Design and Simulation of Dual Carrier Modulation Technique for a Five Level Inverter

Velammal engineering college,ambattur

Presented by :S.KALAVATHY
4rd year EEE department Velammal engineering college kalavathysubbiah@gmail.com 9600177637

P.NIVEDHA
4rd year EEE department Velammal engineering college nevedha16@gmail.com

Design and Simulation of Dual Carrier Modulation Technique for a Five Level Inverter
S.Kalavathy, P.Nivedha
EEE,Velammal Engineering College,ambattur kalavathysubbiah@gmail.com , nevedha16@gmail.com

Abstract-This paper presents a single phase five level inverter with a novel dual carrier modulation technique.The inverter consist of a full bridge inverter and an auxiliary circuit with four diodes and a switch .The inverter produces output voltage in five levels :zero,+0.5V dc,+Vdc,-0.5Vdc and Vdc. The dual carrier modulation technique uses two identical triangular carrier signals each with amplitude exactly half of the amplitude of the sinusoidal reference signal to generate PWM signals. .The performance evaluation of the proposed PWM strategy for single phase five level inverter is done using MATLAB .Total harmonic distortion and switching losses for both the dual reference modulation and dual carrier modulation techniques are compared .It is observed that the dual carrier modulation technique gives reduced total harmonic reduction and switching losses.

losses are determined for various switching frequencies and found to be lesser than the dual reference modulation technique. II.BASIC OPERATIONAL PRINCIPLE The basic operational principle of five level cascaded multilevel inverter is to generate a five level output voltage i.e zero, +0.5Vdc,+Vdc,-0.5Vdc and Vdc, where Vdc is the supply voltage[2]. The auxiliary circuit which consists of four diodes and switch S1 is used between the dc-bus capacitor and the full bridge inverter. By proper switching of the auxiliary circuit can generate half level of the supply voltage i.e zero, +0.5Vdc,+Vdc,-0.5Vdc and Vdc, The full bridge inverter configuration together with an auxiliary circuit is shown in Fig.1. Table 1 illustrates the level of Vdc during S1- S5 switch on and off.

Key Words: PWM inverter, Switching Losses ,THD. I.INTRODUCTION Multilevel inverter have become an effective and practical solution for increasing power and reducing harmonics of AC waveforms. This paper presents a cascaded five level inverter which consists of a full bridge inverter and an auxiliary circuit with four diode and a switch as shown in Fig.1.The inverter offers great advantages such as reduced number of switching elements, improved output waveform , lower THD ,lower switching losses, smaller filter size[1]-[3]. This paper employs a dual carrier modulation technique to generate PWM signals for the switches and to produce five output voltage levels: zero,+0.5Vdc,+Vdc,-0.5Vdc and Vdc. where Vdc is the supply voltage. The modulation technique uses two identical triangular carrier signal each with an amplitude exactly half the amplitude of the sinusoidal reference signal. This technique reduces the total harmonic distortion and the switching losses when compared with the dual reference modulation technique and the conventional single phase five level PWM inverter. Sinusoidal PWM is obtained by comparing the high frequency carrier with a low frequency sinusoidal reference signal .In this paper ,the dual carrier modulation is incorporated into the sinusoidal PWM to produce the switching signals[8]. Two carrier signals Vcarrier1 and Vcarrier2 will take turns to be compared with the sinusoidal reference signals Vref , to produce the switching signals for different switches. The total harmonic distortion and the switching

Fig.1.Full-bridge inverter configuration together with an auxiliary circuit.

TABLE.I
INVERTER OUTPUT VOLTAGE DURING S1 - S5 SWITCH ON AND OFF

S1
ON

S2
OFF

S3
OFF OFF OFF or (ON) OFF ON

S4
OFF OFF ON or (OFF) ON ON
\

S5
ON ON ON or (OFF) OFF OFF

V0
+0.5Vdc +Vdc 0

OFF OFF

ON OFF or (ON) OFF OFF

ON OFF

-0.5Vdc -Vdc

III.MODULATION STRATEGY FOR CASCADED FIVE LEVEL INVERTER There are many control techniques employed for cascaded five level inverter. This paper presents the dual carrier modulation technique. Two carrier signal Vcarrier1 and Vcarrier2 each with amplitude exactly half of the amplitude of the sinusoidal reference signal are considered as shown in Fig.2. Vcarrier2 is compared with the sinusoidal reference signal and pulses are generated whenever the amplitude of the reference signal are greater than the amplitude of carrier signal. If Vref exceeds the peak amplitude of the Vcarrier2, then Vcarrier1 will be compared with the Vref. This will lead to the switching pattern as shown in Fig 3.The switches S2 and S3 will be switching at the rate of the carrier signal frequency while the switches S4 and S5 will operate frequency equivalent to the fundamental frequency.
(a)PWM switching signals for S1

