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Two three-level inverters driving an open-end winding induction motor can generate equivalent voltage waveforms as a single five-level inverter-based drive. In addition, it can bring in benefits such as reduced dc-link voltage, less number of devices, and fault-tolerant capability, which is favored in high-power motor drive applications. The main challenge with this type of configuration is the appearance of large zero-sequence current circulating between the two inverters, which generates extra losses in the switching devices and the motor as well as affects the normal operation of the machine. Another challenge is to balance the dc-link neutral point voltage of the two three-level inverters. This paper has proposed a simplified decoupled space-vector pulsewidth-modulation (PWM) strategy to eliminate the averaged zero-sequence voltage in each switching cycle by the placement of redundant vectors of each individual inverter using a time shift. Neutral point voltage balance is further achieved by adjusting the time duration of the redundant vectors. In this paper, it is shown that it is possible to operate this kind of drive configuration with a single dc power supply and achieve averaged zero-sequence voltage elimination and neutral-point voltage balancing at the same time. Experimental results of a 5.5-kW dual three-level inverter drive using the proposed PWM strategy are presented, which validates the control method and drive configuration. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

When faced with distorted grid voltage, more harmonics will appear in the output currents of the grid-connected inverters. The grid-voltage feedforward strategy, as the most direct solution to compensate the harmonics, however, is seriously affected by the errors in the grid-voltage feedforward loop, such as delays. This issue is more significant for high-power inverters, where the switching frequency is relatively low (< 5 kHz), and the grid-interface inductance is small (< 0.5 mH). The errors mainly include the signal distortion caused by the conditioning circuits, the control delay of the digital controller, and the zero-order hold (ZOH) characteristic of pulse width modulation (PWM). In this paper, several improvements have been made to reduce the signal distortion and compensate the delays. A second-order Butterworth low-pass filter in the conditioning circuit is carefully designed with the maximum flat magnitude response and the almost linear phase response to avoid distorting the measured grid voltage. Furthermore, based on the conventional repetitive predictor, an open-loop simplified repetitive predictor is proposed to compensate the delays in the grid-voltage feedforward loop. Three predictive steps are achieved by the open-loop simplified repetitive predictor to compensate the delays: one step for the delay caused by the conditioning circuit, the second step for the control delay of the digital controller, and the third step for the ZOH characteristic of PWM. The effectiveness of the improved grid-voltage feedforward strategy are experimentally validated on a 250-kVA solar power generation system, where the current harmonics are effectively attenuated. In addition, the inverter starting current is suppressed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper has presented a stability analysis of a LCL-type grid-connected inverter in the discrete-time domain. It has been found that even though the system is stable when the resonance frequency fr is higher than one-sixth of the sampling frequency ( fs/6), an effective damping scheme is still required due to the potential influence of the grid impedance. With a conventional proportional capacitor-current-feedback active damping (AD), the valid damping region is only up to fs/6. This however is not sufficient in the design process for obtaining a high quality output current and the system can easily become unstable due to the resonance frequency shifting. Considering the resonance frequency design rules of the LCL filter, this paper proposes an improved capacitor-current-feedback AD method. With a detailed analysis and proper parameter design, the upper limit of the damping region is extended to fs/4, which can cover all the possible resonance frequencies. Then, the damping performance of the proposed AD method is studied. It shows that the optimal damping is obtained when the actual resonance frequency is (fr + fs/4)/2. Moreover, an approximate calculation for the optimal damping coefficient R is given. Finally, the experimental results have validated the effectiveness of the proposed AD method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One promising solution for future large wind turbine power conversion is to use medium-voltage power conversion systems for high efficiency and high power-density, e.g., by using a cascaded structure presented in this paper. However, a medium-frequency (MF) oscillation issue was observed while testing the experimental prototype of the above system. Given the complex multivariable coupling models of the multiwinding transformer and multiple inverters, conventional single-variable theories are not suitable. Therefore, this paper presents a new decoupling analysis method. Using a proposed linear transformation matrix, the output currents of multiple inverters can be transformed to a summation (grid) current and difference currents, where the former is the summation of inverter currents and the latter are the differences between currents of any two inverters. This transformation has enabled the use of single-variable theories, e.g., Bode diagram to analyze the summation current and difference current separately. It was found that the MF oscillation issue is caused by the equivalent impedance of the summation current being much larger than that of the difference current. Specifically, using small controller parameters cannot ensure the grid current quality and using large parameters may cause oscillation in the difference current. The proposed method can provide guidelines to design the parameters of current regulators and filters in multiple-inverter systems. Experimental results of a downscaled wind energy conversion system are presented to verify the proposed method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The frequency splitting phenomenon (FSP) is a critical issue in wireless power transfer (WPT) systems. When the FSP exists, the load power will sharply increase and can be dozens of times of the power obtained at the resonant frequency if the driving frequency varies from the resonant frequency, which seriously affects the system safety. This article studies the impacts caused by the FSP in detail and then proposes a system control method by utilizing the advantages of the FSP to realize constant power output and zero voltage switching (ZVS) of the dc–ac inverter simultaneously. The splitting frequencies are tracked and the driving frequency is precisely adjusted together with the dc-link voltage. The specific implementation method is given in this article to minimize the impacts on the power transfer performance. An 85 kHz, 3.3 kW WPT system is built up to validate the proposed method. The experimental results show that when the FSP occurs at 150 mm coil-to-coil distance and 5 Ω load resistance, the load power can be hold at 3.3 kW with the dc-link voltage reduced from 327 to 160 V. Meanwhile, ZVS of the inverter is realized and the inverter efficiency is improved from 95% to 97%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To achieve a power supply mode that can load constant current, constant voltage, and high power, there are some problems in capacitive power transfer (CPT) systems such as complicated control structure and poor control effects. To solve these problems, a new CPT system based on the double‐CLC topology is proposed, which can accurately calculate the frequency points of the multiresonance of the system and analyze different output characteristics of each resonance point; Hereby, taking the three‐phase wireless charging as an example, based on the switching of resonance points, a control mode to achieve constant‐current, constant‐voltage, and high‐power output of the system is proposed and studied. While not adding extra auxiliary circuits or increasing controlling complexity, it can meet some power demands of loaded constant current, constant voltage, and high‐power output. First, this article puts forward a new CPT circuit mode based on the double‐CLC topology. Then, through theoretical derivation, its multiresonance characteristics are analyzed; Third, by formula derivation and software simulations, the system power output and the relationship between load and frequency are achieved. Finally, using experimental measures, the operation performance of the CPT system based on the double‐CLC topology, in the case of multiresonance, was verified. © 2018 Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the stability of LC-type voltage source inverter is investigated, with the emphasis focused on the LC resonance. It has been found that the traditional capacitor-voltage inductor-current dual-loop control is unstable when the resonance frequency is higher than one-sixth of the sampling frequency. In addition, due to the coupling between current inner loop and voltage outer loop, it is difficult to design control parameters to ensure the system stability in traditional dual-loop control. In order to develop a systemic design principle, the capacitor-voltage control with inductor-current feedback active damping evolved from traditional dual-loop control is analyzed in detail. The mathematic model is established to reveal the reason of instability, and the stable regions are identified. Moreover, the optimal damping coefficient is also derived to enhance the system damping performance. Finally, the experimental results are provided to verify the effectiveness of the proposed method. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]