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MULTILEVEL INVERTERS

INTRODUCTION
Numerous industrial applications have begun to require higher power apparatus in recent years. Some medium voltage motor drives and utility applications require medium voltage and megawatt power level. For a medium voltage grid, it is troublesome to connect only one power semiconductor switch directly. As a result, a multilevel power converter structure has been introduced as an alternative in high power and medium voltage situations. A multilevel converter not only achieves high power ratings, but also enables the use of renewable energy sources. Renewable energy sources such as photovoltaic, wind, and fuel cells can be easily interfaced to a multilevel converter system for a high power application. The concept of multilevel converters has been introduced since 1975. The term multilevel began with the three-level converter. Subsequently, several multilevel converter topologies have been developed. However, the elementary concept of a multilevel converter to achieve higher power is to use a series of power semiconductor switches with several lower voltage dc sources to perform the power conversion by synthesizing a staircase voltage waveform. Capacitors, batteries, and renewable energy voltage sources can be used as the multiple dc voltage sources. The commutation of the power switches aggregate these multiple dc sources in order to achieve high voltage at the output; however, the rated voltage of the power semiconductor switches depends only upon the rating of the dc voltage sources to which they are connected. A multilevel converter has several advantages over a conventional two-level converter that uses high switching frequency pulse width modulation (PWM). The attractive features of a multilevel converter can be briefly summarized as follows. Staircase waveform quality: Multilevel converters not only can generate the output voltages with very low distortion, but also can reduce the dv/dt stresses; therefore electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) problems can be reduced. Common-mode (CM) voltage: Multilevel converters produce smaller CM voltage; therefore, the stress in the bearings of a motor connected to a multilevel motor drive can be reduced. Furthermore, CM voltage can be eliminated by using advanced modulation strategies such as that proposed in.

Input current: Multilevel converters can draw input current with low distortion. Switching frequency: Multilevel converters can operate at both fundamental switching frequency and high switching frequency PWM. It should be noted that lower switching frequency usually means lower switching loss and higher efficiency. Unfortunately, multilevel converters do have some disadvantages. One particular disadvantage is the greater number of power semiconductor switches needed. Although lower voltage rated switches can be utilized in a multilevel converter, each switch requires a related gate drive circuit. This may cause the overall system to be more expensive and complex. Plentiful multilevel converter topologies have been proposed during the last two decades. Contemporary research has engaged novel converter topologies and unique modulation schemes. Moreover, three different major multilevel converter structures have been reported in the literature: cascaded H-bridges converter with separate dc sources, diode clamped (neutralclamped), and flying capacitors (capacitor clamped). Moreover, abundant modulation techniques and control paradigms have been developed for multilevel converters such as sinusoidal pulse width modulation (SPWM), selective harmonic elimination (SHE-PWM), space vector modulation (SVM), and others. In addition, many multilevel converter applications focus on industrial medium-voltage motor drives, utility interface for renewable energy systems, flexible AC transmission system (FACTS), and traction drive systems.

THE MULTILEVEL CONCEPT


Let us consider a three phase inverter system (figure a) with a dc voltage source Vdc .Series connected capacitors constitute the energy tank for the inverter, providing some nodes to which the multilevel inverter can be connected. Each capacitor has the same voltage Em which is given by Em = Vdc/m-1 In the above equation m denotes the number of levels. The term level is referred to as the number of nodes to which the inverter can be accessible. An m level inverter needs (m-1) capacitors.

Three phase multi-level power processing system

Output phase voltages can be defined as voltage across output terminals of the inverter and the ground point denoted by o (as shown in figure a). Moreover the input node voltages and currents can be referred to as input terminals voltages of the inverter with reference to the ground point and the corresponding currents from each node of the capacitors to the inverter, respectively. For example input node (dc) voltages are I1, I2 etc. (as in figure ). Va , Vb and Vc are the root-mean- square (rms) values of the line load voltages

The figure shows the schematic of a pole in a multilevel inverter where indicates an output phase voltage that can assume any voltage level depending on the selection of the node (dc) voltage . Thus a pole in a multilevel inverter can be regarded as a single pole, multiplethrow switch. By connecting the switch to one node at a time, one can obtain the desired output.

Schematic of single pole of multilevel inverter by a switch

The figure below shows the typical output voltage of a five level inverter. The actual realization of the switches requires bidirectional switching devices for each node.

TYPES OF MULTILEVEL INVERTERS


Traditional magnetic coupled multipulse converters typically synthesize the staircase voltage wave by varying transformer turns ratio with complicated zigzag connections. Problems of the magnetic transformer coupling method are bulky, heavy, and lossy. The capacitor voltage synthesis method is thus preferred to the magnetic coupling method. There are three reported capacitor voltage synthesis-based multilevel converters:

1) Diode clamp inverter

2) Flying-capacitors inverter and

3) Cascaded-inverters.

DIODE CLAMPED MULTILEVEL INVERTER


An m-level diode-clamp converter typically consists of (m 1) capacitors on the dc bus and produce m levels of the phase voltage. Fig shows a single-phase full bridge five level diodeclamp converter in which the dc bus consists of four capacitors. For a dc bus voltage Vdc the voltage across each capacitor is Vdc/4, and each device voltage stress will be limited to one capacitor voltage level, Vdc /4, through clamping diodes. Table I lists the voltage levels and their corresponding switch states. State condition 1 means the switch is on, and 0 means the switch is off. Notice that each switch is only switched once per cycle. There exist four complimentary switch pairs

Figure shows phase and line voltage waveforms of the example 5-level converter. The line voltage consists of a positive phase-leg a voltage and a negative phase-leg b voltage. Each phase voltage tracks one-half of the sinusoidal waves. The resulting line voltage is a 9-level staircase wave. This implies that an m-level converter has an m-level output phase voltage and a (2m - 1)-level output line voltage.

ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF A DIODE CLAMPED MULTILEVEL CONVERTER


The advantages and disadvantages of a diode-clamp multilevel voltage source converter are as follows:

ADVANTAGES
When the number of levels is high enough, harmonic content will be low enough to avoid the need for filters. Efficiency is high because all devices are switched at the fundamental frequency. Reactive power flow can be controlled. The control method is simple for a back-to-back intertie

DISADVANTAGES
Excessive clamping diodes are required when the number of levels is high. It is difficult to do real power flow control for the individual converter.

Flying Capacitor Multilevel Inverter


Maynard and Foch introduced a flying-capacitor-based inverter in 1992 [32]. The structure of this inverter is similar to that of the diode-clamped inverter except that instead of using clamping diodes, the inverter uses capacitors in their place. The circuit topology of the flying capacitor multilevel inverter is shown in Figure. This topology has a ladder structure of dc side capacitors, where the voltage on each capacitor differs from that of the next capacitor. The voltage increment between two adjacent capacitor legs gives the size of the voltage steps in the output waveform.

One advantage of the flying-capacitor-based inverter is that it has redundancies for inner voltage levels; in other words, two or more valid switch combinations can synthesize an output voltage. Table shows a list of all the combinations of phase voltage levels that are possible for the six-level circuit shown in Figure. Unlike the diode-clamped inverter, the flying-capacitor inverter does not require all of the switches that are on (conducting) be in a consecutive series. Moreover, the flying-capacitor inverter has phase redundancies, whereas the diode-clamped inverter has only line-line redundancies. These redundancies allow a choice of

charging/discharging specific capacitors and can be incorporated in the control system for balancing the voltages across the various levels. In addition to the (m-1) dc link capacitors, the m-level flying-capacitor multilevel inverter will require (m-1) (m-2)/2 auxiliary capacitors per phase if the voltage rating of the capacitors is identical to that of the main switches. One application proposed in the literature for the multilevel flying capacitor is static var generation. The main advantages and disadvantages of multilevel flying capacitor converters are as follows.

Advantages:
Phase redundancies are available for balancing the voltage levels of the capacitors.

Real and reactive power flow can be controlled.

The large number of capacitors enables the inverter to ride through short duration outages and deep voltage sags.

Disadvantages:
Control is complicated to track the voltage levels for all of the capacitors. Also, precharging all of the capacitors to the same voltage level and startup are complex.

Switching utilization and efficiency are poor for real power transmission.

The large numbers of capacitors are both more expensive and bulky than clamping diodes in multilevel diode-clamped converters. Packaging is also more difficult in inverters with a high number of levels.

Cascaded H-Bridges
A single-phase structure of an m-level cascaded inverter is illustrated in Figure. Each separate dc source (SDCS) is connected to a single-phase full-bridge, or H-bridge, inverter. Each inverter level can generate three different voltage outputs

Advantages:
The number of possible output voltage levels is more than twice the number of dc sources (m = 2s + 1).

The series of H-bridges makes for modularized layout and packaging. This will enable the manufacturing process to be done more quickly and cheaply.

Disadvantages:
Separate dc sources are required for each of the H-bridges. This will limit its application to products that already have multiple SDCSs readily available.

Conclusion
Multilevel converters can be applied to utility interface systems and motor drives. These converters offer a low output voltage THD, and a high efficiency and power factor. The multilevel inverters require balancing the voltage across the seriesconnected dc-bus capacitors. Capacitors tend to overcharge or completely discharge, at which condition the multilevel converter reverts to a three-level converter unless an explicit control is devised to balance the capacitor charge. The voltage balancing technique must be applied to the capacitor during the operation of rectifier and the inverter. Thus, the real power flow into a capacitor must be same as the real power flow out of capacitor, and the net charge on the capacitor over one cycle remains the same.

REFERENCES
1. Power electronics circuits, design and applications by Muhammad H Rashid 2. Power electronics by P.S.Bhimbra 3. J. Rodriguez, J. S. Lai and F. Z. Peng, Multilevel Inverters: Survey of Topologies, Controls, and Applications, IEEE Transactions on Industry Applications, vol. 49, no. 4, Aug. 2002, pp. 724-738. 4. J. S. Lai and F. Z. Peng, Multilevel Converters-A new Breed of Power Converters, IEEE Trans. Ind. Applicat., vol.32,pp. 509-517, May/June 1996. 5. L. M. Tolbert, F. Z. Peng, and T. Habetler, Multilevel Converters for Large Electric drives, IEEE Trans. Ind. Applicat.,vol.35,pp. 36-44, Jan./Feb. 1999. 6. R. H. Baker and L. H. Bannister, Electric Power Converter, U.S. Patent 3 867 643, Feb. 1975. 7. A. Nabae, I. Takahashi, and H. Akagi, A New Neutral-point Clamped PWM inverter, IEEE Trans. Ind. Applicat., vol. IA-17, pp. 518-523, Sept./Oct. 1981. 8. R. H. Baker, Bridge Converter Circuit, U.S. Patent 4 270 163, May 1981. 9. P. W. Hammond, Medium Voltage PWM Drive and Method, U.S. Patent 5 625 545, Apr. 1977. 10. F. Z. Peng and J. S. Lai, Multilevel Cascade Voltage-source Inverter with Separate DC source, U.S. Patent 5 642 275, June 24, 1997.

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