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Model predictive fault‐tolerant current control (MPFTCC) of permanent magnet synchronous generator (PMSG) drives can make a valuable contribution to improving the reliability and availability levels of wind turbines, because back‐to‐back (BTB) converters are prone to failure. However, MPFTCC suffers from excessive computational burden, because the BTB converter is treated as one system where all feasible voltage vectors (VVs) are used for prediction and evaluation. Accordingly, a computationally efficient MPFTCC algorithm for a PMSG drive is developed and proposed with the ability to handle insulated‐gate bipolar transistor open‐circuit faults. The candidate VVs of both machine‐ and grid‐side converters are separately predicted and evaluated, which significantly reduces calculation effort. The proposed reconfigurable converter is a five‐leg power converter with a common leg that connects the generator first phase to the grid three‐phase, ensuring proper postfault reconfiguration of the grid‐side inverter. Moreover, a three‐switch rectifier is adopted to achieve fault tolerance of the PMSG‐side rectifier. Performance of the considered MPFTCC strategies is evaluated by experimental means. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In critical industrial applications fault diagnosis and fault tolerance are considered key features, in order to ensure the required reliability and availability levels. In this context, this paper proposes a new and effective diagnostic algorithm for power semiconductors open‐circuit faults, in three‐phase, two‐level, voltage‐source inverter‐fed permanent magnet synchronous machine (PMSM). The proposed method is based on the analysis of the errors between the reference currents and the PMSM stator predictive currents. Hence, for each phase of the PMSM two fault diagnostic variables have been defined, which allow the diagnosis of both single and multiple open‐circuit faults. The fuzzy logic approach is applied to the fault diagnostic variables in order to identify the faulty power switches. The method is experimentally validated on a model predictive controlled (MPC) permanent magnet synchronous motor (PMSM) drive, which shows the effectiveness of the fault diagnosis algorithm with a high robustness regarding the operating point and parameter variations of the PMSM drive system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]