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This article presents a new circuit topology for high voltage gain active switched boost quasi Z-source inverter (qZSI) and a pulsewidth modulation (PWM) technique. The higher boosting capability with a lower number of elements, the continuous source current, the less voltage stress across the devices, and having the common ground are the main advantages of the proposed structure. The voltage gain of the proposed inverter is twice that of the conventional capacitor-assisted qZSI (sCA-qZSI). Other benefits of the proposed inverter over the sCA-qZSI are the reduction of Z-source passive components and shoot-through current. Compared to the conventional active switched inductor boost qZSI, the proposed inverter has higher output voltage and also lower shoot-through current, while it has fewer components (one fewer inductor, two fewer diodes, but one more capacitor). The boost factor of the proposed inverter is more than twice that of the classic ones. Besides, a high gain PWM technique is proposed, which can be applied to any types of Z-source inverters. Both the simulation and experimental results of the proposed inverter under the proposed PWM technique are examined to validate their operation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The increased penetration of photovoltaic (PV) systems in different applications with critical loads such as in medical applications, industrial control systems, and telecommunications has highlighted pressing needs to address reliability and service continuity. Recently, distributed maximum power point tracking architectures, based on dc–dc converters, are being used increasingly in PV systems. Nevertheless, dc–dc converters are one of the important failure sources in a PV system. Since the semiconductor switches are one of the most critical elements in these converters, a fast switch fault detection method (FDM) is a mandatory step to guarantee the service continuity of these systems. This paper proposes a very fast FDM based on the shape of the inductor current associated to fault-tolerant (FT) operation for boost converter used in PV systems. By implementing fault diagnosis and reconfiguration strategies on a single field-programmable gate array target, both types of switch failure (open- and short-circuit faults) can be detected, identified and handled in real time. The FDM uses the signal provided by the current sensor dedicated to the control of the system. Consequently, no additional sensor is required. The proposed FT topology is based on a redundant switch. The results of hardware-in-the-loop and experimental tests, which all confirm the excellent performances of the proposed approach, are presented and discussed. The obtained results show that a switch fault can be detected in less than one switching period, typically around 100 ms in medium power applications, by the proposed FDM. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]