• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Power Electronics
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• v.20 no.5
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• pp.448-455
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• 2015

A model predictive control (MPC) method without individual PWM has been recently researched to simplify and improve the control flexibility of a multilevel inverter. However, the input power of each H-bridge cell and the switching frequency of switching devices are unbalanced because of the use of a restricted switching state in the MPC method. This paper proposes a control method for balancing the switching patterns and cell power supplied from each isolated dc source of a cascaded H-bridge inverter. The supplied dc power from isolated dc sources of each H-bridge cells is balanced with the proposed cell balancing method. In addition, the switching frequency of each switching device of the CHB inverter becomes equal. A simulation and experimental results are presented with nine-level and five-level three-phase CHB inverter to validate the proposed balancing method.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.296-303
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• 2013

This paper proposes a high efficiency three-phase cascaded phase shifted H-bridge multi-level inverter without DC/DC converters for grid-tied multi string photovoltaic (PV) applications. The cascaded H-bridge topology is suitable for PV applications since each PV module can act as a separate DC source for each cascaded H-bridge module. The proposed phase shifted H-bridge multi-level topology offers advantages such as operation at a lower switching frequency and a lower current ripple when compared to conventional two level topologies. It is also shown that low ripple sinusoidal current waveforms are generated with a unity power factor. The control algorithm permits the independent control of each DC link voltage with a maximum power point for each string of PV modules. The use of the controller area network (CAN) communication protocol for H-bridge multi-level inverters, along with localized PWM generation and PV voltage regulation are implemented. It is also shown that the expansion and modularization capabilities of the H-bridge modules are improved since the individual inverter modules operate more independently. The proposed topology is implemented for a three phase 240kW multi-level PV power conditioning system (PCS) which has 40kW H-bridge modules. The experimental results show that the proposed topology has good performance.

• Proceedings of the KIPE Conference
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• 2013.07a
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• pp.45-46
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• 2013

멀티레벨 고압인버터 토폴로지 중 저압 Power Cell를 이용하여 고압을 출력하는 Cascaded 방식이 산업계에서는 널리 사용되고 이다. 최근 제품화된 Cascaded 방식은 크게 두 가지 형태로 구분할 수 있다. 저압 Power Cell에 단상 H-Bridge를 이용한 Cascaded H-Bridge 멀티레벨 인버터와 단상 NPC(Neutral Point Clamped) 토폴로지를 적용한 Cascaded NPC 멀티레벨 인버터이다. 이 중 Cascaded NPC 멀티레벨 인버터의 경우 적은 수의 셀을 사용하여 CHB와 동일한 출력 레벨을 생성할 수 있으며, NPC 방식의 고압 인버터 고유의 장점을 모두 구현할 수 있다. 반대로 CHB Type과 NPC type의 단점인 복잡한 구조의 Phase Shift Transformer와 DC_Link 중성점 전압이 변동하는 단점 또한 나타나게 된다. 본 논문에서는 Cascaded NPC 멀티레벨 인버터의 이러한 단점을 극복하기 위한 새로운 방식의 Phase Shift Transformer와 NPC Power Cell의 중성점 전압 변동을 줄일 수 있는 기법에 대해 설명하고 이 기법에 대한 타당성을 모의시험을 통해 검증하였다.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.34-42
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• 2010

Reliability is an important issue in cascaded H-bridge converters (CHB converters) because they use a high number of power semiconductors. A faulty power cell in a CHB converter can potentially lead to expensive downtime and great losses on the consumer side. With a fault-tolerant control strategy, operation can continue with the undamaged cells; thus increasing the reliability of the system. In this paper, the operating principles and the control method for a CHB multilevel rectifier are introduced. The influence of various faults on the CHB converter is investigated. The method of fault diagnosis and the bypassing of failed cells are explained. A fault-tolerant protection strategy is proposed to achieve redundancy in the CHB rectifier. The redundant H-bridge concept helps to deal with device failures and to increase system reliability. Simulation results verify the performance of the proposed strategy.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.507-518
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• 2014

This paper presents a new cascaded asymmetrical single phase multilevel converter with a lower number of power semiconductor switches and isolated DC sources. Therefore, the number of power electronic devices, converter losses, size, and cost are reduced. The proposed multilevel converter topology consists of two H-bridges connected in cascaded configuration. One H-bridge operates at a high frequency (high frequency inverter) and is capable of developing a two level output while the other H-bridge operates at the fundamental frequency (low frequency inverter) and is capable of developing a multilevel output. The addition of each power electronic switch to the low frequency inverter increases the number of levels by four. This paper also introduces a hybrid switching algorithm which uses very simple arithmetic and logical operations. The simplified hybrid switching algorithm is generalized for any number of levels. The proposed simplified switching algorithm is developed using a TMS320F2812 DSP board. The operation and performance of the proposed multilevel converter are verified by simulations using MATLAB/SIMULINK and experimental results.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.19 no.6
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• pp.1458-1466
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• 2019

