• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Power Electronics
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.257-265
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• 2014

This paper proposes a simple compensation method for switches of the unclamped voltage in the three-level NPC inverter. Voltages of inner-switches can be unclamped in the three-level NPC (neutral point clamped) inverter. It can cause the problem of the switch fault accident. By adding a capacitor, switches of the unclamped voltage can be clamped. Through the analysis of the circuit, the reason behind switches being unclamped was verified which leads to the solution method that designs a compensation capacitor. The proposed method was validated through the simulation and experimental results.

• 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.2109-2118
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• 2016

Based on the space vector pulse width modulation (SVPWM) theory, this paper realizes an easier SVPWM strategy, which is equivalently implemented by CBSPWM with zero-sequence voltage injection. The traditional SVPWM strategy has no effect on controlling the neutral-point voltage balance. In order to solve the neutral-point voltage unbalance problem for neutral-point-clamped (NPC) three-level inverters, this paper proposes a neutral-point voltage balance controller. The proposed controller realizes controlling the neutral-point voltage balance by dynamically calculating the offset superimposed to the three-phase modulation waves of an equivalent SVPWM strategy. Compared with the traditional SVPWM strategy, the proposed neutral-point voltage balance controller has a strong ability to balance the neutral-point voltage, has good steady-state performance, improves the output waveforms quality and is easy for digital implementation. An experiment has been carried out on a NPC three-level inverter prototype based on a digital signal processor-complex programmable logic device (DSP-CPLD). The obtained experimental results verify the effectiveness of the proposed neutral-point voltage balance controller.

• Proceedings of the KIPE Conference
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• 2016.07a
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• pp.489-490
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• 2016

본 논문에서는 인버터 시스템의 가격을 줄이기 위해 3-레벨 NPC 인버터의 중성단에 하나의 션트 저항을 삽입함으로써 AC 전동기의 3상 전류를 획득하는 방법을 제안한다. 션트 저항으로부터 정확한 상 전류를 획득하기 위해서는 최소한의 시간이 필요하며 때문에 측정불가영역이 존재하게 된다. 기존의 측정불가영역으로 부터 상 전류를 복원하는 방법은 스위칭 패턴을 이동시키거나 공간 벡터 전압 변조 기법(SVPWM) 이외의 변조 기법을 이용하였는데 이러한 방법은 전류에 고조파를 증가시켜 효율을 떨어뜨리고 소음을 발생시킨다. 본 논문에서는 동기 좌표계 d-q축 비례적분제어기와 전동기 시스템의 전달함수를 이용하여 지령 전류로부터 실제 전류와 같은 전류를 얻는 방법을 통해 기존의 문제점들을 개선하는 방법을 제안한다. 제안된 방법은 시뮬레이션을 통해 증명하였다.

• 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.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.946-959
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• 2016

A novel Virtual Space Vector (VSV) modulation strategy for complete control of potential neutral point (NP) issues is proposed in this paper. The neutral point potential balancing problems of multi-level converters, which include elimination of low frequency oscillations and self-balancing for NP dc unbalance, are investigated first. Then a set of improved virtual space vectors with dynamic adjustment factors are introduced and a multi-objective optimization algorithm which aims to optimize these adjustment factors is presented in this paper. The improved virtual space vectors and the multi-objective optimization algorithm constitute the novel Virtual Space Vector modulation. The proposed novel Virtual Space Vector modulation can simultaneously recover NP dc unbalance and eliminate low frequency oscillations of the neutral point. Experiment results show that the proposed strategy has excellent performance, and that both of the neutral point potential issues can be solved.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Power Electronics
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• v.2 no.3
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• pp.51-57
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• 1997

A new current controlled PWM technique with N.P.C structure is proposed in this paper. A current controlled PWM technique with neutral-point-clamped pulsewidth modulation inverter composed of main switching devices which operates as switches for PWM and auxiliary switching devices to clamp the output terminal potential to the neutral point potential is described. This inverter output contains less harmonic content as compared with that of a conventional current controlled PWM type. In addition, the proposed current controlled PWM technique has lower switching frequency than that of conventional current controlled PWM technique at the same current limit. Two inverters are compared analytically. The improved voltage waveform of current controlled PWM with N.P.C structure is analyzed and the performance is investigated by the computer simulation.

• Proceedings of the KIPE Conference
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• 2004.07b
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• pp.630-634
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• 2004

A new three phase three-level Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) Switched Voltage Source (SVS) inverter with zero neutral point potential is proposed. The major advantage is that the peak value of the phase output voltage is twice as high as that of the conventional neutral-point-clamped (NPC) PWM inverter. Furthermore, three-level waveforms of the proposed inverter can be achieved without switch voltage unbalance problem. Since the average neutral point potential of the proposed inverter is zero, the common ground between input stage and output stage is possible. The proposed inverter is verified by experimental results based on a laboratory prototype.

• 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 Power Electronics
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.106-115
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• 2015

This paper proposes a novel direct power control (DPC) strategy for neutral-point-clamped (NPC) three-level rectifiers, to directly control the active power, the reactive power and the neutral point potential of the rectifiers by referring to three pre-calculated vector influence tables and minimizing an objective function. In the three vector influence tables, the influences of different voltage vectors on the active power, the reactive power and the neutral-point potential are shown explicitly. A conceptual description and control algorithm of the proposed controller are presented in this paper. Then, numerical simulations and experiments are carried out to validate the proposed method. Both the simulation and experimental results show that good performances during both the steady-state and transient operating conditions are achieved. As a result, the proposed strategy has been proven to be effective for NPC three-level rectifiers.