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The rising cost of production testing for a system-on-a-chip (SoC) is one of the crucial matters to chip makers, due to long test time and costly automated-test-equipment. This paper proposes a spectral leakage-driven built-in self-test (BIST) scheme to precisely predict the nonlinearity of mixed-signal circuits in the loopback mode, thereby accomplishing cost-effectiveness (compared to previous BIST-based works). A digitally synthesized single-tone sinusoidal stimulus used for conventional harmonic testing is incoherently sampled by a device under test (DUT). The DUT output signal exhibits the correlation between the DUT harmonics and the spectral leakage introduced by the incoherent sampling. The DUT output signal is then fed to another DUT through a loopback path, so that the harmonics of a pair of DUTs are correlated with the spectral leakage on the loopback response; the magnitude of the spectral leakage is considered as a weighting factor on the harmonic magnitude of those DUTs. The correlation is quantitatively modeled as characteristic equations in , and postprocessing predicts the harmonics of the two individual DUTs, by simultaneously solving the characteristic equations using on-chip DSP core available in an SoC. Simulation and hardware measurements validated that this paper can be practically used for production testing by showing less than 0.3 and 0.6 dB of the prediction errors, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the concept of a multiphase drive system dates back to the middle of the 20th century, the initial pace of development was rather slow, as witnessed by the first two surveys of the area published in the beginning of this century. However, considerably new developments have resulted in the last decade of the 20th century and the beginning of this century, leading to an authoritative survey of the asymmetrical six-phase drive control and subsequently of the review of the complete area. This also initiated the organization and subsequent publication of the first IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics "Special Section on Multiphase Machines and Drives" in May 2008, which commenced with another survey paper, and that contained 12 original research papers. Since the publication of this Special Section in May 2008, the level of interest and pace of developments in the area have further accelerated and substantial new knowledge has been generatedwith an ever-increasing number of published research papers and reported new industrial applications. Such a trend has been emphasized in a recent paper. It therefore seemed appropriate to revisit the area and organize this Special Section as a sequel to the first one. The call for the Special Section papers resulted in 51 submissions, almost twice as many as the total back in 2008, thus confirming a substantial growth of the area. Indeed, the amount of new knowledge acquired since the publication of the first Special Section in 2008 has meant that it was not possible to provide a complete and thorough survey of the field in a single review paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the critical parameter design technique for a cascaded H-Bridge (CHB) with selective harmonic elimination (SHE)/compensation (SHC) for single-phase systems. The critical parameters include the filter inductance, the number of H-bridge cells, the dc-bus voltage and the switching frequency. This paper derives the relationship of electrical parameters, topologies, and modulation techniques to the voltage/current harmonic envelopes, and compares the filter inductor design for an H-Bridge with sinusoidal pulsewidth modulation (SPWM), an H-Bridge (HB) with SHE/SHC and a CHB with SHE/SHC. Furthermore, a harmonic-envelope-based approach is developed to determine the optimum design parameters. The developed approach designs the harmonic envelope with two proposed criteria: the first one is the capacity criterion, which guarantees that the fundamental and controllable components are within the applicable solution range to avoid overmodulation; the other one is the attenuation criterion, which ensures that the uncontrollable harmonic complies with the grid limit. Simulations and experiments verified that a CHB designed with the proposed technique can simultaneously fulfill the compensation objectives and meet the harmonic limits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The need for lighter and smaller railway traction drives and recent advances in power semiconductor technology have resulted in a new energy conversion paradigm, one without the classical heavy and bulky line-frequency transformer. Several multilevel topologies have been introduced over the past years, all having in common the use of medium-frequency (MF) energy conversion to reduce the weight and volume of the magnetic components. This paper is concerned with the design of the input filter for an MF traction converter, focusing on a solution that minimizes the filter's overall mass. Two filter topologies are investigated, namely a single-pole filter (inductor) and a passively damped $LCL$ filter. The paper first describes the requirements to be fulfilled, establishes the spectrum to consider for the design, and proposes a method to determine the initial parameters of the filter's components. The results show that an $LCL$ -type filter achieves considerable weight savings in comparison to the single-pole solution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A phase-locked loop (PLL) is commonly used in grid-connected power converter for synchronization. A single input single output (SISO) linear model of PLL with the phase angle of the point of common coupling (PCC) voltage as input and the estimated phase angle as the output is generally used in the PLL analysis and design. However, an undesirable coupling between the magnitude and phase of the input voltage is present when a filtering stage is incorporated before the control loop, which a SISO model cannot capture, and could result in a significant disturbance in the PLL estimated phase during grid faults. This paper proposes a generalized multi-input multi-output (MIMO) linear model that captures the complete PLL dynamics during symmetrical faults for a PLL equipped with any prefilter. Furthermore, a compensation method that decouples the magnitude dynamics of the input voltage from the phase dynamics is proposed in this paper. The proposed compensation improves the PLL's phase tracking performance by ensuring that the prefiltered PLL acts only on the PCC voltage phase changes. A vital application of the proposed compensation method for PLL is during a grid fault case, wherein the converters are expected to contribute to the fault current, which requires an accurate measurement of the PCC voltage phase. The compensation method's effectiveness is demonstrated using power hardware in the loop simulation of a hardware voltage source converter interfaced to a distribution system simulated in real-time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to different solar radiation, temperature, and other reasons of modules in the three-phase cascaded H-bridge (CHB) photovoltaic (PV) inverter, the output power among PV modules will be unequal and lead to unbalanced grid currents, which cannot meet the requirements of grid codes. On the other hand, the second-order voltage ripple is aroused in the dc-link capacitor since each