ABSTRACT:
Multilevel inverters are capable of
generating high-quality staircase pseudo-sinusoidal voltage waveform with low
THD. These types of topologies may require large number of switches and power
supplies. This leads to higher cost and volume of the converter along with
complicated control algorithms. Recently, a branch of multilevel converters is
emerged as compact power conversion units, in which their ‘reduced-structure’
topologies use lower number of active and passive devices compared with the
available topologies. Packed U-Cell, a new reduced-structure multilevel
converter, has been recently reported in the literature to reduce component
count. Packed U-Cell requires lesser active switches as compared to the
existing counterparts. However, there are some drawbacks associated with this
topology such as restricted maximum output voltage, high voltage stress on
switches, and limited performance to low voltage applications. Available
literature present generalization of the topology with special asymmetrical
source-ratio, but no sufficient and effective investigations have been made for
modified structures or other symmetrical or asymmetrical source-ratio with
cascaded configurations. In this paper, the issues associated with PUC are
addressed and two approaches as remedy are presented. The first approach
presents a comprehensive analysis of cascaded topologies with the proposed
basic units, and the second approach is related to a new modified configuration
on the basis of the conventional converter for improving the performance of the
PUC in terms of total blocking voltage, switch ratings and extending its
performance to high voltage applications. Moreover, design of a novel 49-level
modified structure and 147-level cascade inverter based on conventional PUC are
analyzed under optimal number of DC sources and power switches to get the best
possible topology as a solution. Finally, experimental validations were
performed by implementing laboratory prototypes.
KEYWORDS:
1. Asymmetrical DC Sources
2. Multilevel inverter
3. Modified structure
4. Packed U-Cell
5. Reduced structures
SOFTWARE: MATLAB/SIMULINK
CONCLUSION:
In this paper different drawbacks
associated with a newly introduced multilevel converter, named as Packed U-Cell
(PUC), such as restricted maximum output voltage, high voltage stress on
switches, and limited performance to low voltage applications, are presented.
For solving these drawbacks, no sufficient investigations in literature have
been made as modified structures or other symmetrical or asymmetrical cascaded
configurations. The motivation for conducting this study is to achieve more
voltage levels with reduction in the number of power electronics components
with lower ratings and blocking voltages, and extending its performance to high
voltage applications, using cascaded (approach 1) or modified (approach 2)
structures. In the first approach, analysis showed that with using only two DC
sources in each cascaded module (..=2), the CAPUC1 and CAPUC2 generate the
maximum number of voltage levels with a fixed number of DC sources and
switches. Using more than two DC sources in each module, the CAPUC1 generates
more voltage levels. Consequently, the CAPUC1 has the optimal structure among
all discussed cascade structures. In the second one, the proposed modified
structure can improve conventional PUC performance based on power switch
ratings for high power applications. Design of a 147-level cascade inverter
(based on the CAPUC1) and a novel 49-level modified structure are analyzed
under optimal number of DC sources and power switches. Finally, experimental
validations were performed by implementing laboratory prototypes. Experimental
results in steady state and dynamics conditions showed that the proposed
structures can generate output voltage with the lowest THD and highest
controllability.
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