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High-performance overmodulation strategies for voltage source inverters (VSIs) can further broaden the operation range of machines. Among them, Space Vector Pulse Width Modulation (SVPWM) is worth researching as it performs well in digital implementation. This paper presents a detailed comparison of various SVPWM overmodulation strategies and analysis of their performance. It firstly briefly elaborates fundamental laws of two subspaces of five-phase VSIs. Then, it focuses on several overmodulation strategies. Their corresponding basic principles and main characteristics are researched, and conclusions are given. In addition, differences and relationships between them are proved and summarized. Lastly, comparative simulations and experiments were carried out and verify that in the overmodulation region, the output voltage distortion degree increases with the increase in modulation ratio, and strategies with more control degrees of freedom (CDFs) are capable of better controlling the third harmonic subspace, which means that higher-quality output voltage waveforms would be obtained. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The capacitor condition monitoring is an important issue for the reliable operation of modular multilevel converters (MMCs) in high-voltage applications. The numerous capacitors make the monitoring for the capacitor condition complex and computation-consuming. This paper proposes a hierarchic capacitor condition monitoring strategy to assure the reliability of high-voltage MMCs. In the strategy, the switching times of the switching signals are counted to detect the condition of the capacitor in each submodule (SM). Then, the subsequent capacitance calculation method is only conducted to the abnormal capacitors indicated by the above condition detection algorithm. Meanwhile, the variations of the measured and reference capacitor voltages are employed to calculate the capacitance in the proposed method. The condition detection algorithm shrinks the scope where the abnormal capacitors locate, which avoids calculating the total capacitances in MMCs. In the proposed capacitance calculation method, the complex operations are further saved. Both the two measures reduce the computation burden effectively. The implementation of the whole monitoring strategy is simple and fit for high-voltage MMCs. Moreover, the strategy has no adverse influence on the normal operation of MMCs. The effectiveness of the proposed strategy is verified by the simulation studies with the professional tool Matlab/Simulink. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]