phase-leg of the CHB inverter is made up of a single-phase inverter. Concerning these two issues, this paper proposes an optimized third harmonic injection method based on fundamental frequency zero sequence injection (FFZSI), which is a conventional method to handle the slight power imbalance problem. In this paper, the FFZSI is adopted to redistribute the power among three phases, and then the third harmonic is injected into the three-phase combined reference waveforms according to the two requirements: all modules are free from overmodulation and the dc-link voltage fluctuation is mostly reduced. Therefore, the proposed method can reduce the dc-link voltage fluctuation and extend the power balance range of FFZSI at the same time. The validity and effectiveness of the proposed method are verified by simulation and experimental results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cascaded H-bridge converter (CHB) is a multilevel topology that is a well-suited solution for multiple applications such as flexible ac transmission systems or motor drives. This paper is focused on a CHB where the cells present an aging mismatch. This can be caused by the maintenance operation which forces the replacement of some damaged cells of the converter with new or repaired ones. In this paper, a new improved approach of the active thermal control (ATC) of the CHB using discontinuous pulsewidth modulation (PWM) (D-PWM) is presented. The D-PWM technique is used to reduce the power losses of one cell reducing its average temperature in order to increase its remaining lifetime. However, the combination of D-PWM with traditional phase-shifted PWM (PS-PWM) introduces high harmonic distortion in the output voltage of the CHB converter at twice the carrier frequency. A detailed harmonic distortion analysis of the CHB output voltage when the D-PWM based ATC is active is presented. From this analysis, a modification of the traditional PS-PWM is derived to eliminate the harmonic distortion at twice the carrier frequency. Experimental results show how the ATC using D-PWM is achieved whereas the harmonic distortion around twice the carrier frequency is eliminated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a sensorless vibration harmonic frequency estimation for a servo system driven by a permanent magnet (PM) synchronous machine. Traditional vibration harmonic estimation relies on the measurement using external sensors. An accelerometer is typically installed in the servo system to measure the vibration harmonic signal. Because the accelerometer must be attached on the visibly vibrational location inside the system, this vibration detection results in both issues about installation and reliability. To overcome this drawback, this paper proposes a disturbance observer to estimate the vibration harmonic by using current and position signal. A real-time signal process is developed to identify the vibration frequency from estimated harmonic. A servo system with a 400-W PM machine is built to verify the proposed vibration harmonic and frequency estimation. This paper includes the comparative evaluation between the accelerometer-based vibration harmonic measurement and the sensorless estimation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an optimization method for selective harmonic elimination in a cascaded multilevel inverter using teaching–learning-based optimization (TLBO). The main objective in selective harmonic elimination (SHE) strategy is to eliminate low-order harmonics by solving nonlinear equations and reaching optimal solution, while the fundamental component is satisfied. In this paper, in one side, the influence of optimal dc sources is investigated to reach the SHE goal, and in another side, comparing optimization methods is considered. In this paper, the TLBO as a recently emerged nature-inspired algorithm is presented to provide better results for the SHE in comparison with genetic algorithm, artificial bee colony, imperialistic competitive algorithm, harmony search, ant colony optimization, particle swarm optimization, and differential evolution. For better comparison of those methods and influence of optimal dc sources, 5-, 9-, and 15-level inverters are chosen and MATLAB software is used for optimization. Simulation results show the superiority of TLBO, higher precision and probability of convergence than other mentioned algorithms. Finally, to validate the influence of optimal dc sources and the accuracy of TLBO results, the experimental setup is conducted for a 5-level cascaded H-bridge inverter with optimal dc sources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a detailed analysis of the electromagnetic force and vibration behavior of an axial flux permanent magnet synchronous machine (AFPMSM). First, the AFPMSM configuration and two types of dual three-phase winding are introduced. Subsequently, the electromagnetic force of the double-stator inner-rotor AFPMSM is investigated. Its spatial and temporal characteristics are derived analytically and validated through two-dimensional Fourier decomposition. A multiphysics model is established to calculate the vibration of the AFPMSM, which includes control, electromagnetic, structural, and vibration model. The accuracy of this multiphysics model is verified by the modal and vibration test. Furthermore, the vibration of the AFPMSM with three winding types considering current harmonics are calculated based on the multiphysics model. The vibration performance of the AFPMSM with three different winding types are compared and the mechanism of vibration is discussed. It was concluded that the novel detached winding could mitigate the vibration of dual three-phase AFPMSMs. Finally, the vibration test is carried out to validate the theoretical analysis and the experimental results agree well-with the simulation results. This paper provides an effective method for double-stator permanent magnet synchronous machine (PMSMs) to reduce vibration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pole-phase modulation (PPM) is one of the effective speed and torque control techniques for multiphase induction motor (MIM) drives. Performance of the drive in low-pole high-speed mode for steady run is good even with two-level voltage excitation due to the inherent advantages of high phase number. The drive operation under high-pole high-torque starting mode suffers degradation in performance due to reduction in phase number in a way to increase number of poles. Extending conventional multilevel converter topologies for performance improvement of MIMs increases the device count and control complexity considerably. In this paper, a simple technique to generate multilevel voltage across the phase of a pole-phase-modulated induction motor (PPM IM), for improving the performance of the drive under high-pole operation is presented. The technique requires least changes in the control scheme and no additional switches for the power circuit. Exploiting the advantages of equal voltage profile coils (EVPCs) for carrier phase-shifted PWM control is the main focus of this paper. In addition, generalization of PPM is revisited in this paper to add a small constraint on the pole ratio to avoid unequal pole width for some pole-phase combinations. The effectiveness of the proposed scheme is shown through simulation with finite-element method (FEM) model of nine-phase squirrel cage induction motor and two-level nine-phase inverter cosimulated in Ansys Maxwell two-dimensional (2-D) and Simplorer environment. Experimental validation is also done on 5 hp nine-phase two-level induction motor drive controlled using Spartan6 FPGA board. