• Proceedings of the KIPE Conference
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• 2010.07a
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• pp.434-435
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• 2010

본 논문에서는 배전급 고전압(1kV~7.2kV) 계통 연계가 가능한 새로운 3 병렬 3 레벨 NPC(Neutral-Point-Clamped) 컨버터/인버터 회로방식을 제안한다. 이 회로방식은 정격 용량의 1/3 크기를 가지는 NPC 컨버터/인버터 모듈을 3 병렬로 구성하면서 직류단 캐패시터를 병렬 연결하여 중성점 전위 변동을 저감할 수 있는 특징을 가진다. 제안된 3 병렬 3 레벨 NPC 컨버터/인버터는 기존의 NPC 컨버터의 장점을 가지면서 동시에 용량 확장이 가능하고, 하나의 모듈이 고장 상태가 되더라도 부분 운전이 가능하여 시스템의 신뢰성을 증대시킬 수 있다. 본 논문에서는 제안된 중성점 전압 제어 전략을 실험을 통하여 검증한다. 정밀한 중성점 전압 제어를 위한 중성점 전류 제어 방법이 3병렬 구조에서 안정적으로 동작함을 컴퓨터 모의 실험을 통해 검증한다.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.455-463
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• 2016

This paper proposes a compensation method to improve the distorted space vectors when a 3-level Neutral Point Clamped (NPC) inverter has an unbalanced neutral point voltage. Since both the neutral point voltage of the DC link and the space vector of a 3-level NPC inverter are closely related depending on the output load connecting state, a distorted space vector can occur when the neutral point voltage of a 3-level NPC inverter is unbalanced. The proposed method can improve the distorted space vectors by adjusting the injection time of the small and medium vectors and by modulating the amplitude of the carrier waveforms. In this paper, the proposed method is verified by both simulation and experimental results based on a 3-level NPC inverter.

• Journal of Electrical Engineering and Technology
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.738-750
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• 2017

In this paper, carrier-based pulse width modulation (CBPWM), space vector PWM (SVPWM) and reduced switching losses PWM (RSLPWM) for the three-level neutral point clamped (NPC) inverter are introduced. In the case of the neutral point (NP) potential (NPP) offset, an asymmetric disposition PWM (ASPDPWM) strategy is proposed, which can output PWM sequences correctly and suppress the lower order harmonics of the inverter effectively. An NPP balance strategy based on carrier based PWM (CBPWM) is analyzed. A hybrid modulation strategy combining RSLPWM and the NPP balance based on CBPWM is proposed, and hysteresis control is adopted to switch between the two modulation strategies. An experimental prototype of the three-level NPC inverter is built. The effectiveness of the hybrid modulation is verified with a resistance-inductance load and a permanent magnetic synchronous motor (PMSM) load, respectively. The experimental results show that reduced switching losses and an acceptable NPP can be effectively achieved in the hybrid modulation strategy.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Power Electronics
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.115-122
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• 2007

In this paper, a novel fault detection method for fault tolerant control is proposed when the NPC inverter has a open failure in the switching device. The open fault of switching device is detected by checking the variation of a leg-voltage in the neutral-point-clamped inverter and the two phases control method is used for continuously balance the three phases voltage to the load. It can be achieve the fault tolerant control for improving the reliability of the NPC inverter by the fault detection and reconfiguration. This method has fast detection ability and a simple realization for fault detection, compared with a conventional method. Also, this fast detection ability improved the harmful effects such as DC-link voltage unbalance and overstress to other switching devices from a delay of fault detection. The proposed method has been verified by simulation and experiment.

• 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.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.11 no.5
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• pp.688-696
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• 2011

This paper proposes a simple space vector PWM (SVPWM) scheme including overmodulation operation for 3-level NPC (Neutral Point Clamped) Inverters. The proposed scheme features a simple decision and calculation procedure for determining switching times in the overmodulation range by utilizing the duty calculation method used in 2-level inverters and the minimum phase error projection method widely employed in motor drive systems. The proposed scheme does not need to detect the angle of the reference vector or calculate trigonometric functions to determine the magnitude of the voltage vector. The magnitude of the angle of the new reference voltage vector is decided in advance with the help of the Fourier Series Expansion to extend the linearity of the output voltage of 3-level inverters in the overmodulation region. Experimental results demonstrate the validity of the proposed SVPWM scheme including overmodulation operation for 3-level NPC inverters.

• 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.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.519-530
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• 2014

A novel simplified pulse width modulation(PWM) strategy for neutral point clamped (NPC) three-level converter is proposed in this paper.The direct output voltage modulation is applied to reduce the calculation time. Based on this strategy, several optimized control methods are proposed. The neutral point potential balancing algorithm is discussed and a fine neutral point potential balancing scheme is introduced. Moreover, the minimum pulse width compensation and switching losses reduction can be easily achieved using this modulation strategy. This strategy also gains good results even with the unequal DC link capacitor. The modulation principle is studied in detail and the validity of this simplified PWM strategy is experimentally verified in this paper. The experiment results indicated that the proposed PWM strategy has excellent performance, and the neutral point potential can be balanced well with unequal DC link captaincies.

• The Transactions of The Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers
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• v.57 no.7
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• pp.1200-1207
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• 2008

In this paper, a novel fault detection method is proposed when the neutral-point-clamped inverter has a open-circuit fault in the switching device. This proposed method is configured with simple circuit and is achieved by a simple algorithm using the inherent characteristic of the continuous Pulse Width Modulation. Also, this method has the fast fault detection ability and is much simpler to embody, in comparison with conventional fault detection methods. This ability to detect fault minimizes harmful effect which are such as DC-link voltage unbalance and overstress to other switching devices. Therefore, this proposed fault detection method can improve reliability of NPC inverter system. Experimental results are presented to verify the validity of proposed fault detection method.

• 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.