• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.18 no.5
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• pp.1585-1594
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• 2018

The estimation of $LiFePO_4$/graphite battery states suffers from the prominent hysteresis phenomenon between the respective open-circuit voltage curves towards charging and discharging. A lot of hysteresis models have been documented to investigate the hysteresis mechanism. This paper reviews and deeply interprets four non-electrochemical hysteresis models and some improvements. These models can be conveniently incorporated into commonly used equivalent circuit models to reproduce battery behaviors. Through simulation and experimental comparisons of voltage predictions and state-of-charge estimations, the pros and cons of these models are presented.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.18 no.5
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• pp.1608-1617
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• 2018

The rapid and correct isolation of faulty submodules (SMs) is of great importance for improving the reliability of modular multilevel converters (MMCs). Therefore, a fast diagnosis method containing fault detection and fault location determination was presented in this paper. An improved incremental predictive model of arm current was proposed to detect failures, and the multi-step prediction method was used to eliminate the negative impact of disturbances. Moreover, a control method was proposed to strengthen the fault characteristics to rapidly locate faulty arms and faulty SMs by detecting the variation rate of the SM capacitor voltage. The proposed method can rapidly and easily locate faulty SMs under different load conditions without the need for additional sensors. The experimental results have validated the effectiveness of the proposed method by using a single-phase MMC with four SMs per arm.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.18 no.5
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• pp.1293-1302
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• 2018

Multiport power converters have recently become popular to researchers and engineers. However, more improvements are required in terms of their soft-switching operation, bidirectional operation, and integration. In this study, a bidirectional three-port three-switch DC-DC converter is proposed. The converter contains a low-current ripple port and ripple-free current port. Through the integrated structure, utilization of a coupled inductor, and a new switching strategy, the aforementioned specifications are achieved. A modified switching strategy is also utilized in the converter, which has resulted in the bidirectional operation of the converter between ports. Finally, a comprehensive analysis is presented, and the converter characteristics are validated by experimental results.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.18 no.5
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• pp.1325-1335
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• 2018

This paper presents a discontinuous pulse width modulation (DPWM) method to reduce switching losses in an indirect matrix converter (IMC) drive. The IMC has a number of power semiconductor switches. In other words, it consists of a rectifier stage and an inverter stage for AC/AC power conversion, which are composed of 12 and 6 switching devices, respectively. Therefore, the switching devices of the IMC suffer from high switching losses in the IMC drives. Various topologies to reduce switching losses have been studied by eliminating a number of switches from the rectifier stage. In this study, in contrast to prior research, a DPWM method is presented to reduce the switching losses of the inverter stage. The effectiveness of the proposed method to reduce switching losses in IMC drives is verified by simulations and experimental results.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.18 no.5
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• pp.1513-1522
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• 2018

This paper proposes a new islanding detection method for inverter-based distributed generators by continuously injecting a negligible amount of 2nd order harmonic current. The proposed method adopts a proportional resonant (PR) controller for the output current control of the inverter, and a PR filter to extract the 2nd order harmonic voltage at the point of common coupling (PCC). The islanding state can be detected by measuring the magnitude ratio of the 2nd order harmonic voltage to the fundamental voltage at the PCC by injecting a 2nd order harmonic current with a 0.8% magnitude. The proposed method provides accurate and fast detection under grid voltage unbalance and load unbalance. The operation of the proposed method has been verified through simulations and experiments with a 5kW hardware set-up, considering the islanding test circuit suggested in UL1741.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.15 no.6
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• pp.1593-1600
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• 2015

This paper proposes a novel compensation algorithm of current offset error for single-phase linear compressor in home appliances. In a half-bridge inverter, current offset error may cause unbalanced DC-link voltage when the DC-link is comprised of two serially connected capacitors. To compensate the current measurement error, the synchronous reference frame transformation is used for detecting the measurement error. When an offset error occurs in the output current of the half-bridge inverter, the d-axis current has a ripple with frequency equal to the fundamental frequency. With the use of a proportional-resonant controller, the ripple component can be removed, and offset error can be compensated. The proposed compensation method can easily be implemented without much computation and additional hardware circuit. The validity of the proposed algorithm is verified through experimental results.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.15 no.6
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• pp.1559-1566
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• 2015

The brushless DC motor (BLDCM) has many advantages. As a result, it is widely used in electric vehicle (EV) drive systems. To improve the reliability of the motor control system, a position sensorless control strategy based on a sliding mode observer (SMO) is proposed. The global fast terminal sliding mode observer (GFTSMO) is proposed to enhance the control performance of the SMO control system. The advantages of the linear sliding mode and the nonsingular terminal sliding mode (NTSM) are combined in the control strategy. The convergence speed of the system state is enhanced. The motor commutation point is obtained with the observation of the back EMF, and the instantaneous torque value of the motor is calculated. Therefore, the position sensorless control of the BLDCM is realized. Experimental results show that the proposed control strategy can improve the convergence speed, dynamic characteristics and robustness of the system.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.15 no.6
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• pp.1517-1523
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• 2015

The wavelet PWM (WPWM) technique has been applied in two-level inverters successfully, but directly applying the WPWM technique to three-level inverters is impossible. This paper proposes a WPWM technique suitable for a single-phase three-level inverter. The work analyzes the control strategy with the WPWM and obtains the design of its parameters. Compared with the SPWM technique for a single-phase three-level inverter under the same conditions, the WPWM can obtain high magnitudes of the output fundamental frequency component, low total harmonic distortion, and simpler digital implementation. The feasibility experiment is given to verify of the proposed WPWM technique.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.15 no.6
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• pp.1489-1498
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• 2015

Gallium nitride (GaN)-based power switching devices, such as high-electron-mobility transistors (HEMT), provide significant performance improvements in terms of faster switching speed, zero reverse recovery, and lower on-state resistance compared with conventional silicon (Si) metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors (MOSFET). These benefits of GaN HEMTs further lead to low loss, high switching frequency, and high power density converters. Through simulation and experimentation, this research thoroughly contributes to the understanding of performance characterization including the efficiency, loss distribution, and thermal behavior of a 160-W GaN-based synchronous boost converter under various output voltage, load current, and switching frequency operations, as compared with the state-of-the-art Si technology. Original suggestions on design considerations to optimize the GaN converter performance are also provided.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.15 no.6
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• pp.1499-1507
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• 2015

High voltage direct current transmission based on modular multilevel converter (MMC-HVDC) is one of the most promising power transmission technologies. In this study, the mathematical characteristics of MMC-HVDC are analyzed in a synchronous rotational reference frame. A hybrid current vector controller based on proportional integer plus resonant is used to uniformly control the DC and double-base frequency AC currents under unbalanced grid voltage conditions. A corresponding voltage dependent current order limiter is then designed to solve the overcurrent problems that may occur. Moreover, the circulating current sequence components are thoroughly examined and controlled using a developed circulating current suppressor. Simulation results verify the correctness and effectiveness of the proposed control schemes.