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The tapped-inductor buck (TI-buck) converter has shown to be a suitable solution for auxiliary power supply for modular multilevel converter submodules. Such application features a large step-down voltage conversion, made at relatively low output power. This converter operates in discontinuous conduction mode with zero voltage switching of the high-voltage valve. This paper treats the dynamic behaviour of the aforementioned converter. First, an average output current model of the converter is developed and a small signal model is obtained. Then, a closed-loop output voltage control, which uses the switching frequency as control variable, is designed and implemented using a microcontroller. Measurements on a down-scaled prototype shows that the control system provides a well-controlled average output voltage, which is stable under significant load variation. Finally, a solution for implementing the start-up of the converter is presented and tested., QC 20150521

This paper presents a simplified qualitative comparison of previously presented cascaded multilevel converter topologies for ac-ac conversion with particular emphasis on motor drive applications. Performance criteria such as the pulsation of the stored energy in the cell capacitors and the total required semiconductor rating are derived by analytical methods. The main conclusion is that the back-to-back connected modular multilevel converter operates best at synchronous speed, whereas the modular matrix converter and Hexverter are better suited for low-frequency output. However, by injecting circulating currents in the phase arms the operating region can be extended for all of the studied topologies., QC 20141010

QS 2014