• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.16 no.6
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• pp.2099-2108
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• 2016

The cascaded multilevel converter is widely adopted to medium/high voltage and high power electronic applications due to the small harmonic components of the output voltage and the facilitation of modularity. In this paper, the operation principle of a T-type H-bridge topology is investigated in detail, and a carrier phase shifted pulse width modulation (CPS-PWM) based control method is proposed for this topology. Taking a virtual five-level waveform achieved by a unipolar double frequency CPS-PWM as the output object, PWM signals of the T-type H-bridge can be obtained by reverse derivation according to its switching modes. In addition, a control method for the T-type H-bridge based cascaded multilevel converter is introduced. Then a single-phase T-type H-bridge cascaded multilevel static var generator (SVG) prototype is built, and a repetitive controller based compound current control strategy is designed with the DC-link voltage balancing control scheme analyzed. Finally, simulation and experimental results validate the correctness and feasibility of the proposed modulation method and control strategy for T-type H-bridge based cascaded multilevel converters.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Power Electronics
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• v.20 no.5
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• pp.448-455
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• 2015

A model predictive control (MPC) method without individual PWM has been recently researched to simplify and improve the control flexibility of a multilevel inverter. However, the input power of each H-bridge cell and the switching frequency of switching devices are unbalanced because of the use of a restricted switching state in the MPC method. This paper proposes a control method for balancing the switching patterns and cell power supplied from each isolated dc source of a cascaded H-bridge inverter. The supplied dc power from isolated dc sources of each H-bridge cells is balanced with the proposed cell balancing method. In addition, the switching frequency of each switching device of the CHB inverter becomes equal. A simulation and experimental results are presented with nine-level and five-level three-phase CHB inverter to validate the proposed balancing method.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.244-253
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• 2019

Finite control set model-predictive control (FCS-MPC) has received increasing attentions due to its outstanding dynamic performance. It is being widely used in power converters and multilevel inverters. However, FCS-MPC requires a lot of calculations, especially for multilevel-cascaded H-bridge (CHB) static synchronous compensators (STATCOMs), since it has to take account of all the feasible voltage vectors of inverters. Hence, an improved five-segment space vector pulse width modulation (SVPWM) method based on the non-orthogonal static reference frames is proposed. The proposed SVPWM method has a lower number of switching states and requires fewer computations than the conventional method. As a result, it makes FCS-MPC more efficient for multilevel cascaded H-bridge STATCOMs. The partial cost function is adopted to sequentially solve for the reference current and capacitor voltage. The proposed FCS-MPC method can reduce the calculation burden of the FCS-MPC strategy, and reduce both the switching frequency and power losses. Simulation and experimental results validate the excellent performance of the proposed method when compared with the conventional approach.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.11 no.5
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• pp.632-638
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• 2011

This paper presents a cascaded coil flux control based on a Current Source Parallel Resonant Push-Pull Inverter (CSPRPI) for Induction Heating (IH) applications. The most important problems associated with current source parallel resonant inverters are start-up problems and the variable response of IH systems under load variations. This paper proposes a simple cascaded control method to increase an IH system's robustness to load variations. The proposed IH has been analyzed in both the steady state and the transient state. Based on this method, the resonant frequency is tracked using Phase Locked Loop (PLL) circuits using a Multiplier Phase Detector (MPD) to achieve ZVS under the transient condition. A laboratory prototype was built with an operating frequency of 57-59 kHz and a rated power of 300 W. Simulation and experimental results verify the validity of the proposed power control method and the PLL dynamics.

• Journal of Electrical Engineering and Technology
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.576-588
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• 2014

The superiority of CMI (Cascaded Multilevel Inverter) is unparalleled in high power and high voltage STATCOM (Static Synchronous Compensator). However, the parameters and operating conditions of each individual power unit composing the cascaded STATCOM differ from unit to unit, causing unit voltage disequilibrium on the DC side. This phenomenon seriously impairs the operation performance of STATCOM, and thus maintaining the DC voltage balance and stability becomes critical for cascaded STATCOM. This paper analyzes the case of voltage disequilibrium, combines the operation characteristics of the cascaded STATCOM, and proposes a new DC voltage control scheme with the advantages of good control performance and stability. This hierarchical control method uses software to achieve the total active power control and also uses chopper controllers to enable that the imbalance power can flow among the capacitors in order to keep DC capacitor voltages balance. The operating principle of the chopper controllers is analyzed and the implementation is presented. The major advantages of the proposed control strategy are that the number of PI regulators has been decreased remarkably and accordingly the blindness of system design and debugging also reduces obviously. The simulation reveals that the proposed control scheme can achieve the satisfactory control goals.