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents real-time diagnosis for open-circuited (O-C) and unbalance faults in power electronic converters (PECs) connected to residential small wind systems grid-tied. The spectrum analysis along with the dc components of the voltage and current measurements available in the converter is utilized for the O-C fault detection, classification and localization of the power switching devices in the PEC, as well as the identification of the unbalance input voltage to the converter. The proposed methodologies in this paper require much fewer inputs compared to the previous researches; therefore, they avoid any additional sensors or hardware which include further costs and expenses on such systems. The experimental evaluations for the proposed algorithms are provided and demonstrate the effectiveness and the robustness of the proposed diagnostic algorithms in this paper. The PEC under study consists of three main subsystems: uncontrolled three-phase rectifier, boost chopper, and single-phase inverter. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper presents a novel black and white box method for diagnosis and reduction of abnormal noise of the hub permanent-magnet synchronous motors (HPMSMs). The black and white box method is divided into three steps. In the first step, a black-box method is used to identify and diagnose all of the abnormal noise sources and corresponding working conditions including rotational speeds and loading moments of the HPMSM. The proposed black method is independent of the detailed internal parameters of the HPMSM. In the second step, considering the abnormal noise sources and the corresponding working conditions diagnosed by the black-box method, a white-box method is used to propose and verify the electromagnetic field model, the structure vibration model, and the acoustic computation model of the HPMSM. Then, the components of the HPMSM whose vibrations and/or acoustic emissions are the most important are predicted. In the third step, the noise reduction method, which is aimed at the diagnosed abnormal noise source under the corresponding working conditions and the diagnosed components, is proposed. The proposed method in this paper observably raises the efficiency of diagnosis and optimization for abnormal noise of the HPMSM. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper presents a six-step mode-combined field-weakening control scheme to improve the maximum output torque of induction motor (IM) in the voltage-extension region. Compared with the conventional inscribed circle and hexagon methods, the proposed six-step mode method can increase the utilization of dc-link voltage, leading to extended maximum output torque capability. However, the six-step mode operation will inevitably result in torque ripple and current harmonic. To figure out the quantitative relation between the torque extension and ripple, an “equivalent-circuit”-based method is proposed for theoretical torque analysis in six-step mode. To cut off the main current harmonic (sixth harmonic), a second-order generalized integrator based band-stop filter is designed for the feedback current in the current loop. The designed filter can achieve IM stable operation in a six-step mode without affecting the bandwidth of the current loop. The experimental results from a 3.7-kW IM setup verify the effectiveness of the proposed scheme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes an improved coordinated control of standalone brushless doubly fed induction generator (BDFIG) supplying nonlinear loads. Due to the existence of nonlinear loads, the voltage at the point of common coupling becomes distorted with a large number of low-order harmonics, which severely degrades the performance of power generation systems. In order to eliminate the included low-order harmonics, a coordinated control method of harmonic mitigation has been presented in this paper for the control of both machine side and load side converters. Then, a weight factor is introduced to the proposed control method for distributing the contribution of harmonic mitigation between the two converters. Comprehensive experimental results on a 30 kVA BDFIG are presented to verify the proposed control method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a new design of round-shaped transformers applied in diode and controllable rectifiers. Despite conventional three-phase transformers, in round-shaped transformers, voltage is induced on the secondary winding by rotating magnetic field. As a result, in the secondary of this transformer, there can be more than three phases with desired shifts. On the other hand, some rectifier systems may use more bridges supplying from the secondary to improve output dc voltage. However, the rectifier systems produce undesirable current harmonics, especially in controllable systems. This paper discusses how the new design of round-shaped transformers can significantly reduce the harmonic contents of the input current by sinusoidal skewing of the secondary core. The new design is investigated in this paper and its analysis confirms that the harmonics of the input currents can be effectively reduced. Experimental results are also provided to validate the analysis carried out in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fractional slot concentrated winding (FSCW) permanent magnet synchronous machines (PMSMs) have been a research hotspot over the past few decades. Recently, the magnetic gearing effect in FSCW PMSMs is revealed along with its gear ratio, which is a function of slot/pole number combination. At the design stage of FSCW PMSMs, one of the key issues is the selection of the slot/pole number combination. This paper shows that the gear ratio can contribute to a proper slot/pole number selection in any multiphase FSCW PMSMs by acting as a unified index for a quick overall performance comparison. In this paper, first, the magnetic gearing effect in FSCW PMSMs is explained and the gear ratio is further discussed. The advantages of adopting gear ratio as the overall performance index over other indices are revealed. The influence of the gear ratio on the winding factor, torque output, cogging torque, inductance, and rotor losses of three- and six-phase FSCW PMSMs is analyzed and validated by experiments, thus proving the analyses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes an “isolated soft switching current fed LCC-T resonant dc–dc converter for PV/fuel cell applications.” This converter is able to achieve zero voltage switching for front-end inverter switches and zero-current switching for voltage doubler diodes. The majority of dc–dc converters have compact capacitive (C) filter in output, but high harmonic currents through transformer makes them bulky. The proposed converter attempts to improve harmonic content through a transformer under wide load and input variations as well as it can significantly reduce required turns ratio of transformer to achieve required output voltage. For the above reasons, the proposed converter can offer better footprints and therefore it can be a potential candidate for PV/fuel cell applications. This paper presents basic operating principal, detailed analysis, control, and design of the proposed converter