Active Voltage-balancing Control Methods for the Floating Capacitors and DC-link Capacitors of Five-level Active Neutral-Point-Clamped Converter

Junjie Li,Jianguo Jiang 전력전자학회 2017 JOURNAL OF POWER ELECTRONICS Vol.17 No.3

Multilevel active neutral-point-clamped (ANPC) converter combines the advantages of three-level ANPC converter and multilevel flying capacitor (FC) converter. However, multilevel ANPC converter often suffers from capacitor voltage balancing problems. In order to solve the capacitor voltage balancing problems for five-level ANPC converter, phase-shifted pulse width modulation (PS-PWM) is used, which generally provides natural voltage balancing ability. However, the natural voltage balancing ability depends on the load conditions and converter parameters. In order to eliminate voltage deviations under steady-state and dynamic conditions, the active voltage-balancing control (AVBC) methods of floating capacitors and dc-link capacitors based on PS-PWM are proposed. First, the neutral-point current is regulated to balance the neutral-point voltage by injecting zero-sequence voltage. After that, the duty cycles of the redundant switch combinations are adjusted to balance the floating-capacitor voltages by introducing moderating variables for each of the phases. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed AVBC methods is verified by experimental results.

Active Voltage-balancing Control Methods for the Floating Capacitors and DC-link Capacitors of Five-level Active Neutral-Point-Clamped Converter

Li, Junjie,Jiang, Jianguo The Korean Institute of Power Electronics 2017 JOURNAL OF POWER ELECTRONICS Vol.17 No.3

Multilevel active neutral-point-clamped (ANPC) converter combines the advantages of three-level ANPC converter and multilevel flying capacitor (FC) converter. However, multilevel ANPC converter often suffers from capacitor voltage balancing problems. In order to solve the capacitor voltage balancing problems for five-level ANPC converter, phase-shifted pulse width modulation (PS-PWM) is used, which generally provides natural voltage balancing ability. However, the natural voltage balancing ability depends on the load conditions and converter parameters. In order to eliminate voltage deviations under steady-state and dynamic conditions, the active voltage-balancing control (AVBC) methods of floating capacitors and dc-link capacitors based on PS-PWM are proposed. First, the neutral-point current is regulated to balance the neutral-point voltage by injecting zero-sequence voltage. After that, the duty cycles of the redundant switch combinations are adjusted to balance the floating-capacitor voltages by introducing moderating variables for each of the phases. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed AVBC methods is verified by experimental results.

A SVPWM Control Strategy for Capacitor Voltage Balancing of Flying Capacitor Based 4-Level NPC Inverter

R. Palanisamy,V. Shanmugasundaram,S. Vidyasagar,V. Kalyanasundaram,K. Vijayakumar 대한전기학회 2020 Journal of Electrical Engineering & Technology Vol.15 No.6

A Space Vector Pulse Width Modulation (SVPWM) control strategy is implemented for capacitor voltage balancing of Flying Capacitor (FC) based 4-level Neutral Point Clamped (NPC) inverter. This fl ying capacitor based 4-level NPC inverter is developed for medium voltage and high power applications. This system includes 6 power switching devices, 2 clamping diodes and 2 fl ying capacitors per leg. The fl ying capacitors ensure to operate inverter normally and all the switching devices share the voltage stresses in identical manner. Also it controls the voltage across each capacitor and maintained at V dc /3 times of applied dc voltage. The proposed SVPWM method takes advantage of utilizing redundancy switching states to control and balance the voltage across the capacitor using nearest switching state vector selection method. Moreover, this system provides reduced total harmonic distortion (THD), and minimized voltage stress. The control technique is implemented without using any look-up tables or eff ective logic tables or trigonometric functions. The simulation and experimental results of this proposed verifi ed are verifi ed using Matlab-simulink and FPGA controller respectively.

