There is, I think, something ethereal about i —the square root of minus one. I remember first hearing about it at school. It seemed an odd beast at that time—an intruder hovering on the edge of reality.

Usually familiarity dulls this sense of the bizarre, but in the case of i it was the reverse: over the years the sense of its surreal nature intensified. It seemed that it was impossible to write mathematics that described the real world in …

I and i

Multilevel inverter technology has emerged recently as a very important alternative in the area of high-power medium-voltage energy control. This paper presents the most important topologies like diode-clamped inverter (neutral-point clamped), capacitor-clamped (flying capacitor), and cascaded multicell with separate DC sources. Emerging topologies like asymmetric hybrid cells and soft-switched multilevel inverters are also discussed. This paper also presents the most relevant control and modulation methods developed for this family of converters: multilevel sinusoidal pulsewidth modulation, multilevel selective harmonic elimination, and space-vector modulation. Special attention is dedicated to the latest and more relevant applications of these converters such as laminators, conveyor belts, and unified power-flow controllers. The need of an active front end at the input side for those inverters supplying regenerative loads is also discussed, and the circuit topology options are also presented. Finally, the peripherally developing areas such as high-voltage high-power devices and optical sensors and other opportunities for future development are addressed.

Multilevel inverters: a survey of topologies, controls, and applications

Multilevel converters have been under research and development for more than three decades and have found successful industrial application. However, this is still a technology under development, and many new contributions and new commercial topologies have been reported in the last few years. The aim of this paper is to group and review these recent contributions, in order to establish the current state of the art and trends of the technology, to provide readers with a comprehensive and insightful review of where multilevel converter technology stands and is heading. This paper first presents a brief overview of well-established multilevel converters strongly oriented to their current state in industrial applications to then center the discussion on the new converters that have made their way into the industry. In addition, new promising topologies are discussed. Recent advances made in modulation and control of multilevel converters are also addressed. A great part of this paper is devoted to show nontraditional applications powered by multilevel converters and how multilevel converters are becoming an enabling technology in many industrial sectors. Finally, some future trends and challenges in the further development of this technology are discussed to motivate future contributions that address open problems and explore new possibilities.

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Recent Advances and Industrial Applications of Multilevel Converters

This paper presents a technology review of voltage-source-converter topologies for industrial medium-voltage drives. In this highly active area, different converter topologies and circuits have found their application in the market. This paper covers the high-power voltage-source inverter and the most used multilevel-inverter topologies, including the neutral-point-clamped, cascaded H-bridge, and flying-capacitor converters. This paper presents the operating principle of each topology and a review of the most relevant modulation methods, focused mainly on those used by industry. In addition, the latest advances and future trends of the technology are discussed. It is concluded that the topology and modulation-method selection are closely related to each particular application, leaving a space on the market for all the different solutions, depending on their unique features and limitations like power or voltage level, dynamic performance, reliability, costs, and other technical specifications.

Multilevel Voltage-Source-Converter Topologies for Industrial Medium-Voltage Drives

This work is devoted to review and analyze the most relevant characteristics of multilevel converters, to motivate possible solutions, and to show that we are in a decisive instant in which energy companies have to bet on these converters as a good solution compared with classic two-level converters. This article presents a brief overview of the actual applications of multilevel converters and provides an introduction of the modeling techniques and the most common modulation strategies. It also addresses the operational and technological issues.

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The age of multilevel converters arrives

Analytical solutions of pulsewidth-modulation (PWM) strategies for multilevel inverters are used to identify that alternative phase opposition disposition PWM for diode-clamped inverters produces the same harmonic performance as phase-shifted carrier PWM for cascaded inverters, and hybrid PWM for hybrid inverters, when the carrier frequencies are set to achieve the same number of inverter switch transitions over each fundamental cycle. Using this understanding, a PWM method is then developed for cascaded and hybrid inverters to achieve the same harmonic gains as phase disposition PWM achieves for diode-clamped inverters. Theoretical and experimental results are presented in the paper.

Multicarrier PWM strategies for multilevel inverters

Current regulation plays an important role in modern power electronic AC conversion systems The most direct strategy to regulate such currents is to use a simple closed loop proportional-integral (PI) regulator, which has no theoretical stability limits as the proportional and integral gains are increased, since it is only a second order system However, pulsewidth modulation (PWM) transport and controller sampling delays limit the gain values that can be achieved in practical systems Taking these limitations into account, this paper presents an analytical method to determine the best possible gains that can be achieved for any class of practical linear AC current controller The analysis shows that the maximum possible proportional gain is determined by the plant series inductance, the DC bus voltage and the transport and sampling delays, while the maximum possible integral gain is determined primarily by the transport and sampling delays The work is applicable to stationary frame PI regulators, stationary frame controllers with back electromotive force compensation, stationary frame P+ resonant (PR) controllers, and synchronous d- q frame controllers, since they all have identical proportional and integral gains that must be optimized for any particular application

Optimized Design of Stationary Frame Three Phase AC Current Regulators

Previous work has shown that space vector modulation and carrier modulation for two-level inverters achieve the same phase leg switching sequences when appropriate zero sequence offsets are added to the reference waveforms for carrier modulation. This paper presents a similar equivalence between the phase disposition (PD) carrier and space vector modulation strategies applied to diode clamped, cascaded N-level or hybrid multilevel inverters. By analysis of the time integral trajectory of the converter voltage, the paper shows that the optimal harmonic profile for a space vector modulator occurs when the two middle space vectors are centered in each switching cycle. The required zero sequence offset to achieve this centring for an equivalent carrier based modulator is then determined. The results can be applied to any multilevel converter topology without differentiation. Discontinuous behavior is also examined, with the space vector and carrier based modulation methods shown to similarly produce identical performance. Both simulation and experimental results are presented.

Optimized space vector switching sequences for multilevel inverters

The control of a grid-connected voltage source inverter with an inductive-capacitive-inductive (LCL) filter is a very challenging task, since the LCL network causes a resonance phenomenon near to the control stability boundary. While many active damping methods have been proposed to overcome this issue, the role that pulse width modulation transport delay plays in the effectiveness of these strategies is still not fully resolved. This paper presents a theoretical discrete time-analysis framework that identifies three distinct regions of LCL filter resonance, namely, a high resonant frequency region where active damping is not required, a critical resonant frequency where a controller cannot stabilize the system, and a low resonant frequency region where active damping is essential. Suitable controllers are then proposed for the two stable regions, with gain calculations that allow for the greatest system bandwidth and damping. Simulation and experimental results verify the presented analysis.

Regions of Active Damping Control for LCL Filters

The control of a grid connected voltage source inverter (VSI) with an LCL filter is a very challenging task, since the LCL network causes a resonance phenomenon near to the control stability boundary While many active damping methods have been proposed to overcome this issue, the role that PWM transport delay plays in the effectiveness of these strategies is still not fully resolved This paper presents a theoretical discrete time analysis frame work that identifies three distinct regions of LCL filter resonance - a high resonant frequency region where active damping isn't required; a critical resonant frequency where a controller cannot stabilise the system; and a low resonant frequency region where active damping is essential Suitable controllers are then proposed for the two stable regions, with gain calculations that allow for the greatest system bandwidth and damping Simulation and experimental results verify the presented analysis

Brendan McGrath

Papers

Multicarrier PWM strategies for multilevel inverters

Optimized Design of Stationary Frame Three Phase AC Current Regulators

Optimized space vector switching sequences for multilevel inverters

Regions of Active Damping Control for LCL Filters

Regions of active damping control for LCL filters