• Journal of international Conference on Electrical Machines and Systems
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• v.1 no.2
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• pp.79-84
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• 2012

In this paper, a three-phase high-voltage converter (HVC), in which the main structure of each phase is composed of a cascaded PWM rectifier (CPR) and cascaded inverter (CI), is studied. A high-voltage grid is the input of the HVC. In order to ensure proper operation of the HVC, the control method should achieve output voltage sharing (OVS) among the rectifiers in the CPR, OVS among the inverters in the CI, and high power factor. Master-slave direct-current control (MDCC) is used to control the CPR. The ability of the control system to prevent interference is strong when using MDCC. The CI is controlled by three-loop control, which is composed of an outer common-output-voltage loop, inner current loops and voltage sharing loops. Simulation results show low total harmonic distortion (THD) in the HVC input currents and good OVS in both the CPR and CI.

• Journal of Electrical Engineering and Technology
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.304-315
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• 2013

In this paper, analysis of cascaded H-bridge multilevel inverter in DTC-SVM (Direct Torque Control-Space Vector Modulation) based induction motor drive for FCEV (Fuel Cell Electric Vehicle) is presented. Cascaded H-bridge multilevel inverter uses multiple series units of H-bridge power cells to achieve medium-voltage operation and low harmonic distortion. In FCEV, a fuel cell stack is used as the major source of electric power moreover the battery and/or ultra-capacitor is used to assist the fuel cell. These sources are suitable for utilizing in cascaded H-bridge multilevel inverter. The drive control strategy is based on DTC-SVM technique. In this scheme, first, stator voltage vector is calculated and then realized by SVM method. Contribution of multilevel inverter to the DTC-SVM scheme is led to achieve high performance motor drive. Simulations are carried out in Matlab-Simulink. Five-level and nine-level inverters are applied in 3hp FCEV induction motor drive for analysis the multilevel inverter. Each H-bridge is implemented using one fuel cell and battery. Good dynamic control and low ripple in the torque and the flux as well as distortion decrease in voltage and current profiles, demonstrate the great performance of multilevel inverter in DTC-SVM induction motor drive for vehicle application.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Power Electronics
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• v.23 no.5
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• pp.359-365
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• 2018

This study introduces a model predictive control method for controlling a cascaded flying capacitor multilevel rectifier used as an AC-DC rectifier of a solid-state transformer for DC distribution systems. The proposed method reduces the number of states that need to be considered in model predictive control by separately controlling input current, output DC link voltage, and flying capacitor voltage. Thus, calculation time is shortened to facilitate the level expansion of the cascaded flying capacitor multilevel rectifier. The selection of weighting factors did not present difficulties because the weighting factors in the cost function of the conventional model predictive control are not used. The effectiveness of the proposed method is verified through computer simulation using powersim and experiment.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.487-496
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• 2019

For a solid-state transformer (SST), some factors, such as signal delay, switching loss and differences in the system parameters, lead to unbalanced DC-link voltages among the cascaded H-bridges (CHB). With a control method implemented in the ${\alpha}{\beta}$ frame, the DC-link voltages are balanced, and the reactive power is equally distributed among all of the H-bridges. Based on the ${\alpha}{\beta}$ frame control, the system can achieve independent active current and reactive current control. In addition, the control method of the high-voltage stage is easy to implement without decoupling or a phase-locked loop. Furthermore, the method can eliminate additional current delays during transients and get the dynamic response rapidly without an imaginary current component. In order to carry out the controller design, the vector refactoring relations that are used to balance DC-link voltages are derived. Different strategies are discussed and simulated under the unbalanced load condition. Finally, a three-cell CHB rectifier is constructed to conduct further research, and the steady and transient experimental results verify the effectiveness and correctness of the proposed method.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.567-577
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• 2012

This paper introduces a new scheme to balance the DC bus voltages of a cascaded H-bridge converter which is used as a Distribution Static Synchronous Series Compensator (D-SSSC) in electrical distribution network. The aim of D-SSSC is to control the power flow between two feeders from different substations. As a result of different cell losses and capacitors tolerance the cells DC bus voltage can deviate from their reference values. In the proposed scheme, by individually modifying the reference PWM signal for each cell, an effective balancing procedure is derived. The new balancing procedure needs only the line current sign and is independent of the main control strategy, which controls the total DC bus voltages of cascaded H-bridge. The effect of modulation index variation on the capacitor voltage is analytically derived for the proposed strategy. The proposed method takes advantages of phase shift carrier based modulation and can be applied for a cascaded H-bridge with any number of cells. Also the system is immune to loss of one cell and the presented procedure can keep balancing between the remaining cells. Simulation studies and experimental results validate the effectiveness of the proposed method in the balancing of DC bus voltages.