Multilevel inverters have appeared as a successful and utilitarian solution in many power applications. The prime objective of an inverter is to keep the fundamental component of the output voltage of a multilevel inverter at a preferred value. Equally important is the need to keep the harmonic components in the output voltage within stated harmonic limits. Therefore, the basis of this research is to develop a harmonic minimization function that optimizes the switching angles of cascaded H-bridge multilevel inverter. Due to benefits of the Cuckoo Search (CS) algorithm, it is applied to determine the switching angles, which are further used to generate the switching pattern for firing the H-bridges of multilevel inverter. Simulation results are compared with SPWM based firing scheme. The switching frequency for SPWM firing scheme is taken as 200 Hz since the switching losses are increased when switching frequency is high. To validate the ability of Cuckoo Search optimized firing scheme in minimization of harmonics, experimental results obtained from hardware prototype of Five Level Cascaded H-Bridge Multilevel Inverter equipped with a FPGA controller are presented to verify the simulation results.

• Proceedings of the KIPE Conference
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• 2013.07a
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• pp.128-129
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• 2013

본 논문에서는 전기로 부하에서 발생하는 무효전력 성분과 역상분 전류를 보상하기 위한 STATCOM(STATic synchronous COMpensator)을 Cascaded Multilevel Converter(CMC)로 구성하는 경우 역상분 전류 보상시에 발생하는 직류전압의 불평형을 보상하기 위한 방법을 제안하고, 이를 시뮬레이터를 통해 검증하였다.

• Proceedings of the KIPE Conference
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• 2016.07a
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• pp.87-88
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• 2016

본 논문은, Cascaded-H-bridge 정류기를 사용하는 SST 시스템에서의 DC-link 전압 밸런싱을 위한 실용적이고 구성이 용이한 제어기에 관한 것이다. 제안하는 제어기는 DC-DC stage의 Dual active bridge 컨버터의 개별적인 위상 제어를 통해 DC-link의 전압을 개별 조정한다. 기존의 연구된 전압 밸런싱 기법들에 비해, 제안하는 제어기는 별도의 회로 및 장치가 필요 없고, 확장성이 용이 하며, 구성이 용이하면서 실용성을 가지는 장점들이 있다. 제안하는 제어기는 5kW의 7-level SST 시제품을 제작하여 검증하였다.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.244-253
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• 2019

Finite control set model-predictive control (FCS-MPC) has received increasing attentions due to its outstanding dynamic performance. It is being widely used in power converters and multilevel inverters. However, FCS-MPC requires a lot of calculations, especially for multilevel-cascaded H-bridge (CHB) static synchronous compensators (STATCOMs), since it has to take account of all the feasible voltage vectors of inverters. Hence, an improved five-segment space vector pulse width modulation (SVPWM) method based on the non-orthogonal static reference frames is proposed. The proposed SVPWM method has a lower number of switching states and requires fewer computations than the conventional method. As a result, it makes FCS-MPC more efficient for multilevel cascaded H-bridge STATCOMs. The partial cost function is adopted to sequentially solve for the reference current and capacitor voltage. The proposed FCS-MPC method can reduce the calculation burden of the FCS-MPC strategy, and reduce both the switching frequency and power losses. Simulation and experimental results validate the excellent performance of the proposed method when compared with the conventional approach.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.830-840
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• 2015

The H-bridge inverter is the fundamental power cell of the cascaded distribution static synchronous compensator (DSTATCOM). Thus, cell reliability is important to the compensation performance and stability of the overall system. The concept of the power electronics building block (PEBB) is an ideal solution for the power cell design. In this paper, an H-bridge inverter-based “plug and play” HPEBB is introduced into the main circuit and the controller to improve the compensation performance and reliability of the device. The section that discusses the main circuit primarily emphasizes the design of electrical parameters, physical structure, and thermal dissipation. The section that presents the controller part focuses on the principle of complex programmable logic device -based universal controller This section also analyzes typical reliability and anti-interference issues. The function and reliability of HPEBB are verified by experiments that are conducted on an HPEBB test-bed and on a 10 kV/± 10 Mvar DSTATCOM industrial prototype.