• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.445-455
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• 2018

A novel algorithm is proposed to regulate the neutral point potential in neutral point clamped three-level inverters. Oscillations of the neutral point potential and an unbalanced dc-link voltage cause distortions of the output voltage. Large capacitors, which make the application costly and bulky, are needed to eliminate oscillations. Thus, the algorithm proposed in this paper utilizes the finite-control-set model predictive control and the multistage medium vector to solve these issues. The proposed strategy consists of a two-step prediction and a cost function to evaluate the selected multistage medium vector. Unlike the virtual vector method, the multistage medium vector is a mixture of the virtual vector and the original vector. In addition, its amplitude is variable. The neutral point current generated by it can be used to adjust the neutral point potential. When compared with the virtual vector method, the multistage medium vector contributes to decreasing the regulation time when the modulation index is high. The vectors are rearranged to cope with the variable switching frequency of the model predictive control. Simulation and experimental results verify the validity of the proposed strategy.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.944-955
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• 2019

In this paper, the three-level T-type neutral-point-clamped indirect matrix converter topology and the relative space vector modulation methods are introduced to improve the voltage transfer ratio and output voltage performance. The presented converter topology is based on combinations of cascaded-rectifier and three-level T-type neutral-point-clamp inverter. It can overcome the limitation of voltage transfer ratio of the conventional matrix converter and the high voltage rating of power switches of conventional matrix converter. Two SVPWM strategies for proposed converter are described in this paper to achieve the advantages features such as: sinusoidal input/output currents and three-level output voltage waveforms. Results from Psim 9.0 software simulation are provided to confirm the theoretical analysis. Hence, a laboratory prototype was implemented, and the experimental results are shown to validate the simulation results and to verify the effectiveness of the proposed topology and modulation strategies.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.5 no.3
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• pp.224-232
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• 2005

A new three phase three-level Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) Switched Voltage Source (SVS) inverter with zero neutral point potential is proposed. It consists of three single-phase inverter modules. Each module is composed of a switched voltage source and inverter switches. The major advantage is that the peak value of the phase output voltage is twice as high as that of a conventional neutral-point-clamped (NPC) PWM inverter. Thus, the proposed inverter is suitable for applications with low voltage sources such as batteries, fuel cells, or solar cells. Furthermore, three-level waveforms of the proposed inverter can be achieved without the switch voltage imbalance problem. Since the average neutral point potential of the proposed inverter is zero, a common ground between the input stage and the output stage is possible. Therefore, it can be applied to a transformer-less Power Conditioning System (PCS). The proposed inverter is verified by a PSpice simulation and experimental results based on a laboratory prototype.

• JSTS:Journal of Semiconductor Technology and Science
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.451-462
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• 2016

Photovoltaic energy conversion becomes main focus of many researches due to its promising potential as source for future electricity and has many advantages than the other alternative energy sources like wind, solar, ocean, biomass, geothermal etc. In Photovoltaic power generation multilevel inverters play a vital role in power conversion. The three different topologies, diode-clamped (neutral-point clamped) inverter, capacitor-clamped (flying capacitor) inverter and cascaded h-bridge multilevel inverter are widely used in these multilevel inverters. Among the three topologies, cascaded h-bridge multilevel inverter is more suitable for photovoltaic applications since each pv array can act as a separate dc source for each h-bridge module. This paper presents a single phase Cascaded H-bridge five level inverter for grid-connected photovoltaic application using sinusoidal pulse width modulation technique. This inverter output voltage waveform reduces the harmonics in the generated current and the filtering effort at the input. The control strategy allows the independent control of each dc-link voltages and tracks the maximum power point of PV strings. This topology can inject to the grid sinusoidal input currents with unity power factor and achieves low harmonic distortion. A PID control algorithm is implemented in Arm Processor LPC2148. The validity of the proposed inverter is verified through simulation and is implemented in a single phase 100W prototype. The results of hardware are compared with simulation results. The proposed system offers improved performance over conventional three level inverter in terms of THD.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.15 no.5
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• pp.1207-1216
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• 2015

