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http://dx.doi.org/10.6113/JPE.2014.14.3.519

Simplified PWM Strategy for Neutral-Point-Clamped (NPC) Three-Level Converter  

Ye, Zongbin (School of Information and Electrical Engineering, China University of Mining and Technology)
Xu, Yiming (Department of Electrical and Automation Engineering, Nanchang University)
Li, Fei (School of Information and Electrical Engineering, China University of Mining and Technology)
Deng, Xianming (School of Information and Electrical Engineering, China University of Mining and Technology)
Zhang, Yuanzheng (School of Information and Electrical Engineering, China University of Mining and Technology)
Publication Information
Journal of Power Electronics / v.14, no.3, 2014 , pp. 519-530 More about this Journal
Abstract
A novel simplified pulse width modulation(PWM) strategy for neutral point clamped (NPC) three-level converter is proposed in this paper.The direct output voltage modulation is applied to reduce the calculation time. Based on this strategy, several optimized control methods are proposed. The neutral point potential balancing algorithm is discussed and a fine neutral point potential balancing scheme is introduced. Moreover, the minimum pulse width compensation and switching losses reduction can be easily achieved using this modulation strategy. This strategy also gains good results even with the unequal DC link capacitor. The modulation principle is studied in detail and the validity of this simplified PWM strategy is experimentally verified in this paper. The experiment results indicated that the proposed PWM strategy has excellent performance, and the neutral point potential can be balanced well with unequal DC link captaincies.
Keywords
Minimum pulse width compensation; Neutral point potential balance; PWM; Switching losses reduction; Three-level converter;
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