with the help of an example. This converter operates in two modes, i.e., constant duty cycle mode and constant frequency mode, depending on load demand, and is explained through operating curves. Finally, experimental results are included for justifying the proposed theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes the design process of a 2.62-kW 150-krpm high-speed surface-mounted permanent-magnet synchronous motor. To meet the required specifications, the numbers of poles and slots were determined by considering the maximum speed and the rotary stability affected by the vibration of the rotor. In addition, this paper describes not only the appropriate material selection method but also the appropriate geometry design method based on analytic approaches. Furthermore, to precisely evaluate the bearing and windage losses at a high speed, a method that combines the finite-element method and the experiment results of the prototype was used. As a result, an improved motor was designed, which had higher maximum power and speed than the prototype and a lower mass moment of inertia. Finally, tests were conducted to verify the validity of the proposed design process and the effectiveness of the motor. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The traditional evaluation method of vehicle noise can no longer meet the requirements of electric vehicle as the sound character of electric powertrain (E-PT) is totally different from that of internal combustion engine vehicles. This paper presents a complete investigation of the sound quality of an E-PT. An acoustic test is conducted to analyze the sound character of E-PT, based on which the acoustic origins of E-PT including electromagnetic noise, gear whine, and inverter switching noise are studied. After that the sound quality of E-PT is investigated by objective and subjective evaluations. Subsequently, a sound quality model of E-PT based on support vector machine is established. The relative error testifies the effectiveness of the prediction model. The influence of the main noise origins on the sound quality of E-PT is determined. Finally, the structure of gearbox housing is redesigned based on topology optimization to improve the sound quality. The main original contributions of this paper are not only the sound quality method developed for E-PT but also improvement feasibility of sound quality. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper presents a simplified control technique for a dual three-phase topology of a unified power quality conditioner—iUPQC. The iUPQC is composed of two active filters, a series active filter and a shunt active filter (parallel active filter), used to eliminate harmonics and unbalances. Different from a conventional UPQC, the iUPQC has the series filter controlled as a sinusoidal current source and the shunt filter controlled as a sinusoidal voltage source. Therefore, the pulse width modulation (PWM) controls of the iUPQC deal with a well-known frequency spectrum, since it is controlled using voltage and current sinusoidal references, different from the conventional UPQC that is controlled using nonsinusoidal references. In this paper, the proposed design control, power flow analysis, and experimental results of the developed prototype are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper simply investigates experimentally multiple “rotor” bar current waveforms at standstill, on a dedicated inverted induction motor prototype as a basis to analyze the bar currents distribution in the symmetrical and unsymmetrical cage. A phasor calculus scheme based on primary magneto-motive-force space harmonics is developed to explain this asymmetry of bar currents system at standstill even for a symmetrical cage. The results of the paper should be a strong experimental foundation to investigate thoroughly the effects of rotor speed and loading and of broken bars on additional losses, torque pulsations, noise, and vibrations in high performance induction machines. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper proposes a method to improve the accuracy of an absolute magnetic encoder by using harmonic rejection (HR) and a dual-phase-locked loop (DPLL). The encoder consists of two permanent magnets: an edge-located multipolar magnet (MPM) and a center-located bipolar magnet, in which the signal-processing accuracy of the MPM is crucial for achieving high accuracy of the entire encoder. However, the MPM signals are disturbed by nonidealities such as dc offsets, amplitude mismatch, low- and high-order harmonics, and random noises. In this paper, the HR approach investigates the characteristics of nonidealities of the phase detector and rejects them by using gradient descent. In addition, the DPLL remains robust by maintaining a zero steady-state error during a phase jump, a constant frequency, and a ramp frequency. The proposed method is simulated with MATLAB software and implemented in ARM STM32F407ZG. The obtained results demonstrate efficient performance. This method can be applied to any use of quadrature sinusoidal signals, such as in power grids and in permanent-magnet synchronous motor phase detection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A novel parallel-hybrid dual permanent magnet (PM) machine topology with both enhanced torque density and improved flux weakening capability is proposed for electric vehicle propulsion in this paper. The key is to artificially construct the harmonics diversity with a single-layer concentrated armature winding in the stator and thus simultaneously couple the armature field with the excitation field produced by slot PM, rotor PM, and stator dc source, respectively. Enhanced torque density is obtained in this new topology due to the symmetrical flux-modulation effect between dual PM sources. Moreover, benefiting from a parallel excitation characteristic of hybrid magnetic circuit, the demagnetization risk is significantly mitigated for slot PM source and thus an extended flux weakening range is obtained. In this paper, the proposed new topology and its design mechanism are investigated, along with its electromagnetic performance evaluated based on finite-element analysis. Further, some leading design parameters are analyzed and determined to provide a design guideline for the proposed new topology. Finally, a prototype is built and fully tested. Relevant experimental results agree well with the finite-element predication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Analytical method for vibration and noise prediction in electrical machines is computationally efficient and widely used. In conventional analytical approaches, the slotted stator is simplified as a cylinder, and it is generally believed that the vibration is more sensitive to the air-gap forces with low spatial orders, hence, those high-order air-gap forces are usually neglected. In this paper, the force distribution on the slotted stator is analyzed using a force transformation model and a new phenomenon, i.e., the modulation effect, is found, which indicates that a high-order air-gap force could also induce a low-mode stator vibration with a large amplitude. As a result, the conventional analytical methods are not so accurate for machines with a strong modulation effect, such as fractional-slot concentrated-winding machines. The existence condition for the modulation effect is also discussed in this paper. Finite-element analysis and experiments have been done to