• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.1504-1512
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• 2016

This paper presents a new single-phase asymmetrical cascaded multilevel DC-link inverter. The proposed inverter comprises two stages. The main stage of the inverter consists of multiple similar cells, each of which is a half-bridge inverter consisting of two switches and a single DC source. All cells are connected in a cascaded manner with a fixed neutral point. The DC source values are not made equal to increase the performance of the inverter. The second circuit is a folded cascaded H-bridge circuit operating at a line frequency. One of the main advantages of this proposed topology is that it is a modular type and can thus be extended to high stages without changing the configuration of the main stage circuit. Two control schemes, namely, low switching with selective harmonic elimination and sinusoidal pulse width modulation, are employed to validate the proposed topology. The detailed approach of each control scheme and switching pulses are discussed in detail. A 150W prototype of the proposed system is implemented in the laboratory to verify the validity of the proposed topology.

• Journal of Electrical Engineering and Technology
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• v.12 no.6
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• pp.2278-2288
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• 2017

Multilevel converter topologies are widely used in many applications. The cascaded H-bridge multilevel inverter (CHBMI), which is one of many multilevel converter topologies, has been introduced as a useful topology in high and medium power. However, it has a drawback to require a lot of switches. Therefore, the reliability of CHBMI is important factor for analyzing the performance. This paper presents a simple switch fault diagnosis method for single-phase CHBMI. There are two types of switch faults: open-fault and short-fault. In the open-fault, the body diode of faulty switch provides a freewheeling current path. However, when the short-fault occurs, the distortion of output current is different from that of the open-fault because it has an unavailable freewheeling current flow path due to a disconnection of fuse. The fault diagnosis method is based on the zero current time analysis according to zero-voltage switching states. Using the proposed method, it is possible to detect the location of faulty switch accurately. The PSIM simulation and experimental results show the effectiveness of proposed switch fault diagnosis method.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.11 no.6
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• pp.811-818
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• 2011

Modulation strategies for multilevel inverters have typically focused on synthesizing a desired set of sinusoidal voltage waveforms using a fixed number of dc voltage sources. This makes the average power drawn from different dc voltage sources unequal and time varying. Therefore, the dc voltage sources are unregulated and require that corrective control action be incorporated. In this paper, first two new selections are proposed for determining the dc voltage sources values for asymmetric cascaded multilevel inverters. Then two modulation strategies are proposed for the dc power balancing of these types of multilevel inverters. Using the charge balance control methods, the power drawn from all of the dc sources are balanced except for the dc source used in the first H-bridge. The proposed control methods are validated by simulation and experimental results on a single-phase 21-level inverter.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.16 no.6
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• pp.2272-2283
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• 2016

This paper proposes a power conditioning system (PCS) for distributed photovoltaic (PV) applications using an asymmetric cascaded multilevel inverter with a single PV source. One of the main disadvantages of the cascaded multilevel inverters in PV systems is the requirement of multiple isolated DC sources. Using multiple PV strings leads to a compromise in either the voltage balance of individual H-bridge cells or the maximum power point tracking (MPPT) operation due to localized variations in atmospheric conditions. The proposed PCS uses a single PV source with a flyback DC-DC converter to facilitate a reduction of the required DC sources and to maintain the voltage balance during MPPT operation. The flyback converter is used to provide input for low-voltage H-bridge cells which processes only 20% of the total power. This helps to minimize the losses occurring in the proposed PCS. Furthermore, transient analyses and controller design for the proposed PCS in both the stand-alone mode and the grid-connection mode are presented. The feasibility of the proposed PCS and its control scheme have been tested using a 1kW hardware prototype and the obtained results are presented.

