• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.830-840
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• 2015

The H-bridge inverter is the fundamental power cell of the cascaded distribution static synchronous compensator (DSTATCOM). Thus, cell reliability is important to the compensation performance and stability of the overall system. The concept of the power electronics building block (PEBB) is an ideal solution for the power cell design. In this paper, an H-bridge inverter-based “plug and play” HPEBB is introduced into the main circuit and the controller to improve the compensation performance and reliability of the device. The section that discusses the main circuit primarily emphasizes the design of electrical parameters, physical structure, and thermal dissipation. The section that presents the controller part focuses on the principle of complex programmable logic device -based universal controller This section also analyzes typical reliability and anti-interference issues. The function and reliability of HPEBB are verified by experiments that are conducted on an HPEBB test-bed and on a 10 kV/± 10 Mvar DSTATCOM industrial prototype.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 2011.07a
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• pp.1161-1162
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• 2011

본 논문에서는 독립된 DC 입력전원을 요구하는 Cascaded H-bridge 멀티레벨 인버터를 단일 입력전원으로 구동시키기 위한 회로 구조를 제안한다. 변압기 포화를 방지하기 위해 채용되는 리센 권선을 가지는 포워드 컨버터의 구조를 변경한 것으로 리셋 권선에 의해 전원으로 회생되는 에너지가 출력단으로 전달되도록 변경된다. 제안된 회로 구조의 입출력전압과 스위치의 도통비와의 관계를 이론적으로 분석하고 시뮬레이션을 통해 타당성을 검증한다.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Power Electronics
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• v.8 no.6
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• pp.478-487
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• 2003

In this paper, a type and special feature of Multi-level inverter used in medium-voltage and high-capacity motor driver is introduced. Especially, a power quality and structural advantages of H-Bridge Multi-level inverter is described. It presented the specific structure of power circuit, design method, controller composition and PWM techniques of the cascaded H-Bridge Multi-level inverter which is developed. The feasibility of the developed product based on 3,300V lMVA 7-level H-bridge inverter was studied by experiments and we get conclusion that 1)generate of near-sinusoidal output voltage; 2)is low dv/dt at output voltage; 3)reduce the harmonic injection at input; Experiment demonstrate that it is very economical in productivity because of using the existing production technique and examination equipment, and has the reliability and a good maintenance due to the structure of Power Cell unit combination as well as low cost IGBT.

• Journal of Electrical Engineering and Technology
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.711-721
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• 2018

This paper presents a single-phase asymmetric half-bridge cascaded multilevel inverter based series active power filter (SAPF) for harmonic voltage compensation. The effect of level number on performance of the proposed SAPF is examined in terms of total harmonic distortion (THD) and system efficiency. Besides, the relationship between the level number and the number of switching device are compared with the other multilevel inverter topologies used in APF applications. The paper is also aimed to demonstrate the capability of the SAPF for compensating harmonic voltages alone, without using a passive power filter (PPF). To obtain the required output voltage, a new switching algorithm is developed. The proposed SAPF with levels of 7, 15 and 31 is used in both simulation and experimental studies and the harmonic voltages of the load connected to the point of common coupling (PCC) is compensated under two different loading conditions. Furthermore, very high system efficiency values such as 98.74% and 96.84% are measured in the experimental studies and all THD values are brought into compliance with the IEEE-519 Standard. As a result, by increasing the level number of the inverter, lower THD values can be obtained even under high harmonic distortion levels while system efficiency almost remains the same.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.56-69
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• 2018

In this paper, an improved Space Vector Modulation (SVM) based fault tolerant operation on a nine-level Cascaded H-Bridge (CHB) inverter with an additional backup circuit is proposed. Any type of fault in a power converter may result in a power interruption and productivity loss. Three different faults on H-bridge modules in all three phases based on the SVM approach are investigated with diagrams. Any fault in an inverter phase creates an unbalanced output voltage, which can lead to instability in the system. An additional auxiliary unit is connected in series to the three phase cascaded H-bridge circuit. With the help of this and the redundant switching states in SVM, the CHB inverter produces a balanced output with low harmonic distortion. This ensures high DC bus utilization under numerous fault conditions in three phases, which improves the system reliability. Simulation results are presented on three phase nine-level inverter with the automatic fault detection algorithm in the MATLAB/SIMULINK software tool, and experimental results are presented with DSP on five-level inverter to validate the practicality of the proposed SVM fault tolerance strategy on a CHB inverter with an auxiliary circuit.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.115-126
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• 2017