verify the analysis results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops a comprehensive dynamic-phasor-based small-signal model for the modular multilevel converter (MMC) system under unbalanced grid conditions, which takes into consideration the dynamics of the MMC system under a balanced grid condition as well as the other emerging internal harmonics produced by the unbalanced grid components and more complex controllers. The small-signal model is validated by comparing the time-domain responses from a detailed electromagnetic transient (EMT) simulation in PSCAD/EMTDC. Based on the eigen-analysis and PSCAD-based time-domain simulation studies, this paper reveals the poorly damped modes that cause unstable oscillations in MMC system under the unbalanced grid conditions. From the results, more poorly damped modes involved in the internal harmonics are emerging under unbalanced grid conditions compared with the modes under the balanced grid conditions, and can highly impact the system dynamic behaviors by the selection of the control parameters. It is also shown that, under the unbalanced grid conditions, the feasible region of the control parameters of the vector current control gets narrowed indicating the reduction of the stability margin, smaller (larger) value of proportional (integral) gain of the circulating current suppressing controller can enhance the system stability, and larger values of the proportional and integral gains of the negative-sequence current suppressing control can result in the harmonic instability of the MMC system. Besides, the parameters of multiple complex-coefficient filters for positive- and negative-sequence components extraction also have a big impact on the small-signal stability of the MMC system and are required to be properly selected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Induction motor drives operated with a low ratio of the switching frequency to the fundamental frequency (i.e., pulse number) are prone to have high magnitudes of low-order torque harmonics. This paper proposes a method to analytically evaluate the harmonic torque spectrum based on the pulsewidth-modulated voltage waveforms for low pulse number operation. The predicted torque harmonic spectra for different pulsewidth-modulated waveforms are validated through simulations and experiments. This paper also reports optimal switching angles to minimize the total rms value of torque harmonics of order 6, 12, 18 $,\dots,$ $6(N-1)$ , considering the number of switching angles per quarter ($N$) to be 4 and 5. Compared to sine triangle pulsewidth modulation and selective harmonic elimination pulsewidth modulation with the same pulse number, the proposed optimal switching angles significantly reduce the total rms value of all harmonic torques of order lower than $6N$. Extensive simulation and experimental results on a 3.7-kW induction motor drive are presented to demonstrate the superior performance of the proposed optimal pulsewidth modulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Islanded grids operate isolated from the main grid and they allow the use of ac with a different frequency from the main grid. In this paper, it is proposed to use more than one frequency at the same time in such autonomous systems. The grid voltage amplitude at the fundamental frequency can be increased while the voltage peak is constant by adding odd harmonics to the voltage waveform. The grid currents and the power converter currents are decreased for the same power level, which leads to reduced losses in the system. The currents can be minimized if waveform shaping is additionally applied to the current waveforms. The approach also offers the possibility of mitigating the influence of low power factor in single-phase systems. This paper presents the impact of multifrequency power transfer on single-phase converters and grid components such as power cables and protection, and verifies the results with analysis, simulations, and experiments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a new and simple finite-control set model predictive control strategy to reduce the torque ripple in permanent-magnet synchronous machines (PMSMs). The method is based on minimizing a cost function that considers the flux linkage torque harmonics obtained from a discrete-time model of the machine. The power converter switching state that minimizes this cost function is selected and applied during a whole sampling period. Additionally, it is proposed to mitigate the other source of torque ripple, known as cogging-torque, using a feed-forward signal applied to the torque control loop. A hybrid method that uses the output information from an observer and look-up table is presented to obtain a good cogging-torque estimation and thus an accurate mitigation of this disturbance torque at low rotational speed. Experimental results demonstrate the good performance of the torque ripple compensation methods presented in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper addresses theoretical calculation of a single-phase multilevel pulsewidth modulation (PWM) inverter current total harmonic distortion (THD). Analytical approach introduced in late 1980s for a two-level inverter is generalized for an arbitrary level count for a single-phase inverter. Although the obtained closed-form piecewise analytical solutions assume (infinitely) large ratio of switching and fundamental frequencies and pure inductive load, they are practically very accurate for the ratios of (apparent) switching and fundamental frequencies larger than 25–30 and inductance-dominated loads. Along with strict mathematical solutions, simple accurate Bessel function approximation and hyperbolic average trend one are suggested. The formulas clearly reveal a single-phase PWM inverter current THD dependence on modulation index for an arbitrary voltage level count and are easily modified to cover grid-connected cases. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper investigates possible reduction of pulsating torque in open-loop and vector-controlled induction motor drives through deployment of certain advanced bus-clamping pulsewidth modulation (ABCPWM) method. Toward this goal, a simple and machine-independent method is proposed to analyze the torque harmonic spectrum of a voltage source inverter fed induction motor, operated with any real-time pulsewidth modulation (PWM) method. The analytically evaluated torque harmonic spectra, pertaining to conventional space vector PWM (CSVPWM), bus-clamping PWM (BCPWM), and ABCPWM, are validated through simulation and experimental results. Theoretical and experimental studies bring out the superiority of the ABCPWM in terms of torque harmonics over CSVPWM and BCPWM. The magnitude of the dominant torque harmonic with the ABCPWM scheme is shown to be significantly lower than that with CSVPWM, over a wide range of speed. The rms torque ripple (i.e., total rms value of all harmonic torques) is lower with ABCPWM than with BCPWM over the entire range of speed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Alternating-current motor drive systems consume the majority of global electricity, but most of them are still not efficient enough. This paper proposes a complete solution to the efficiency enhancement of general induction motor (IM) drive systems with the least cost and a high reliability. On the motor side, the squirrel-cage rotors of IMs are replaced with optimally designed interior permanent-magnet (PM) rotors without damping windings; meanwhile, other assemblies remained unchanged. Stators with both wye- and delta-connected windings are investigated, and super premium efficiency (IE4) is achieved on all the remanufactured motors in this paper. On the drive side, the maximum efficiency per ampere algorithm is realized based on the position-sensorless control to better exert the motor efficiency and reduce the system cost. For applications where an original IM is used under a grid drive, this paper safely switches the remanufactured interior PM synchronous motors from an inverter to the grid drive. A total of seven prototypes with different rated powers and velocities are remanufactured, and various experiments are provided as the verifications of the effectiveness and practicability of the proposed solution. