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

This paper gives an overview of medium-voltage (MV) multilevel converters with a focus on achieving minimum harmonic distortion and high efficiency at low switching frequency operation. Increasing the power rating by minimizing switching frequency while still maintaining reasonable power quality is an important requirement and a persistent challenge for the industry. Existing solutions are discussed and analyzed based on their topologies, limitations, and control techniques. As a preferred option for future research and application, an inverter configuration based on three-level building blocks to generate five-level voltage waveforms is suggested. This paper shows that such an inverter may be operated at a very low switching frequency to achieve minimum on-state and dynamic device losses for highly efficient MV drive applications while maintaining low harmonic distortion.

Medium-Voltage Multilevel Converters—State of the Art, Challenges, and Requirements in Industrial Applications

Multilevel converters are considered today as the state-of-the-art power-conversion systems for high-power and power-quality demanding applications. This paper presents a tutorial on this technology, covering the operating principle and the different power circuit topologies, modulation methods, technical issues and industry applications. Special attention is given to established technology already found in industry with more in-depth and self-contained information, while recent advances and state-of-the-art contributions are addressed with useful references. This paper serves as an introduction to the subject for the not-familiarized reader, as well as an update or reference for academics and practicing engineers working in the field of industrial and power electronics.

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Multilevel Converters: An Enabling Technology for High-Power Applications

Multilevel converters are considered today as the state-of-the-art power-conversion systems for high-power and power-quality demanding applications. This paper presents a tutorialonthistechnology,coveringtheoperatingprincipleand the different power circuit topologies, modulation methods, technical issues and industry applications. Special attention is given to established technology already found in industry with more in-depth and self-contained information, while recent advances and state-of-the-art contributions are addressed with useful references. This paper serves as an introduction to the subject for the not-familiarized reader, as well as an update or reference for academics and practicing engineers working in the field of industrial and power electronics.

Multilevel Converters: An Enabling Technology for High-Power Applications Multilevel converters generate voltage and current waveforms of improved quality, that can be used to power drives for trains and other vehicles, and many other applications.

Multilevel inverters have created a new wave of interest in industry and research. While the classical topologies have proved to be a viable alternative in a wide range of high-power medium-voltage applications, there has been an active interest in the evolution of newer topologies. Reduction in overall part count as compared to the classical topologies has been an important objective in the recently introduced topologies. In this paper, some of the recently proposed multilevel inverter topologies with reduced power switch count are reviewed and analyzed. The paper will serve as an introduction and an update to these topologies, both in terms of the qualitative and quantitative parameters. Also, it takes into account the challenges which arise when an attempt is made to reduce the device count. Based on a detailed comparison of these topologies as presented in this paper, appropriate multilevel solution can be arrived at for a given application.

Multilevel Inverter Topologies With Reduced Device Count: A Review

In this paper, a general structure for cascaded power converters is presented in which any number of H-bridge cells having any number of voltage levels are series connected to form an inverter phase leg. Equations are introduced for determining an optimal voltage ratio of DC voltages for the H-bridge cells which will maximize the number of voltage levels obtainable resulting in high power quality. Special cases of the generalized inverter are presented including novel 11-level and 15-level inverters. Laboratory measurements demonstrate the proposed inverter performance.

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A new cascaded multilevel H-bridge drive

This paper presents a unique design for flying capacitor type multilevel inverters with fault-tolerant features. When a single-switch fault per phase occurs, the new design can still provide the same number of converting levels by shorting the fault power semiconductors and reconfiguring the gate controls. The most attractive point of the proposed design is that it can undertake the single-switch fault per phase without sacrificing power converting quality. Future more, if multiple faults occur in different phases and each phase have only one fault switch, the proposed design can still conditionally provide consistent voltage converting levels. This paper will also discuss the capacitor balancing approach under fault-conditions, which is an essential part of controlling flying capacitor type multilevel inverters. Suggested fault diagnosing methods are also discussed in this paper. Computer simulation and lab results validate the proposed controls.

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A unique fault-tolerant design for flying capacitor multilevel inverters

Power electronic converters for medium- and high-power/voltage applications employ low-frequency fundamental switching frequencies and, therefore, minimize switching losses. There are two main control techniques of switching angle estimation; total harmonic distortion (THD) minimization and selective harmonic elimination (SHE). In case of the first control technique, the switching angles are found based on THD minimization without being specifically focused on eliminating some exact harmonics. For the SHE control technique, all degrees of freedom, due to available number of switching angles, is used for the elimination of certain low-order harmonics. The basic idea of combining those two control techniques consists of using some degrees of freedom for eliminating certain harmonics and using the others for minimizing the remaining THD content. This generalized problem formulation includes classic minimal THD and SHE problems as special cases. Theoretical developments are verified by the set of experimental cases for the voltage and current THDs selecting characteristic working points over the modulation index range.

Simultaneous Selective Harmonic Elimination and THD Minimization for a Single-Phase Multilevel Inverter With Staircase Modulation

Naval ship as well as aerospace power systems are incorporating a greater degree of power electronic switching sources and loads. Although these power electronics based components provide exceptional performance, they are prone to instability due to their high efficiency and constant power characteristics which lead to negative impedance. When designing these systems, integrators must consider the impedance versus frequency at a system interface (which designates source and load). Stability criterions have been developed in terms of source and load impedance for both DC and AC systems and it is often helpful to have techniques for impedance measurement. For DC systems, the measurement techniques have been well established. This paper suggests several methods for measuring AC impedance including utilization of power converters, induction machines and chopper circuits. Simulation results on an example AC system demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed methods

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AC Impedance Measurement Techniques

This paper presents schema of operation for floating voltage source multilevel inverters. The primary advantage of the proposed schema is that the number of voltage levels (and thus power quality) can be increased for a given number of semiconductor devices when compared to the conventional "flying capacitor" topology. However, the new schema requires fixed floating sources instead of capacitors and therefore is more suitable for battery power applications such as electric vehicles, flexible AC transmission systems and submarine propulsion. Alternatively transformer/rectifier circuits may be used to supply the floating sources in a similar way to cascaded H-bridge inverters. Computer simulation results are presented for 4-level, 8-level, and 16-level inverter topologies. A 4-level laboratory test verifies the proposed method.

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Yakov Lvovich Familiant

Papers

A new cascaded multilevel H-bridge drive

A unique fault-tolerant design for flying capacitor multilevel inverters

Simultaneous Selective Harmonic Elimination and THD Minimization for a Single-Phase Multilevel Inverter With Staircase Modulation

AC Impedance Measurement Techniques

Full binary combination schema for floating voltage source multi-level inverters