• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.276-284
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• 2012

AC/AC power conversion is widely used to feed AC loads with a variable voltage and/or a variable frequency from a constant voltage constant frequency power grid or to connect critical loads to an unreliable power supply while delivering a very balanced and accurate sinusoidal voltage system of constant amplitude and frequency. The load specifications will clearly impose the requirements for the inverter stage of the power converter, while wider ranges of choices are available for the rectifier. This paper investigates the utilization of a buck-type current source rectifier as the active front-end stage of an AC/AC converter for applications that require an adjustable DC-link voltage as well as elimination of the low-frequency common mode voltage. The proposed solution is to utilize a combination of two or more zero current vectors in the Space Vector Modulation (SVM) technique for Current Sources Rectifiers (CSR).

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.512-519
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• 2011

This paper gives a detailed analysis of the direct torque control (DTC) strategy in a five-level drive and proposes a 24-sector switching table. The known problems in low-voltage drives such as bearings currents and an overvoltage phenomenon which leads to premature failure are reviewed and the occurrence of these problems in medium voltage drives has been investigated. Then a solutions to these problems is presented and the switching table to deal with these problems is modified. Simulation and experimental results on a 3kVA prototype confirm the proposed solution. In implementing the above strategy a TMS320F2812 is used.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.509-517
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• 2012

This paper presents control strategies for cascaded H-bridge multilevel active power filters (APFs). A current loop controller is implemented using a proportional-resonant (PR) regulator, which achieves zero steady-state error at target frequencies. The power balancing mechanism for the dc-link capacitor voltages is analyzed and a voltage balancing controller is presented. To mitigate the picket-fence effect of the conventional FFT algorithm under asynchronous sampling conditions, the Hanning Windowed-FFT algorithm is proposed for reference current generation (RCG). This calculates the frequency, amplitude and phase of individual harmonic components accurately and as a result, selective harmonic compensation (SHC) is achieved. Simulation and experimental results are presented, which verify the validity and effectiveness of the devised control algorithms.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.612-619
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• 2011

This paper presents a water treatment system for leachate from sewage-filled ground that uses a pulsed-power modulator developed based on semiconductor switches in order to realize a long life, a high repetition rate, and a fast rising time. The specifications of the developed pulsed-power modulator are the pulsed output voltage, the output current, the pulse repetition rate (PRR), the pulse width, and an average output power of $60\;kV_{max}$, $300\;A_{max}$, 3000, $50\;{\mu}s$, and 15 kW, respectively. The pulsed-power water treatment system was introduced and analyzed using an equivalent electrical circuit model to optimize the output voltage waveform. The experimental results verify that the proposed water treatment system can be effectively used for industrial applications.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.258-267
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• 2012

An interleaved single-stage AC/DC converter with a boost converter and an asymmetrical half-bridge topology is presented to achieve power factor correction, zero voltage switching (ZVS) and load voltage regulation. Asymmetric pulse-width modulation (PWM) is adopted to achieve ZVS turn-on for all of the switches and to increase circuit efficiency. Two ZVS half-bridge converters with interleaved PWM are connected in parallel to reduce the ripple current at input and output sides, to control the output voltage at a desired value and to achieve load current sharing. A center-tapped rectifier is adopted at the secondary side of the transformers to achieve full-wave rectification. The boost converter is operated in discontinuous conduction mode (DCM) to automatically draw a sinusoidal line current from an AC source with a high power factor and a low current distortion. Finally, a 240W converter with the proposed topology has been implemented to verify the performance and feasibility of the proposed converter.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.242-248
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• 2012

Self oscillating current fed push pull resonant inverters can be controlled without using special drivers. Dc current flows through the choke coil and the power switches, although the driving signals of the power switches are sinusoidal. When the base current is near zero, the transistors cannot be operated in switching mode. Hence higher switching power losses and instantaneous peak power during off transitions are observed. In this study, an alternative design has been proposed to overcome this problem. A prototype circuit has been built which provides dc bias current to the base of the transistors. Experimental results are compared with theoretical calculations to demonstrate the validity of the design. The proposed design decreases the peak and average power losses by about 8 times, when compared to conventional designs.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.520-526
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• 2011

This paper presents a balanced soft-chopping circuit and a modified PI controller for a high speed 4/2 Switched Reluctance Motor (SRM) with a 16 pulse per revolution encoder. The proposed balanced soft-chopping circuit can supply double the switching frequency in the fixed switching frequency of power devices to reduce current ripple. The modified PI controller uses maximum voltage, back-emf voltage and PI control modes to overcome the over-shoot current due to the time delay effect of current sensing. The maximum voltage mode can supply a fast excitation current with consideration of the hardware time delay. Then the back-emf voltage mode can suppress the current over-shoot with consideration of the feedback signal delay. Finally, the PI control mode can adjust the phase current to a desired value with a fast switching frequency due to the proposed balanced soft-chopping technology.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.439-447
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• 2012

In this paper, an input-series auxiliary power supply scheme is proposed, which is suitable for high input voltage and multiple-output applications. The power supply scheme is based on a two-transistor forward topology, all of the series modules have a common duty ratio, all the switches are turned on and off simultaneously, and the whole circuit has a single power transformer. It does not require an additional controller but still achieves efficient input voltage sharing (IVS) for each series module through its inherent transformer-integration strategy. The IVS process of this power supply scheme is analyzed in detail and the design considerations for the related parameters are given. Finally, a 100W multiple-output auxiliary power supply prototype is built, and the experimental results verify the feasibility of the proposed scheme and the validity of the theoretical analysis.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.448-457
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• 2012

This paper proposes a carrier-based pulse width modulation (PWM) method to control an indirect matrix converter (IMC) by analyzing the relationship between the space vector PWM (SVPWM) and the carrier-based PWM. The complexity of the SVPWM method for an IMC can be reduced by using an equivalent carrier-based PWM method. The advantage of the proposed algorithm is its ability use only one symmetrical triangular carrier signal to generate the gate signals for all of the power switches in both the rectifier and inverter stages as compared to the conventional method where the carrier signal used in the rectifier stage is different from that of the inverter stage. In addition, by using a suitable offset voltage component in the modulation signals, the output voltage magnitude reaches 0.866 of the input voltage magnitude. Simulation and experimental results are provided in order to validate the proposed method.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.429-438
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• 2012

This paper presents the use of a novel, single-stage high-power-factor electronic ballast with a symmetrical class-DE low-$d{\upsilon}$/$dt$ resonant rectifier as a power-factor corrector for fluorescent lamps. The power-factor correction is achieved by using a bridge rectifier to utilize the function of a symmetrical class-DE resonant rectifier. By employing this topology, the peak and ripple values of the input current are reduced, allowing for a reduced filter inductor volume of the EMI filter. Since the conduction angle of the bridge rectifier diode current was increased, a low-line current harmonic and a power factor near unity can be obtained. A prototype ballast, operating at an 84-kHz fixed frequency and a 220-$V_{rms}$, 50-Hz line input voltage, was utilized to drive a T8-36W fluorescent lamp. Experimental results are presented which verify the theoretical analysis.