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper presents a reliable fault diagnosis methodology for various single and multiple combined defects of low-speed rolling element bearings. This method temporally partitions an acoustic emission (AE) signal and selects a portion of the signal, which contains intrinsic information about the bearing failures. This paper then performs frequency analysis for the selected time-domain AE signal by using multilevel finite-impulse response filter banks to obtain the most informative subband signals involving abnormal symptoms of the bearing defects. It does this by using a 2-D visualization tool that represents the percentage of the Gaussian-mixture-model-based residual component-to-defect component ratios via time-varying and multiresolution envelope analysis (TVMREA). Then, fault signatures in the time and frequency domains are extracted in the informative subband signals. Since all the extracted fault features may not be equally useful for diagnosis, the proposed genetic algorithm (GA)-based discriminative feature analysis (GADFA) selects the most discriminative subset of fault signatures. In experiments, single and multiple combined bearing defects under various conditions are used to validate the effectiveness of this fault diagnosis scheme using TVMREA and GADFA. Experimental results indicate that this reliable fault diagnosis methodology accurately identifies bearing failure type across a variety of conditions. In addition, GADFA outperforms other state-of-the-art feature analysis techniques, yielding 7.3%–46.6% performance improvements in average classification accuracy. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A merit of the interleaving reducing the switching harmonics allows for the reduction of the filter inductance. However, in the case of direct parallel voltage source inverters (VSIs), a severe circulating current occurs. To suppress the high frequency circulating current, coupled inductors (CIs) for the high impedance is inserted. However, the employed CIs induce a positive- or negative-sequence circulating current (i.e., a cross current) besides the zero-sequence circulating current already mentioned in the other papers. Due to different impedances developed by the current characteristics and the cross current in the CIs, VSIs becomes unstable when the resonant controllers are applied for the harmonic compensation such as 5, and 7th harmonics. In this paper, the cross currents and the impedances of CIs varying with the current characteristics are mathematically analyzed, and a novel current controller is proposed to solve this stability problem. The experimental results validate the proposed control scheme. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The ac/dc front-end converter in low-power applications such as household appliances usually contains diode rectifiers equipped with smoothing dc capacitors, which generate a large amount of harmonic current. As a solution for reducing the harmonic current, distributed generation (DG) units with a harmonic compensation function have become an attractive topic. In three-phase three-wire systems, the effect of the third-harmonic current is not serious, because most of the current is zero-sequence current. However, if many single-phase DG units are unevenly installed in three-phase grids, the third-harmonic currents may be serious. This paper shows that conventional harmonic suppression can increase third-harmonic currents in three-phase three-wire grids. To prevent an increase in the harmonic current, a third-harmonic suppression method called the balancing third-harmonic function is proposed. To validate the proposed control strategy, experimental results using a laboratory system are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The second harmonic current compensator (SHCC) can be added into the single-phase converters for compensating the second harmonic current (SHC) and thus removing the undesired electrolytic capacitor. In this paper, a virtual impedance, which is in the form of a capacitor and a resistor connected in parallel, is introduced to be in parallel at the bus-side port of the SHCC for effectively compensating the SHC while guaranteeing the system stability. This virtual parallel impedance is realized by feeding forward the bus-side port voltage of the SHCC, and thus the SHCC can be modular designed. The closed-loop parameter design of the SHCC is also presented. A 3.3-kW prototype of a two-stage single-phase power factor correction converter is built and tested in the laboratory, and the experimental results verify the effectiveness and feasibility of the proposed control method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Essential imbalance and fluctuation of the mobile train load draw some problems, e.g., three-phase unbalance, reactive power, voltage and load fluctuation, harmonics, etc. in both public and train supply networks (TSNs). Railway power flow controller (RPFC)'s good performance on dealing with those problems has been convinced in practice these years. However, as the primary task in commercialization, how to qualitatively determine RPFC's design capacity with high cost efficiency and how to comprehensively assess its performance in the design stage have perplexed engineers for many years. To solve those problems in both planning and real-time executing processes, this paper focuses on an RPFC design capacity optimization strategy for grid-connection compatibility and operating performance improvement in terms of both the utility and the TSN. The strategy not only makes a railway substation satisfy the grid-connection standards with high calculating efficiency, but also renders the RPFC to have the minimum design capacity, the excellent feeder voltage control ability, the good fixed capacitor installing prospect, and the high operating efficiency on the targets of reducing the investment and enhancing the transportation ability. The generic models, the industry-oriented design and the quantitative analysis, discussed in this paper give an insight for those concerned based on a balance transformer. Future RPFC projects on serviced railway power systems will benefit from the proposed methodology. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper analyzes the performances of different carrier phase-shifting pulse width modulation (PWM) techniques to be used with a multilevel cascaded H-bridge converter in case of unbalanced operational conditions. In fact, in many practical applications, the ideal condition of equal dc voltages and equal reference signals for each H-bridge cannot be achieved. In such conditions, the conventional carrier phase-shifting PWM technique loses its harmonic canceling capabilities and then the multilevel ac voltage harmonic quality is deeply affected. To overcome this limit of the original technique, different variations have been proposed. All of them still rely on the carrier phase-shifting concept and propose to use a different value of the shifting angle for each carrier (unlike the original technique) whenever unbalanced operational conditions occur. In this paper, the three main solutions proposed over the last years to extend the capabilities of the carrier phase-shifting PWM technique are compared. The analysis is focused on a three-cell cascaded H-bridge converter. Simulation and experimental results are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