플라잉 커패시터 멀티-레벨 인버터의 커패시터 전압 균형을 위한 캐리어 비교방식의 펄스폭변조기법

이상길,강대욱,이요한,현동석 전력전자학회 2002 전력전자학회 논문지 Vol.7 No.1

This paper proposes a new carrier-based PWM method to solve the most serious problem of flying capacitor multi-level inverter that is the unbalance of capacitor voltages. The voltage unbalance occurs due to the difference of each capacitor's charging and discharging time applied to Flying Capacitor Inverter. New solution controls the variation of capacitor voltages into the mean '0' during some period by means of new carriers using the leg voltage redundancy in the flying capacitor inverter. The solution can be easily expanded to the multi-level inverter. The leg voltage redundancy in the new method makes the switching loss of device equals to the conduction loss of device. This paper will examine the unbalance of capacitor voltage and the conventional theory of self-balance using phase-shifted carrier. And then the new method that is suitable to the flying capacitor inverter will be explained. 본 논문에서는 플라잉 커패시터 멀티-레벨 인버터의 가장 큰 문제점인 커패시터 전압 불균형을 캐리어 비교방식을 토대로 한 펄스 폭 변조 방식(PWM)을 이용하여 제어하는 새로운 PWM방법을 제안한다. 제안된 방법은 멜티-레벨 인버터로 확장이 용이한 캐리어 비교 방식의 PWM방법으로서 플라잉 커패시터 인버터에서 소자의 스위칭시 각 커패시터의 충방전으로 인해 발생되는 전압불균형에 대해 상전압 리던던시와 선간전압 리던던시를 이용하여 커패시터 전압의 변화량을 일정주기에 대해 평균적으로 영으로 제어하게 된다. 또한 이 방법은 상전압 리던던시를 고르게 이용하여 소자의 스위치 손실과 도통 손실을 같게 하는 장점을 지닌다. 본문에서 플라잉 커패시터 인버터에서 발생하는 커패시터 전압 불균형에 대해 분석하고 이 인버터에 적합한 캐리어 비교방식의 PWM방법을 설명한다.

Capacitor voltage feedforward decoupling control based on third harmonic injection modulation for five-level active neutral point clamped converter

Nie, Ziling,Ye, Weiwei,Zhu, Junjie,Xu, Jie The Korean Institute of Power Electronics 2020 JOURNAL OF POWER ELECTRONICS Vol.20 No.6

For the five-level active neutral point clamped (5L-ANPC) converter, the coupling problem between the DC-link capacitor voltages and flying-capacitor (FC) voltages will increase the capacitor voltage fluctuations. The capacitor voltage fluctuations and current harmonics of the space vector pulse width modulation (SVPWM) are less than those of the sinusoidal pulse width modulation (SPWM), because the maximum linear modulation index of the SVPWM is higher than that of the SPWM. However, SVPWM has difficulty in realizing the decoupling control of the capacitor voltages, and the computation complexity of SVPWM is much higher than that of SPWM. This paper proposes a third harmonic injection modulation algorithm for the 5L-ANPC converter. The proposed algorithm injects the third harmonic into the modulation waves of SPWM, which makes the maximum linear modulation index of SPWM the same as that of SVPWM, to reduce the capacitor voltage fluctuations and current harmonics. The calculation of the third harmonic only requires a standard sorting algorithm and a simple linear operation; thus, it is easy to implement. Based on the third harmonic injection modulation algorithm, two variables are introduced to control the neutral point (NP) current and the FC current. And the two variables are used to feedforward compensate the modulation waves, realizing the decoupling control of the capacitor voltages. The proposed decoupling control method can further reduce the capacitor voltage fluctuations. Experimental results are presented to verify the validity of the proposed algorithm.

An Improved SVPWM Control of Voltage Imbalance in Capacitors of a Single-Phase Multilevel Inverter

Ramirez, Fernando Arturo,Arjona, Marco A. The Korean Institute of Power Electronics 2015 JOURNAL OF POWER ELECTRONICS Vol.15 No.5

This paper presents a modified Space Vector Pulse Width Modulation Technique (SVPWM), which solves the well-known problem of voltage imbalance in the capacitors of a single-phase multilevel inverter. The proposed solution is based on the measurement of DC voltage levels at each capacitor of the inverter DC bus. The measurements are then used to adjust the size of the active vectors within the SVPWM algorithm to keep the voltage waveform sinusoidal regardless of any voltage imbalance on the DC link capacitors. When a voltage deviation exceeds a predetermined hysteresis band, the correspondent voltage vector is restricted to restore the voltage level to an acceptable threshold. Hence, the need for external voltage regulators for the voltage capacitors is eliminated. The functionality of the proposed algorithm is successfully demonstrated through simulations and experiments on a grid tied application.