• Proceedings of the KIPE Conference
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• 2015.07a
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• pp.323-324
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• 2015

Recently, asymmetrical cascaded H-bridge multilevel inverter started to be highlighted as an alternative for the symmetrical cascaded H-bridge. The topology has a small number of part count compared to the symmetrical with higher number of levels. However, it has a drawback of the modulation index limitation which is relatively higher than its symmetrical counterpart, which causes a necessity of an extra voltage pre-regulator. In this paper, the single-sourced pre-regulator is unified with an inner single switch DC/DC converter isolated by coupled inductor. It leads to cost and size reduction. The proposed topology is verified using simulation results.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.522-532
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• 2018

The cascaded H Bridge (CHB) multilevel inverter (MLI) is popular among the classical MLI topologies due to its modularity and reliability. Although space vector modulation (SVM) is the most suitable modulation scheme for MLIs, it has not been used widely in industry due to the higher complexity involved in its implementation. In this paper, a simple and novel generalized SVM algorithm is proposed, which has both reduced time and space complexity. The proposed SVM involves the generalization of both the duty cycle calculation and switching sequence generation for any n-level inverter. In order to generate the gate pulses for an inverter, a generalized switch matrix (SM) for the CHB inverter is also introduced, which further simplifies the algorithm. The algorithm is tested and verified for three-phase, three-level and five-level CHB inverters in simulations and hardware implementation. A comparison of the proposed method with existing SVM schemes shows the superiority of the proposed scheme.

• Proceedings of the KIPE Conference
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• 2003.07b
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• pp.593-597
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• 2003

Multilevel power conversion technology has received increasing attention recently for high power applications. The converters with the technology are suitable for high voltage and high power applications due to their ability to synthesize waveforms with better harmonic spectrum and apply for the high voltage equipment with a limited voltage rating of device. In the family of multilevel inverters, the topologies based on cascaded H-bridges are particularly attractive because of their modularity and simplicity of control. This paper presents multilevel inverter with cascaded H-bridge for large-power motor drives. The main features of this drive 1) reduce harmonic injection 2) can generate near-sinusoidal voltages, 3) have almost no common-mode voltage; 4) are low dv/dt at output voltage; 5)do not generate significant over-voltage on motor terminal; The topology of the developed product is presented and the feasibility study of the inverter on 3300v 1MVA 7-level H-bridge type was tarried out with experiments.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.262-269
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• 2010

This paper proposes a practical design for a Cascaded H-Bridge Multilevel (CHBM) inverter based on Power Electronics Building Blocks (PEBB) and high performance control to improve current control and increase fault tolerance. It is shown that the expansion and modularization characteristics of the CHBM inverter are improved since the individual inverter modules operate more independently, when using the PEBB concept. It is also shown that the performance of current control can be improved with voltage delay compensation and the fault tolerance can be increased by using unbalance three-phase control. The proposed design and control methods are described in detail and the validity of the proposed system is verified experimentally in various industrial fields.

• Journal of Electrical Engineering and Technology
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.574-585
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• 2015

This paper aims to improve the performance of conventional direct torque control (DTC) drives proposed by Takahashi by extending the idea for 5-level inverter. Hybrid cascaded H-bridge topology is used to achieve inverter voltage vector composed of 5-level of voltage. Although DTC is very popular for its simplicity but it suffers from some disadvantages like- high torque ripple and uncontrollable switching frequency. To compensate these shortcomings conventional DTC strategy is modified for five levels voltage source inverter (VSI). Multilevel hysteresis controller for both flux and torque is used. Optimal voltage vector selection from precise lookup table utilizing 12 sector, 9 torque level and 4 flux level is proposed to improve DTC performance. These voltage references are produced utilizing a hybrid cascaded H-bridge multilevel inverter, where inverter each phase can be realized using multiple dc source. Fuel cells, car batteries or ultra-capacitor are normally the choice of required dc source. Simulation results shows that the DTC drive performance is considerably improved in terms of lower torque and flux ripple and less THD. These have been experimentally evaluated and compared with the basic DTC developed by Takahashi.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers B
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• v.51 no.11
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• pp.645-651
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• 2002

In this paper, a multilevel PWM inverter employing a cascaded transformer is presented to reduce the harmonics of output voltage and load currents. The proposed PWM inverter consists of two full-bridge modules and their corresponding transformers. The secondarics of each transformer are series-connected. So continuous output voltage levels can be synthesized from the suitable selection of the turns ratio of trasformer. And it appears an integral ratio to input DC source. Because of the cascaded connection of transformers, output filter inductor is not necessary. The operational principles and analysis are explained, and it is compared with a conventional isolated H-bridge PWM inverter. The validity of proposed multilevel inverter is verified through simulated and experimental waveform and their FFT results.