• 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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• 2010.11a
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• pp.234-237
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• 2010

This paper proposes a balancing control of DC-link voltages of a H-bridge multilevel inverter for STATCOM application. Individual DC link voltage is controlled by simply adjusting the d-q voltage reference through a PI controller in each cell while the main controller carries out the reactive power control. The correctness and effectiveness of the method are validated by PSIM simulation with unbalanced load condition data taken from a typical arc furnace load, showing the adverse effects of load unbalance to DC link voltage significantly suppressed.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Power Electronics
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.332-341
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• 2014

A cascaded H-bridge multi-level STATCOM(STATic synchronous COMpensator), which is composed of many cell inverters with independent dc-sources, generates inevitably dc-side voltage unbalance among phases when it compensates unbalanced load. It comes from the difference of flowing active power in each phase when this compensator makes negative-sequence current to eliminate the unbalance of source-side current. However, this unbalance can be controlled by injecting zero-sequence current which is decoupled with grid currents, so the compensator can work well during this balancing process. Both a feedback control algorithm, which produces zero-sequence current proportional to dc-side voltage unbalance within each phase, and a feedforward control algorithm, which makes zero-sequence current directly from the compensator's negative-sequence current, were proposed. The dc-side voltage of each phase can be controlled stably by these proposed algorithms in both steady-state and transient, so the compensator can have fast response to satisfy control performance under rapid changing load. These balancing controllers were implemented and verified via simulation and experiment.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.16 no.6
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• pp.2099-2108
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• 2016

The cascaded multilevel converter is widely adopted to medium/high voltage and high power electronic applications due to the small harmonic components of the output voltage and the facilitation of modularity. In this paper, the operation principle of a T-type H-bridge topology is investigated in detail, and a carrier phase shifted pulse width modulation (CPS-PWM) based control method is proposed for this topology. Taking a virtual five-level waveform achieved by a unipolar double frequency CPS-PWM as the output object, PWM signals of the T-type H-bridge can be obtained by reverse derivation according to its switching modes. In addition, a control method for the T-type H-bridge based cascaded multilevel converter is introduced. Then a single-phase T-type H-bridge cascaded multilevel static var generator (SVG) prototype is built, and a repetitive controller based compound current control strategy is designed with the DC-link voltage balancing control scheme analyzed. Finally, simulation and experimental results validate the correctness and feasibility of the proposed modulation method and control strategy for T-type H-bridge based cascaded multilevel converters.

• Journal of Electrical Engineering and Technology
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• v.12 no.6
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• pp.2227-2236
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• 2017

In order to solve the neutral-point voltage fluctuation problem of three-phase three-level T-type inverters (TPTLTIs), the unbalance characteristics of capacitor voltages under different switching states and the mechanism of neutral-point voltage fluctuation are revealed. Based on the mathematical model of a TPTLTI, a feed-forward voltage balancing control strategy of DC-link capacitor voltages error is proposed. The strategy generates a DC bias voltage using a capacitor voltage loop with a proportional integral (PI) controller. The proposed strategy can suppress the neutral-point voltage fluctuation effectively and improve the quality of output currents. The correctness of the theoretical analysis is verified through simulations. An experimental prototype of a TPTLTI based on Digital Signal Processor (DSP) is built. The feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed strategy is verified through experiment. The results from simulations and experiment match very well.

• The Transactions of The Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers
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• v.65 no.2
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• pp.311-318
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• 2016

This paper is a study on the neutral point voltage balancing of the three-phase 3-level T-type inverter using the predictive control techniques. Recently, multi-level inverter has been attracting attention as the advantages such as efficiency improving and harmonic reduction. Especially, the T-type inverter topology is advantageous in low DC-link voltage. However, in case of the prediction control, it takes a lot of time, because there exist 27 voltage vectors and it has to be calculated according to the respective voltage vectors. Therefore, in this paper, we propose a method to implement predictive control techniques while reducing the operation time. In order to reduce the operation time, the predictive control is implemented by using the minimum voltage vector except for the unnecessary voltage vector. The result of the implemented predictive control is added to the SPWM by using the offset voltage. It was verified through simulation and experimental results.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.861-871
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• 2016

With high penetration of renewable energies, power electronic transformers (PETs) will be one of the most important infrastructures in the future power delivery and management system. In this study, an isolated bidirectional modular multilevel DC/DC converter is proposed for PET applications. A modular multilevel structure is adopted as switching valves to sustain medium voltages to achieve modular design and high reliability. Only one high-frequency transformer is used in the proposed converter, which significantly simplifies the circuit and galvanic insulation design. A dual-phase-shift modulation strategy is proposed to regulate the output power and achieve a simple voltage balancing control. A down-scaled (2 kW/20 kHz) prototype is constructed to demonstrate the proposed converter and verify the control strategy. The experimental results comply with the theoretical analysis well, with the highest power efficiency reaching 97.6%.

• Proceedings of the KIPE Conference
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• 2015.11a
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• pp.7-8
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• 2015

In this paper a cell-to-cell fast charge balancing circuit for the Lithium-Ion battery module is proposed. In the proposed topology the energy in a high voltage cell is transferred directly to a low voltage cell through the operation of the dc-dc converter. Furthermore, the charge balancing can be performed regardless of the battery operation whether it is being charged, discharged or relaxed. The monitoring circuit composed of a DSP and a battery monitoring IC is designed to monitor the cell voltage and detect the inferior cell thereby protecting the battery module from failure. In order to demonstrate the performance of the proposed topology, a prototype circuit was designed and applied to 12 Lithium-Ion battery module. It has been verified with the experiments that the charge equalization time of the proposed method was shorter compared with those of other methods.

• Journal of Electrical Engineering and Technology
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• v.13 no.5
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• pp.1986-1995
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• 2018

In this paper, a novel neutral-point voltage balancing scheme for NPC three-level inverters using carrier-based sinusoidal pulse width modulation (SPWM) method is developed. The new modulation approach, based on the obtained expressions of zero sequence voltage in all six sectors, can significantly suppress the low-frequency voltage oscillation in the neutral point at high modulation index and achieve a fast voltage-balancing dynamic performance. The implementation of the proposed method is very simple. Another attractive feature is that the scheme can stably control any voltage difference between the two dc-link capacitors within a certain range without using any extra hardware. Furthermore, the presented scheme is also applicable to the single-phase NPC three-level inverter. It can maintain the neutral-point voltage balance at full modulation index and improve the voltage-balancing dynamic performance of the single-phase NPC three-level inverter. The performance of the proposed strategy and its benefits over other previous techniques are verified experimentally.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Power Electronics
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.68-71
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• 2020

As a T-type three-level PWM converter has several intrinsic advantages, it has been widely studied for many applications. However, it requires an additional voltage control loop for balancing each DC link voltage. Generally, satisfying this requirement involves the use of an offset voltage to provide a neutral point current without affecting other variables, such as the total DC link voltage and three-phase input current. In this study, the theoretical relationship between the offset voltage and the neutral point current is analyzed. The results can be beneficial for effective voltage balancing controller design. The effectiveness of the analytical modeling is verified by simulation and experimental results.