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In this paper, new model-based sensorless control methods are proposed that include independent estimations of position and speed errors, and compatible position and speed estimators. Using the proposed position estimator, a unity transfer function can be achieved from the actual position to the estimated position, eliminating the effects of load disturbances. This implies that the position error would ideally be zero, even in a transient state. In addition, the effects of parameter and voltage synthesis errors on the steady-state position error are analyzed. Experimental results verify both the analysis and the effectiveness of the proposed methods under severe load disturbances such as speed transient (20 000 r/min/s) and load torque transient (10 p.u./s). With the proposed methods, position estimation errors are significantly reduced by more than 50% during speed and load torque transients at identical dominant-pole placements, verifying the enhanced tracking capability and robustness of the proposed methods against external load disturbances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In signal injection sensorless drives, the injection voltage cannot be reduced under a certain value. The lower limit of the injection voltage is mainly enforced by the inverter nonlinearity that causes distortion of the injection voltage and degradation of the position estimation performance. After analyzing the inverter nonlinearity during the voltage injection, it is revealed that parasitic capacitances of insulated-gate bipolar transistors have positive effects on inverter output linearity and sensorless control. Based on this analysis, this paper proposes a method to reduce the injection voltage by connecting additional capacitors to the output terminals of the inverter. Simulation and experimental results are provided to verify the effectiveness of the proposed idea. In the experiments, using the capacitor-integrated inverter, it is shown that the injection voltage can be reduced by more than half without degrading the position estimation performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, two designs of interior permanent-magnet synchronous machine (IPMSM) for sensorless drive with absolute rotor position estimation capability are proposed. A conventional IPMSM design proposed for the same purpose had a demerit that for the absolute position estimation, the rotor should initially stroke for 100 degrees in the worst case. Using the proposed IPMSMs featuring asymmetric winding and asymmetric rotor geometry, the initial stroke of the rotor can be reduced to 30 degrees. Moreover, basic characteristics of the motor such as torque ripples and harmonics of electromotive force (EMF) are conspicuously improved. The proposed designs are evaluated by rigorous finite-element analyses and experimental tests. An analytical model of the proposed motors considering their asymmetric structures is also developed and provided in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is important to improve the overall efficiency of a photovoltaic (PV) inverter when it is connected to the grid. Fundamentally, the conversion efficiency from dc to ac power of an inverter is important. However, in the presence of partial shading, maximum power point tracking (MPPT) on PV modules is more important than the conversion efficiency. In this paper, a new control method for a three-level inverter is proposed. With the proposed method, each dc-link voltage of the three-level inverter can be asymmetrically regulated. When PV modules are split into two and each split module is connected to the respective dc-link capacitors of the inverter, the asymmetric control can be helpful because separate MPPTs are possible. The effectiveness of the proposed method was examined through experiments with a T-type three-level inverter, where each dc-link capacitor was supplied by a PV simulator emulating two separate PV modules under different shading conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a protection strategy for the semiconductor switches in an electrolytic capacitorless converter. The proposed protection strategy is capable of protecting the semiconductor switches from overvoltage breakdown caused by the regenerative energy flowing from the load to the grid after the source lines are disconnected by the grid interruption. The energy stored in the machine inductance also may result in excessive dc-bus overvoltage due to the small dc capacitance in the electrolytic capacitorless converter. According to the proposed algorithm, the energy in the q-axis inductance is transferred to the d-axis inductance in the rotor reference frame while the dc-bus voltage is maintained within an allowable range by the proposed dc-bus voltage regulation during the grid (or source) interruption. The proposed protection strategy was verified by the experiments with an elevator system with a 10.8-kW 380-V interior permanent magnet (1PM) hoist machine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A hybrid modular multilevel converter (MMC) consists of both half-bridge submodule (HBSM) and full-bridge submodule (FBSM) in each arm. It has several advantages over other MMC topologies, such as low system loss, reduced cost of the system, but still maintains fault ride-through capability against a solid dc-side fault. However, the hybrid MMC may have a difficulty of submodule (SM) voltage balancing under variation of its dc-bus voltage. Since the voltage unbalance of SMs results in SM capacitor overvoltage and low reliability of the system, the voltage of SMs, which can be also represented as energy of SMs, should be balanced at all time. In this paper, to extend the narrow adjustable range of dc-bus voltage due to the voltage/energy unbalance, new feedback and feedforward energy balancing controllers with revised sorting algorithm are proposed. The feedback control ensures the zero steady-state error, while the feedforward control provides fast dynamic response in the energy balancing control. By applying the proposed control scheme, the hybrid MMC can keep the voltage balance between HBSMs and FBSMs in wider range of dc-bus voltage. The full-scale computer simulation results and down-scale experimental results demonstrate the validity of the proposed control scheme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes a dc-link voltage control method of a single-phase back-to-back cascaded H-bridge inverter (SBCI) for a medium-voltage motor drive system. The main advantage of the SBCI topology over the conventional regenerative cascaded H-bridge topology with a three-phase active front-end (AFE) is a simple system structure, which is composed of an input transformer, a power cell, a current sensor, etc. However, the challenging points of the SBCI are larger voltage ripple in the dc-link capacitor and imbalance of dc-link voltages of each phase. The asymmetric dc-link voltage of each power cells could cause unstable operation such as over-modulation due to the lack of the dc-link voltage of a particular phase and result in over-voltage or under-voltage faults. In this paper, the control strategy of the dc-link voltage for the SBCI that uses the negative-sequence voltage of the converter is described. The proposed control method is verified with a computer simulation whose target is a 6.6-kV–1.25-MW medium-voltage drive system. Also, through the experimental setup with the prototype SBCI whose power rating is 16.2 kVA, the dc-link voltage of each AFE has been controlled within a 0.5% error of its reference value at the full load. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the voltage-source-converter-based dc system, the short-circuit current increases rapidly due to neighborhood dc-link capacitance. The protection system using a high-speed fuse has been applied in the industry to protect before the current freewheeling that ruins a semiconductor device. For proper protection system design, the capacitor-discharge I2t must be analyzed and set higher than the melting I2t of the fuse by securing sufficient capacitance. However, due to the implicit characteristics of the I2t function, it is difficult to calculate the required capacitance directly considering unknown fault resistance. In this article, the normalized I2t map of capacitor-discharge is presented as a calculation reference. After calculating the base values, the normalized I2t value can be calculated easily from the map without complicated formula. Since it is expressed as a function of the damping factor (half of the normalized resistance) and normalized capacitor's voltage, it helps I2t design with the range of fault resistance and voltage drop simultaneously. The proposed normalization and its result were verified through the experimental tests under various fault resistance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A current source inverter (CSI) requires a capacitor filter for the commutation of switching device as well as for attenuating switching harmonics. Hence, the CSI-fed ac machine has a second-order system in the continuous time domain. This paper presents a design methodology for the closed-loop current controller of the CSI-fed ac machine drive system. A multiloop current controller design using a pole/zero cancellation method is employed with a transfer function matrix. To decouple the cross-coupling terms which cause mutual interferences between the d- and q-axes in the synchronous reference frame, two types of controller are proposed and implemented using different decoupling method. Additionally, active damping methods are incorporated to enhance the stability of the system. A stability analysis in discrete-time domain is investigated to verify the feasibility of the proposed closed-loop current controller. To evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed current controller, computer simulations and experimental tests were performed and the results are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A matrix converter interfaces with three-phase ac voltage source, which creates three different virtual dc-link voltages. In this paper, a new pulsewidth modulation (PWM) method for the matrix converter is proposed to generally use these three virtual dc-link voltages. By using the two higher line-to-line voltages as the virtual dc-link voltages, the proposed method can create the identical switching sequences to those created by the conventional space vector PWM (SVPWM) method. Moreover, the proposed method is able to select the appropriate virtual dc-link voltage, according to the PWM purpose and/or load condition. In this paper, the virtual dc-link voltages adjacent to the output voltage reference are introduced to reduce output-current switching ripples. The feasibility of the proposed PWM method was verified by a computer simulation and experimental results. The output voltage and current waveforms produced by using the proposed method can be equal or better than those created using the conventional SVPWM method. Moreover, a new switching sequence that reduces output-current switching ripple can be easily adopted within the proposed PWM method. The harmonic characteristics of output current created using the proposed method are markedly improved over those using the conventional PWM method. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper addresses the inverter nonlinearity of a three-level T-type inverter. The main causes of the nonlinearity are pulse shaping, pulse skipping due to narrow pulses for the dead time, and voltage drop of the switching devices. Although the same causes have existed in two-level inverters, the pulse skipping phenomenon and results are quite different in the case of the three-level T-type inverter. The effects of pulse shaping and skipping have been investigated and discussed. In addition, the voltage drop of the switching devices has been considered in conjunction with the conduction path of the T-type inverter. Compensation methods based on the pulse width modulation (PWM) of T-type inverter to alleviate the inverter nonlinearity have been proposed from research results. The proposed methods could be easily implemented by adding appropriate offset voltages to the voltage references of the inverter in PWM. Furthermore, a neutral voltage balancing method of a three-level T-type inverter has been proposed in conjunction with the proposed PWM methods using offset voltage. Through extensive experimental tests, the fifth- and seventh-harmonic components of the current are conspicuously reduced along with the even harmonics. The neutral voltage of the inverter can be balanced effectively with the proposed offset voltage adjustments as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a novel flux-weakening control algorithm of an interior permanent-magnet synchronous motor for "quasi" six-step operation. The proposed method is composed of feedforward and feedback paths. The feedforward path consists of 1-D lookup table, and the feedback is based on the difference between the reference voltage updated by current regulator and the output voltage limited by the overmodulation. Using this method, the flux-weakening and the antiwindup controls can be achieved simultaneously. In addition, the quasi-six-step operation can be obtained. That is, the available maximum output torque in the flux-weakening region is close to that in the six-step operation while the ability of the current control is maintained. The effectiveness of this method is proved by the experimental results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]