Capacitor voltage balancing method for hybrid modular multilevel converters based on second‑harmonic voltage injection

Hongxu Li,Qin Wang,Qunfang Wu,Lan Xiao,Jinbo Li 전력전자학회 2024 JOURNAL OF POWER ELECTRONICS Vol.24 No.4

Due to different output voltages, capacitor voltage imbalance occurs between half-bridge sub-modules (HBSM) and fullbridge sub-modules (FBSM) in hybrid modular multilevel converters (MMCs) under a boosted modulation index (m). To address this issue, a capacitor voltage balancing method based on second-harmonic voltage injection is proposed in this paper. The mechanism of the proposed method is to eliminate the DC component in the charging power of sub-modules under the restriction that the HBSM cannot output negative voltage. The proposed method is divided into two cases according to m. Case 1 is used when m ≤ 1.4, while Case 2 is implemented when m > 1.4. When compared with similar capacitor voltage balancing methods, the proposed SVI method has a simpler structure that can greatly reduce the number of computations. Simulation and experimental results verify the effectiveness of the proposed capacitor voltage balancing method.

An Improved SVPWM Control of Voltage Imbalance in Capacitors of a Single-Phase Multilevel Inverter

Fernando Arturo Ramirez,Marco A. Arjona 전력전자학회 2015 JOURNAL OF POWER ELECTRONICS Vol.15 No.5

This paper presents a modified Space Vector Pulse Width Modulation Technique (SVPWM), which solves the well-known problem of voltage imbalance in the capacitors of a single-phase multilevel inverter. The proposed solution is based on the measurement of DC voltage levels at each capacitor of the inverter DC bus. The measurements are then used to adjust the size of the active vectors within the SVPWM algorithm to keep the voltage waveform sinusoidal regardless of any voltage imbalance on the DC link capacitors. When a voltage deviation exceeds a predetermined hysteresis band, the correspondent voltage vector is restricted to restore the voltage level to an acceptable threshold. Hence, the need for external voltage regulators for the voltage capacitors is eliminated. The functionality of the proposed algorithm is successfully demonstrated through simulations and experiments on a grid tied application.

Selection-based capacitor voltage balancing control for modular multilevel converters

Luo, Wei,Ma, Yifan,Zheng, Changbao The Korean Institute of Power Electronics 2021 JOURNAL OF POWER ELECTRONICS Vol.21 No.10

The modular multilevel converter (MMC) is a promising topology for high-power converters. The capacitor voltage balancing method for the submodules (SMs) is one of the key technologies in terms of modular multilevel converters. Aiming at the problems of the large calculation burden and the high switching frequency in the traditional capacitor voltage balancing method, an improved balancing method based on a novel selection algorithm for MMCs is proposed in this paper. The proposed method can avoid the sorting operation of the arm SM voltages in each control cycle without reducing the control precision of the capacitor voltages. In addition, it greatly improves the sorting efficiency. Thus, a criterion for algorithm rerun is introduced, which makes the MMC controller avoid reordering the capacitor voltages and leave the control signals unchanged when the capacitor voltages experience small changes. Finally, simulation and experimental results confirm the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed method.

Novel Method for Circulating Current Suppression in MMCs Based on Multiple Quasi-PR Controller

Qiu, Jian,Hang, Lijun,Liu, Dongliang,Geng, Shengbao,Ma, Xiaonan,Li, Zhen The Korean Institute of Power Electronics 2018 JOURNAL OF POWER ELECTRONICS Vol.18 No.6

An improved circulating current suppression control method is proposed in this paper. In the proposed controller, an outer loop of the average capacitor voltage control model is used to balance the sub-module capacitor voltage. Meanwhile, an individual voltage balance controller and an arm voltage balance controller are also used. The DC and harmonic components of the circulating current are separated using a low pass filter. Therefore, a multiple quasi-proportional-resonant (multi-quasi-PR) controller is introduced in the inner loop to eliminate the circulating harmonic current, which mainly contains second-order harmonic but also contains other high-order harmonics. In addition, the parameters of the multi-quasi-PR controller are designed in the discrete domain and an analysis of the stability characteristic is given in this paper. In addition, a simulation model of a three-phase MMC system is built in order to confirm the correctness and superiority of the proposed controller. Finally, experiment results are presented and compared. These results illustrate that the improved control method has good performance in suppressing circulating harmonic current and in balancing the capacitor voltage.