• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers B
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• v.52 no.12
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• pp.624-631
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• 2003

This paper presents a simple carrier symmetric method for the voltage balance of flying capacitors in FCMLI(flying capacitor multi-level inverter). To achieve the voltage balance of flying capacitors, the utilization of each carrier must be balanced during a half-cycle of the switching period such as PSPWM(Phase-Shifted PWM). However, the CRPWM(Carrier Redistribution PWM) method causes the fluctuation of flying capacitor voltages because the balanced utilization of carriers is not achieved. Moreover, it does not consider that the load current change has an influence on flying capacitor voltages by assuming that the current flows into the load. To overcome the drawbacks of CRPWM, it is modified by the technique that carriers of each band are disposed symmetrically at every fundamental period. Firstly, the CRPWM method is reviewed and the theory on voltage balance of flying capacitors is analyzed. The proposed method is introduced and is verified through the experiment result.

• Proceedings of the KIPE Conference
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• 2003.07b
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• pp.606-610
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• 2003

This paper presents a simple carrier symmetric method for the voltage balance of flying capacitors in FCMLI(flying capacitor multi-level inverter). To achieve the voltage balance of flying capacitors, the utilization of each carrier must be balanced during a half-cycle of the switching period such as PSPWM(Phase-Shifted PWM). However, the CRPWM(Carrier Redistribution PWM) method causes the fluctuation of flying capacitor voltages because the balanced utilization of carriers is not achieved. Moreover, it does not consider that the load current change has an influence on flying capacitor voltages by assuming that the current flows Into the load. To overcome the drawbacks of CRPWM, it is modified by the technique that carriers of each band are disposed symmetrically at every fundamental period. Firstly, the CRPWN method is reviewed and the theory on voltage balance of flying capacitors is analyzed. The proposed method Is introduced and is verified through the experiment result.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Power Electronics
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• v.8 no.6
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• pp.469-477
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• 2003

This paper proposes a Carrier-Rotation (CR) PWM technique that is a new solution for the voltage unbalancing problem of flying capacitors in the Flying Capacitor Multi-level Inverter (FCMI). The proposed technique equalizes the utilization of phase leg voltage redundancies corresponding to the charging and the discharging state of individual flying capacitors during each switching period of all the switches. Therefore, the charging and the discharging quantity of flying capacitors are equal, which makes the average variation of flying capacitor voltages become zero and keeps their voltage stable during minimum specified period. It also has the reduced harmonic contents of output voltage and the same switch utilization since all the carrier signals are in phase and the switching frequency of each switch is identical. The proposed technique is analyzed precisely in flying capacitor 3-level inverter and then it has expanded to the FCMI (N-level, N>3). Experimental results on the laboratory prototype flying capacitor 3-level inverter confirm the validity of the proposed technique.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.653-663
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• 2017

Multilevel active neutral-point-clamped (ANPC) converter combines the advantages of three-level ANPC converter and multilevel flying capacitor (FC) converter. However, multilevel ANPC converter often suffers from capacitor voltage balancing problems. In order to solve the capacitor voltage balancing problems for five-level ANPC converter, phase-shifted pulse width modulation (PS-PWM) is used, which generally provides natural voltage balancing ability. However, the natural voltage balancing ability depends on the load conditions and converter parameters. In order to eliminate voltage deviations under steady-state and dynamic conditions, the active voltage-balancing control (AVBC) methods of floating capacitors and dc-link capacitors based on PS-PWM are proposed. First, the neutral-point current is regulated to balance the neutral-point voltage by injecting zero-sequence voltage. After that, the duty cycles of the redundant switch combinations are adjusted to balance the floating-capacitor voltages by introducing moderating variables for each of the phases. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed AVBC methods is verified by experimental results.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.133-141
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• 2016

This paper focuses on the development of a Five-Level Flying-Capacitor Dual Buck Inverter (FLFCDBI) based on the main circuit of dual buck inverters. This topology has been described as not having any shoot-through problems, no body-diode reverse recovery problems and the half-cycle work mode found in the traditional Multi-Level Flying-Capacitor Inverter (MLFCI). It has been shown that the flying-capacitor voltages of this inverter can be regulated by the redundant state selection within one pole. The voltage balance of the flying-capacitors can be achieved by charging or discharging in the positive (negative) half cycles by choosing the proper logical algorithms. This system has a simple structure but demonstrates improved performance and reliability. The validity of this inverter is conformed through computer-aided simulation and experimental investigations.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.15 no.5
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• pp.1190-1199
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• 2015

This paper presents a new resonant converter to achieve the soft switching of power devices. Two full-bridge converters are connected in series to clamp the voltage stress of power switches at V_in/2. Thus, power MOSFETs with a 500V voltage rating can be used for 800V input voltage applications. Two flying capacitors are connected on the AC side of the two full-bridge converters to automatically balance the two split input capacitor voltages in every switching cycle. Two resonant tanks are used in the proposed converter to share the load current and to reduce the current stress of the passive and active components. If the switching frequency is less than the series resonant frequency of the resonant tanks, the power MOSFETs can be turned on under zero voltage switching, and the rectifier diodes can be turned off under zero current switching. The switching losses on the power MOSFETs are reduced and the reverse recovery loss is improved. Experiments with a 1.5kW prototype are provided to demonstrate the performance of the proposed converter.