• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.9 no.6
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• pp.949-959
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• 2009

This paper presents a systematic investigation of the fault-mode behaviors of matrix converter systems. Knowledge about converter behaviors after fault occurrence is important from the standpoint of reliable system design, protection and fault-tolerant control. Converter behaviors have been, in detail, examined with both qualitative and quantitative approaches for key fault types, such as switch open-circuited faults and switch short-circuited faults. Investigating the fault-mode behaviors of matrix converters reveals that converter operation with switch short-circuited faults leads to overvoltage stresses as well as overcurrent stresses on other healthy switching components. On the other hand, switch open-circuited faults only result in overvoltage to other switching components. This study can be used to predict fault-mode converter behaviors and determine additional stresses on remaining power circuit components under fault-mode operations.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.57-65
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• 2016

Reverse matrix converters, which can step up voltages, are suitable for applications with source voltages that are lower than load voltages, such as generator systems. Reverse matrix converter topologies are advantageous because they do not require additional components to conventional matrix converters. In this paper, a detection method and a post-fault modulation strategy to operate a converter as close as possible to its desired normal operation under the open-switch fault condition in the rectifier stage are proposed. An open-switch fault in the rectifier stage of a reverse matrix converter causes current distortions and voltage ripples in the system. Therefore, fault-tolerant control for open-switch faults is required to improve the reliability of a system. The proposed strategy determines the appropriate switching stages from among the remaining healthy switches of the converter. This is done based on reference currents or voltages. The performance of the proposed strategy is experimentally verified.

• The Transactions of the Korea Information Processing Society
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.628-638
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• 1997

This paper describes an implementation of fault simulator that can switch level fault models such as transistor stuck-open and stuck-closed faults as well as stuck-at faults. It overcomes the limitation when only stuck-at faults are used in VLSI circuits. Signal flow of a transistor switch is bidirectional in its nature, but most of signal flows in a switch level circuits, about 95%, are in one direction. This fault simulator focuses on the way which changes a switch level circuit into a graph model with two directed edges. Two paths from Vdd to ground and from ground to directions. Logic simulation is performed along dominant signal flows. The switch level fault simulation estimates the dominant path by injecting switch-level fualts, and pattern vectors are used for faults simulation. Experimental results are shown to demonstrate correctness of the fault simulator.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.14 no.6
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• pp.1157-1165
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• 2014

The T-type topology is a three-level topology that has an advantage in terms of its number of switching device and its efficiency when compared to the neutral-point clamped (NPC)-type topology. With the recent increase in the usage of the T-type topology, the interest in its reliability has also increased. Therefore, a tolerance control for a T-type rectifier is necessary to improve the reliability of applications when an open-switch fault occurs. NPC-type rectifiers cannot eliminate input current distortion completely. However, the T-type rectifier is able to restore distorted current. In this paper, a tolerance control for the $S_{x2}$ and $S_{x3}$ open-switch faults of a T-type rectifier is proposed where it is advantageous in terms of efficiency when compared with other tolerance controls. The performance of the proposed tolerance control is verified through simulation and experimental results.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Power Electronics
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.164-171
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• 2006

In this paper, the fault tolerant system for BLDC motor has been proposed to maintain control performance under an open switch fault of inverter. The fault identification is proposed to two methods, which are using the difference between reference and actual current, and adding voltage sensors across lower legs of inverter. The reconfiguration scheme is achieved by the four-switch topology connecting a faulty leg to the middle point of DC-link using bidirectional switches. The proposed fault tolerant system quickly recovers control performance by short fault detecting time and reconfiguration of system topology. Therefore, continuous free operation of the BLDC motor drive system after faults is available. The superior performance of the proposed fault tolerant system is proved by simulation.

• Journal of Electrical Engineering and Technology
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• v.12 no.6
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• pp.2278-2288
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• 2017

Multilevel converter topologies are widely used in many applications. The cascaded H-bridge multilevel inverter (CHBMI), which is one of many multilevel converter topologies, has been introduced as a useful topology in high and medium power. However, it has a drawback to require a lot of switches. Therefore, the reliability of CHBMI is important factor for analyzing the performance. This paper presents a simple switch fault diagnosis method for single-phase CHBMI. There are two types of switch faults: open-fault and short-fault. In the open-fault, the body diode of faulty switch provides a freewheeling current path. However, when the short-fault occurs, the distortion of output current is different from that of the open-fault because it has an unavailable freewheeling current flow path due to a disconnection of fuse. The fault diagnosis method is based on the zero current time analysis according to zero-voltage switching states. Using the proposed method, it is possible to detect the location of faulty switch accurately. The PSIM simulation and experimental results show the effectiveness of proposed switch fault diagnosis method.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.10 no.6
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• pp.702-708
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• 2010

In this paper, a fault diagnosis algorithm for brushless DC (BLDC) motor drives is proposed to maintain control performance under switch open-damage. The proposed fault diagnosis algorithm consists of a simple algorithm using measured phase current information and it detects open-circuit faults based on the operating characteristic of BLDC motors. The proposed algorithm quickly recovers control performance due to its short detection time and its reconfiguration of the system topology. It can be embedded into existing BLDC drive software as a subroutine without additional sensors. The feasibility of the proposed fault diagnosis algorithm is proven by simulation and experimental results.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.131-145
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• 2015

The voltage-source inverters (VSI) supplying a motor drive are prone to open transistor faults. To address this issue in fault-tolerant drives applicable to electric vehicles, a new open transistor fault diagnosis (FD) method is presented in this paper. According to the proposed method, in order to define the FD index, the phase angle of the converter output current is estimated by a simple trigonometric function. The proposed FD method is adaptable, simple, capable of detecting multiple open switch faults and robust to load operational variations. Keeping the FD in mind as a mandatory part of the fault tolerant control algorithm, the FD block is applied to a five-phase converter supplying a multiphase fault-tolerant PM motor drive with non-sinusoidal unbalanced current waveforms. To investigate the performance of the FD technique, the fault-tolerant sliding mode control (SMC) of a five-phase brushless direct current (BLDC) motor is developed in this paper with the embedded FD block. Once the theory is explained, experimental waveforms are obtained from a five-phase BLDC motor to show the effectiveness of the proposed FD method. The FD algorithm is implemented on a field programmable gate array (FPGA).

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.1415-1425
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• 2016

This paper presents a new approach for fault diagnosis in three-level neutral point clamped inverters. The proposed method is based on the average values of the positive and negative parts of normalized output currents. This method is capable of detecting and locating multiple open-circuit faults in the controlled power switches of converters in half of a fundamental period of those currents. The implementation of this diagnostic approach only requires two output currents of the inverter. Therefore, no additional sensors are needed other than the ones already used by the control system of a drive based on this type of converter. Moreover, through the normalization of currents, the diagnosis is independent of the load level of the converter. The performance and effectiveness of the proposed diagnostic technique are validated by experimental results obtained under steady-state and transient conditions.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SC
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• v.48 no.1
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• pp.31-38
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• 2011

Faults of motor drive systems to be used for various industrial applications can cause serious problems. In this paper, a method to diagnose switch open fault of a voltage-fed PWM inverter is proposed. The proposed method normalizes dq current and fault-detection and first classification are performed by mean values of dq phase currents, second classification is performed by features such as the relation of dq phase currents, the ranges of those, the positions of those according to the results, and fault switch is diagnosed with the results. The proposed method performs the simulation for diagnosis of inverter switch open faults with MATLAB and identifies the feasibility of the proposed method. Because the proposed method is implemented by simple algorithms, the proposed algorithm can be embedded in general induction motor drive systems and be used.