multiple order folding snubber network is proposed. It is combined with normal quasi-resonant converter with folding snubber network of which the surrounding components are composed of diodes and capacitors. The reverse recovery loss of main rectifier diode is eliminated by this method utilizing multiple resonance. The proposed converter has PWM capability with high efficiency and is suitable for high voltage and high power applications. By extension of this concept to other switching converters, a new family of SR PW QRC may be developed.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.587-601
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• 2015

A high step-up dc-dc converter is proposed for photovoltaic power systems in this paper. The proposed converter consists of an input current doubler, a symmetrical switched-capacitor doubler and an active-clamp circuit. The input current doubler minimizes the input current ripple. The symmetrical switched-capacitor doubler is composed of two symmetrical quasi-resonant switched-capacitor circuits, which share the leakage inductance of the transformer as a resonant inductor. The rectifier diodes (switched-capacitor circuit) are turned off at the zero current switching (ZCS) condition, so that the reverse-recovery problem of the diodes is removed. In addition, the symmetrical structure results in an output voltage ripple reduction because the voltage ripples of the charge/pump capacitors cancel each other out. Meanwhile, the voltage stress of the rectifier diodes is clamped at half of the output voltage. In addition, the active-clamp circuit clamps the voltage surges of the switches and recycles the energy of the transformer leakage inductance. Furthermore, pulse-width modulation plus phase angle shift (PPAS) is employed to control the output voltage. The operation principle of the converter is analyzed and experimental results obtained from a 400W prototype are presented to validate the performance of the proposed converter.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.14 no.6
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• pp.1109-1118
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• 2014

A Fundamental Frequency Sorting Algorithm (FFSA) is proposed in this paper to balance the voltages of floating dc capacitors for Modular Multilevel Converters (MMCs). The main idea is to change the sequences of the CPS-PWM carriers according to the capacitor voltage increments during the previous fundamental period. Excessive frequent sorting is avoided and many calculating resources are saved for the controller. As a result, more sub-modules can be dealt with. Furthermore, it does not need to measure the arm currents. Therefore, the communication between the controllers can be simplified and the number of current sensors can be reduced. Moreover, the proposed balancing method guarantees that all of the switching frequencies of the sub-modules are equal to each other. This is quite beneficial for the thermal design of the sub-modules and the lifetime of the power switches. Simulation and experimental results acquired from a 9-level prototype verify the viability of the proposed balancing method.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.436-446
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• 2016

A novel step-up DC-DC converter with a switched-coupled-inductor-capacitor (SCIC) which successfully integrates three-winding coupled inductors and switched-capacitor techniques is proposed in this paper. The primary side of the coupled inductors for the SCIC is charged by the input source, and the capacitors are charged in parallel and discharged in series by the secondary windings of the coupled inductor to achieve a high step-up voltage gain with an appropriate duty ratio. In addition, the passive lossless clamped circuits recycle the leakage energy and reduce the voltage stress on the main switch effectively, and the reverse-recovery problem of the diodes is alleviated by the leakage inductor. Thus, the efficiency can be improved. The operating principle and steady-state analyses of the converter are discussed in detail. Finally, a prototype circuit at a 50 kHz switching frequency with a 20-V input voltage, a 200-V output voltage, and a 200-W output power is built in the laboratory to verify the performance of the proposed converter.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 1994.07a
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• pp.373-375
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• 1994

In realizing a three-level GTO inverter, we should keep the voltage balancing of DC-link capacitors and consider minimum on/off time of GTO thyristors in order to make the same blocking voltage across each device and to minimize the harmonic components of the output voltage and current. In this raper, a new PWM scheme based on space voltage vectors, by which it is possible to keep neutral-point voltage and avoid narrow pulse, is presented. Experimental results verify that the proposed PWM control scheme is suitable fur hish power and high voltage three-level GTO inverters applied to induction motor drives.

• Proceedings of the KIPE Conference
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• 2006.06a
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• pp.39-42
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• 2006

a current stress reduction technique for a boost integrated half-bridge (BIHB) DC/DC converter with voltage doubler type rectifier is proposed for digital car audio amplifier application. In the proposed circuit, two external capacitors are added parallel to the rectifier diodes in the secondary side of the transformer to shape the primary and the secondary current like rectangular waveforms in every switching instance. The experimental results of a 200W industrial sample show that the peak primary current decreases about by 10A. Thus, the proposed technique shows improved high efficiency.