In order to suppress the low frequency oscillation of the neutral-point voltage for three-level inverters, this paper proposes a new discontinuous pulse width modulation (DPWM) control method. The conventional sinusoidal pulse width modulation (SPWM) control has no effect on balancing the neutral-point voltage. Based on the basic control principle of DPWM, the relationship between the reference space voltage vector and the neutral-point current is analyzed. The proposed method suppresses the low frequency oscillation of the neutral-point voltage by keeping the switches of a certain phase no switching in one carrier cycle. So the operating time of the positive and negative small vectors is equal. Comparing with the conventional SPWM control method, the proposed DPWM control method suppresses the low frequency oscillation of the neutral-point voltage, decreases the output waveform harmonics, and increases both the output waveform quality and the system efficiency. An experiment has been realized by a neutral-point clamped (NPC) three-level inverter prototype based on STM32F407-CPLD. The experimental results verify the correctness of the theoretical analysis and the effectiveness of the proposed DPWM method.

• Proceedings of the KIPE Conference
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• 1998.11a
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• pp.33-37
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• 1998

For the high power variable speed applications, the DCTLI(diode clamped three-level inverter) have been widely used. This paper describes the analysis of the neutral point current of the DCTLI and the improved space vector-based PWM strategy considering the switching frequency of power devices, that minimizes the fluctuation of the neutral point current in spite of high modulation index region and low power factor. It contributes to decrease the capacitance of dc-link capacitor bank and to increase the neutral point voltage controllable region. Especially, even if second (or even) order harmonic is induced in load current (at this situation, is was investigated that the general control method can not suppress the neutral point voltage variation), this PWM can provide effective control method to suppress the neutral point voltage variation. Various simulation results by means of Matlab/Simulation are presented to verify the proposed PWM.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.16 no.6
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• pp.2076-2084
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• 2016

In this paper, a novel scheme to eliminate common-mode voltage (CMV) is proposed for three-level neutral-point clamped (NPC) inverters. In the proposed scheme, a low-power full-bridge converter is utilized to produce compensatory voltage for CMV, which is injected into an NPC inverter through a single-phase four-winding transformer. With the proposed circuit, the power range for applications is not limited, and the maximum modulation index of the inverter is not reduced. These features are suitable for high-power medium-voltage machine drives. The effectiveness of the proposed method is verified by simulation and experimental results.

• Proceedings of the KIPE Conference
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• 2001.10a
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• pp.369-373
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• 2001

Multilevel inverter has attracted great interest in high-voltage high-power field because of its less distorted output. In this paper, a direct torque control (DTC) technique based on a three-level neutral-point-clamped (NPC) inverter is presented. In order to solve the intrinsic neutral-point voltage-balancing problem and to obtain a high performance DTC, a special vector selection method is introduced and the concept of virtual vector is developed. By using the proposed PWM strategy, a MRAS speed sensor-less DTC drive can be achieved without sensing the neutral-point voltage, The strategy can be verified by simulation and experimental results.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.14 no.5
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• pp.926-936
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• 2014

A simplified and effective space vector pulse-width modulation (SVPWM) algorithm with two and three levels for three-phase voltage-source converters is proposed in this study. The proposed SVPWM algorithm only uses several linear calculations on three-phase modulated voltages without any complicated trigonometric calculations adopted by conventional SVPWM. This simplified SVPWM also avoids choosing the vector sector required by conventional SVPWM. A two-level overmodulation scheme is integrated into the proposed two-level SVPMW to generate the output voltage that increases from a linear region to a six-step state with a smoothly linear transition characteristic and a simple overmodulation process without a lookup table and complicated nonlinear functions. The three-level SVPWM with a proportional-integral controller effectively balances the neutral point potential of the neutral point clamped converter. Results from the simulation in MATLAB/Simulink and the experiment based on a digital signal processor are provided to clearly demonstrate the validity and effectiveness of the proposed strategies.

• 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.