This paper presents a new cascaded asymmetrical single phase multilevel converter with a reduced number of isolated DC sources and power semiconductor switches. The proposed inverter has only two H-bridges connected in cascade, one switching at a high frequency and the other switching at a low frequency. The Low Switching Frequency Inverter (LSFI) generates seven levels whereas the High Switching Frequency Inverter (HSFI) generates only two levels. This paper also presents a solution to the capacitor balancing issues of the LSFI. The proposed inverter has lot of advantages such as reductions in the number of DC sources, switching losses, power electronic devices, size and cost. The proposed inverter with a capacitor voltage balancing algorithm is simulated using MATLAB/SIMULINK. The switching logic of the proposed inverter with a capacitor voltage balancing algorithm is developed using a FPGA SPATRAN 3A DSP board. A laboratory prototype is built to validate the simulation results.

• Journal of international Conference on Electrical Machines and Systems
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• v.1 no.4
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• pp.448-456
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• 2012

This paper presents a multilevel inverter configuration which is designed by insertion of a bidirectional switch between capacitive voltage sources and a conventional H-bridge module. The modified inverter can produce a better sinusoidal waveform by increasing the number of output voltage levels. By serial connection of two modified H-bridge modules, it is possible to produce 9 output voltage levels including zero. There are 24 basic switching patterns with the 9 output voltage levels. Among the patterns, we select the 2 most efficient switching patterns to get a lower switching loss and minimum dv/dt stress. We then analyze characteristics of Total Harmonic Distortion (THD) of the output voltage with variation of input voltage by computer-aided simulations and experiments.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.1051-1066
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• 2018

This study presents a novel step-up switched capacitor multilevel inverter (SCMLI) structure. The proposed structure comprises 2 unequal DC voltage sources, 4 capacitors, and 14 unidirectional power switches. It can synthesize 21 output voltage levels. The important features of the proposed topology are its self-voltage boosting and inherent capacitor voltage balancing capabilities. Furthermore, a cascaded structure of the proposed SCMLI with an asymmetric DC voltage source configuration is presented. The proposed topology and its cascaded structure are compared with conventional and other recently developed topologies in terms of different aspects, such as the required components to produce a specific number of output voltage levels, the total standing voltage (TSV) and peak inverse voltage of the structure, and the maximum number of switches in the conducting path. Furthermore, a cost function is developed to verify the cost-effectiveness of the proposed topology with respect to other topologies. The TSV of the proposed topology is significantly lower than those of other topologies. Moreover, the developed topology is cost-effective compared with other topologies. A detailed operating principle, power loss analysis, and selection procedure for switched capacitors are presented for the proposed SCMLI structure. Extensive simulation and experimental studies of a 21-level inverter structure prove the effectiveness and merits of the proposed SCMLI.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.56-66
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• 2017

Fast and accurate fault detection is the primary step and one of the most important tasks in fault tolerant converters. In this paper, a fast and simple method is proposed to detect and diagnosis the faulty cell in a cascaded H-bridge multilevel inverter under a short circuit fault. In this method, the reference voltage is calculated using switching control pulses and DC-Link voltages. The comparison result of the output voltage and the reference voltage is used in conjunction with active cell pulses to detect the faulty cell. To achieve this goal, the cell which is active when the Fault signal turns to "0" is detected as the faulty cell. Furthermore, consideration of generating the active cell pulses is completely described. Since the main advantage of this method is its simplicity, it can be easily implemented in a programmable digital device. Experimental results obtained with an 11-level inverter prototype confirm the effectiveness of the proposed fault detection technique. In addition, they show that the diagnosis method is unaffected by variations of the modulation index.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.727-743
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• 2019

This paper presents a pulse-width modulation strategy to eliminate the common mode voltage (CMV) with reduced CMV spikes in multilevel inverters since a high CMV magnitude and its fast variations dv/dt result in bearing failure of motors, overvoltage at motor terminals, and electromagnetic interference (EMI). The proposed method only utilizes the zero CMV states in a space vector diagram and it is implemented by a carrier-based pulse-width modulation (CBPWM) method. This method is generalized for odd number levels of inverters including neutral-point-clamped (NPC) and cascaded H-bridge inverters. Then it is extended to the over-modulation mode. The over-modulation mode is implemented by using the two-limit trajectory principle to maintain linear control and to avoid look-up tables. Even though the CMV is eliminated, CMV spikes that can cause EMI and bearing current problems still exist due to the deadtime effect. As a result, the deadtime effect is analyzed. By taking the deadtime effect into consideration, the proposed method is capable of reducing CMV spikes. Simulation and experimental results verify the effectiveness of the proposed strategy.