2014/02/25 by Luca Tarisciotti, Pericle Zanchetta, Alan J. Watson +6
Engineering · #Multilevel Inverters and Converters #HVDC Systems and Fault Protection #Silicon Carbide Semiconductor Technologies
paper · doi:10.1109/tie.2014.2308139
In this paper, a dedicated pulse width modulation (PWM) technique specifically designed for single-phase (or four wire three-phase) multilevel Cascaded H-Bridge Converters is presented. The aim of the proposed technique is to minimize the DC-Link voltage unbalance, independently from the amplitude of the DC-Link voltage reference, and compensate the switching device voltage drops and on-state resistances. Such compensation can be used to achieve an increase in the waveform quality of the converter. This is particularly useful in high-power low supply voltage applications where a low switching frequency is used. The DC-Link voltage balancing capability of the method removes the requirement for additional control loops to actively balance the DC-Link voltage on each H-Bridge, simplifying the control structure. The proposed modulation technique has been validated through the use of simulation and extensive experimental testing to confirm its effectiveness.