High-frequency components of acoustic noise radiated by the electric powertrain make the subjective perception of electric vehicles worse than expected under certain operating conditions. In order to investigate the influence of acoustic components on sound quality, a pulse width modulation (PWM)-fed electric powertrain is studied in this paper. First, the acoustic noise of the electric powertrain is collected in a semianechoic chamber. Then, two types of acoustic components of the electric powertrain, namely harmonic order noise and switching noise, are distinguished through the analyses of supplied current from the inverter and gear vibration. Furthermore, the relationship between subjective perception and spectral characteristics of the noise is discussed, based on which sensitivity is established. Subsequently, the contributions of acoustic components to psychoacoustical parameters are determined. After that, a sound quality model of the acoustic noise radiated by the electric powertrain is established. The comparison between jury test and prediction shows that the established model can be used for sound quality evaluation of the electric powertrain. Finally, the influences of harmonic order noise and switching noise on subjective perception are discussed. The main original contribution of this paper concerns the influences of harmonic order noise and switching noise radiated by PWM-fed electric powertrain on sound quality. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

To improve light load efficiency, a three-phase photovoltaic (PV)-based microinverter may operate in single-phase, two-phase or three-phase mode depending on the available input power. Therefore, its dc-link capacitor may be subjected to large peak-to-peak voltage ripple when operating in phase skipping mode. This paper determines the minimum value of the dc-link capacitor by allowing the maximum acceptable voltage ripple on the dc link. This allows for the use of film capacitors instead of electrolytic capacitors in order to improve the microinverter reliability. Unfortunately, higher dc-link voltage ripple introduces harmonic distortion on the inverter output current waveform if it is not compensated for by the dc-link voltage controller. This paper proposes a simple synchronous control method to regulate the dc-link voltage with the presence of large voltage ripple. The dc-link voltage controller is synchronized with the phase-locked loop and samples the average value of dc-link voltage without introducing unwanted harmonics into the voltage sense path. Experimental results were obtained from a 300-W three-phase half-bridge microinverter prototype to verify the proposed dc-link voltage control performance. Inverter output current total harmonic distortion of 1.6% was achieved even though the dc-link peak-to-peak voltage ripple reached as high as 87 V with 219-V split dc-link voltage. Dynamic response is fast enough to easily track the most extreme ramp change in input PV power. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The smart transformer (ST), a solid-state transformer with control and communication functionalities, that interfaces medium voltage (MV) and low voltage (LV) grids, enables the control of the frequency in the LV grid independently from the MV one. In a ST-fed distribution grid, the ST can interact with the droop controllers of local generators and loads frequency characteristic to control the LV power demand. However, most of the existing controllers for power converters cannot guarantee good harmonic control under variable frequency condition. To address this issue, a frequency-adaptive control scheme based on the fractional-order repetitive control and the frequency-adaptive phase-locked loop are proposed in this paper. The proposed scheme provides fast online parameter tuning capability in order to be highly adaptive to variable frequencies, and it can be easily implemented in the power converters controllers of a ST-fed distribution grid. Moreover, the stability analysis of the frequency-adaptive system considering the effect of synchronization has been investigated in this paper. Simulation and experiments have been carried out to verify the effectiveness of the proposed scheme as well as the considered scenarios. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper systematically studies a new kind of PM machines with both stator and rotor PM excitations, namely, dual-PM excited machines. The key is to rely on the PM-iron structure in the machine to provide both PM excitation and flux modulation. Besides the fundamental field component in the air-gap, some other predominant harmonics introduced by the flux modulating effect can also contribute to the electromagnetic torque production. Therefore, this kind of machines can be designed with high torque density. Four dual-PM excited machine concepts with the same rotor configuration but different stator structures are comparatively studied, which include double-stator PM machine, stator multitooth-PM machine, stator slot-PM machine, and stator tooth-PM machine (STPM). Based on the flux modulating effect, the general design principle of the dual-PM machines is proposed in this paper. Through analytically investigating the air-gap field harmonics, the physical insight of the dual-PM machines is brought forward. All the four machines are optimized using an improved Tabu search coupled with finite element method, and their electromagnetic performances are comprehensively studied and compared. A prototype of STPM is manufactured. Experimental tests are conducted and the results well verify the electromagnetic design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Compared with the conventional central shunt active power filter (SAPF), modular designed SAPF can track the harmonics more precisely and quickly with a compact and expandable structure, which makes it a better solution for harmonic mitigation. But there are very few paper discussed about the modeling and parallel resonance issues of modular SAPF parallel system. This paper provides a modeling of three-level SAPF, aiming to guide the modular design and research the parallel resonance control method. First, a simplified modular three-level SAPF modeling is proposed based on averaging impedance modeling and small signal linearization techniques. Then, the coupling issues between modules are researched, and a self-adaptive active damping method is proposed to suppress the system resonance. Based on the modeling results, an improved three-level SAPF module topology is proposed to construct the modular system. The theoretical analysis and experimental results verify that the module topology improvement together with the damping strategy can promise the compensating bandwidth, reliability, and fast, precise harmonics tracking ability. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The selective harmonic current mitigation pulsewidth modulation (SHCM-PWM) technique can be used in cascaded multilevel converters to extend the harmonic reduction spectrum, reduce the coupling inductance and increase the efficiency. The offline SHCM-PWM technique has small number of switching transitions as its switching angles can only change once in a fundamental cycle and relatively long time delays because it uses FFT. As a result, its dynamic response has a lot to desire. As it will be proven in this paper, in four-quadrant power converters, to have a good transient dynamic response, both active and reactive power must be controlled at least two times in a fundamental cycle. In this paper, a hybrid modulation technique is introduced. The proposed technique uses SHCM-PWM under steady state and phase-shift PWM (PSPWM) under transient. In addition, in order to extend the modulation index range and ensure that SHCM-PWM can process four-quadrant active and reactive power, the constraints of the switching angles for the SHCM-PWM are modified. Simulations and experiments are conducted on a seven-level cascaded H-bridge converter to verify the proposed technique. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

An active method for double-frequency power ripple decoupling in single-phase inverters is presented in this paper, exhibiting the main advantage of not using additional power semiconductors besides the H-bridge. The proposed method requires only two capacitors placed between the midpoint and one end of each inverter leg. An original control solution of the inverter ensures the power ripple transfer toward the two decoupling capacitors without affecting the inverter output voltage. The simple design makes the proposed solution easy to adapt for single-phase inverters in H-bridge configuration. This paper focuses on the autonomous operation mode of the inverter, detailing its operating principle and the control analysis. The system performances, including the impact of the decoupling circuit on the inverter efficiency, are assessed by means of experimental results. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Transient-based fault diagnosis in induction motors has gained increasing attention over the recent years. This is due to its ability to avoid eventual wrong diagnostics of the conventional motor current signature analysis in certain industrial situations (presence of load toque oscillations, light loading conditions, and so on). However, the application of these transient methodologies requires the use of advanced signal processing tools. This paper presents a detailed comparison between the two main groups of transforms that are employed in transient analysis: discrete and continuous. This paper does not focus on trivial fault cases but on difficult real situations where the application of the conventional methods often leads to false diagnostics (outer bar breakages in double-cage motors, motors with rotor axial duct influence, and combined faults). Indeed, it is the first time that continuous tools are applied to some of these controversial situations. The results in this paper prove the special advantages of the continuous transforms, tearing down some false myths about their use. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper explores the design, online, of an electrical machine's healthy reference by means of statistical tools. The definition of a healthy reference enables the computation of normalized fault indicators whose value is independent of the system's characteristics. This is a great advantage when diagnosing a broad range of systems with different power, coupling, inertia, load, etc. In this paper, an original method called spectral kurtosis with reference is presented to design a system's healthy reference. Its principle is first explained on a synthetic signal. This approach is then evaluated for mechanical unbalance detection in an induction machine using the stator current instantaneous frequency. The normalized behavior of the proposed indicator is then confirmed for different operating conditions, and its robustness with respect to load variations is demonstrated. Finally, the advantages of using a statistical indicator based on a healthy reference compared with a raw fault signature are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Unintentional series and/or parallel resonances, due to the tuned passive filter and the line inductance, may result in severe harmonic distortion in the industrial power system. This paper presents a hybrid active filter to suppress harmonic resonance and to reduce harmonic distortion. The proposed hybrid filter is operated as variable harmonic conductance according to the voltage total harmonic distortion; therefore, harmonic distortion can be reduced to an acceptable level in response to load change or parameter variation of the power system. Since the hybrid filter is composed of a seventh-tuned passive filter and an active filter in series connection, both dc voltage and kVA rating of the active filter are dramatically decreased compared with the pure shunt active filter. In real application, this feature is very attractive since the active power filter with fully power electronics is very expensive. A reasonable tradeoff between filtering performances and cost is to use the hybrid active filter. Design consideration are presented, and experimental results are provided to validate effectiveness of the proposed method. Furthermore, this paper discusses filtering performances on line impedance, line resistance, voltage unbalance, and capacitive filters. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper illustrates the design and an experimental test of a line-fed solid-state lamp driver based on the asymmetrical half-bridge flyback converter. Its favorable characteristics, in terms of soft-switching range and circuit complexity, allow the converter to operate at variable switching frequency in the range of 300–450 kHz, supplying 6 W to the load with good efficiency. The considered lamp is made up of five series-connected high-power light-emitting diodes (Cree XR-E) and is supplied with 350-mA closed-loop-regulated constant current. While presenting similar complexity and overall efficiency with respect to a conventional driver, due to an original feedforward control technique that allows shrinking the input filter capacitor, the proposed circuit allows a significant volume reduction and consequent power density improvement. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper proposes an analytical procedure for computation of all pairs of valid switching angles used in pattern generation in five-level H-bridge cascaded inverters. The proposed procedure eliminates harmonic components from inverter output voltage and, for each harmonic, returns the exact boundaries of all valid modulation index intervals. Due to its simple mathematical formulation, it can be easily implemented in real time using a digital signal processor or a field-programmable gate array. In this paper, after a detailed description of the method, simulation and experimental results demonstrate the high quality of achievable results. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]