(b)PWM switching signals for S2

Fig.2. Carrier and reference sine waveform for dual carrier modulation technique

(c)PWM switching signals for S3

Fig.4.Dual reference modulation strategy

(d)PWM switching signals for S4

4.PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF DUAL CARRIER MODULATION TECHNIQUE The performance evaluation of the proposed PWM strategy for single phase five level inverter is done using MATLAB. Total harmonic distortion and the switching losses are determined. Total harmonic distortion of dual carrier and dual reference are compared as shown in Fig.5 .It is observed that the most suitable switching frequency at which THD is minimum is 2250Hz. At this switching frequency, dual carrier modulation technique has reduced THD of 17.57% shown in Fig.6 whereas dual reference modulation technique has THD of 21.27% shown in Fig .7.

(e)PWM switching signals for S5 Fig.3.Switching pattern for single phase five level inverter.

A.. Comparison of Dual carrier modulation technique with Dual reference modulation technique The dual reference modulation technique in which two reference signals Vref1 and Vref2 will take turns to be compared with a single triangular carrier signal as shown in Fig.4.[1]. The total harmonic distortion and switching losses are determined for both Dual carrier modulation technique and Dual reference modulation technique.It was observed that the Dual carrier modulation technique has lesser THD and switching losses when compared with the Dual reference modulation technique.

Fig.5.THD Vs Switching Frequency of dual reference and dual carrier modulation techniques

A. Switching loss calculation for the main switch IGBT and

diodes in auxiliary circuit. The switching loss of an IGBT is calculated from the equation Psw =0.5VCEICfsw(ton+toff) (1) The switching loss of a diode is calculated from the equation Pswd =0.5VD*IDfsw(ton+toff) (2) The diode switching loss calculation circuit and the IGBT switching loss calculation circuit are shown in Fig.7. and Fig.8. respectively. The voltage, current are shown in Fig.9. The power curve for IGBT during turn on and turn off is shown in Fig.10

Fig.6.FFT spectrum of dual carrier showing THD of 17.57%

Fig.7.Switching loss calculation cicuit for diode.

Fig.6.FFT spectrum of dual reference showing THD of 21.27%

Simulation were performed by using MATLAB SIMULINK to verify that the proposed inverter can be practically implemented. It helps to conform the PWM switching strategy for the five level inverter. The five level output is shown in Fig.11.

Fig.8.Switching loss calculation circuit for IBGT

Fig.11.Five-level inverter output voltage.

Fig.10(a) Power curve for IGBT during turn ON

Fig.9(a).Determination of turn-on time

Fig10(b)Power curve for IGBT during turn OFF

Total switching loss for five IGBT switches is found to be 281.24403W and the total switching loss for four diodes is found to be 0.625527W. In dual carrier modulation technique the switching loss of the IGBT and the diode is found to be reduced by 1mW when compared with dual reference modulation technique. VI. CONCLUSION This paper presented a single phase five level inverter with a dual carrier modulation technique. The dual carrier modulation technique uses two identical carrier, each with amplitude exactly half of the amplitude of the sinusoidal reference signal. The proposed strategy has been verified through MATLAB simulation .By employing this technique, the total harmonic distortion and the switching losses has been greatly reduced when compared to the dual reference modulation technique. The five level inverter whose waveform is much closer to the sinusoidal shape has reduced total harmonic distortion.

Fig.9(b).Determination of turn-off time.

VII. REFERENCES [1] J. Selvaraj, N. A. Rahim, Multilevel Inverter for GridConnected PV System Employing Digital PI Controller,IEEE Trans. on Industrial Electronics, vol.56,issue.1,2009,pp.149-158. [2] S.. Kouro, J.. Rebolledo, J. Rodriguez, "Reduced Switching-Frequency-Modulation Algorithm for HighPower Multilevel Inverters,IEEE Trans. On Industrial Electronics,vol.54,issue.5,Oct.2007,pp.28942901. [3] S.J.Park,F.S.Kang,M.H.Lee,C.U.Kim,A New SinglePhase Five-Level PWM Inverter Employing a Deadbeat Control Scheme,IEEE Trans .Power Electronics, vol.18,issue.18,May.2003,pp.831-843. [4] L. M. Tolbert, T. G. Habetler, Novel Multilevel Inverter Carrier-Based PWM Method, IEEE Trans.On Industry Application., vol. 35, issue.5, Sept/Oct 1999,pp.1098-1107. [5] M. Calais, L. J. Borle, V. G. Agelidis, Analysis of Multicarrier PWM Methods for a SinglePhase Five-Level Inverter,Power Electronics Specialists Conference, 2001. PESC. 2001 IEEE 32nd Annual vol.3,2001,pp.1351-356. [6] N. S. Choi, J. G. Cho, G. H. Cho, A General Circuit Topology of Multilevel Inverter, Power Electronics Specialists Conference, 1991. PESC 91. 1991 IEEE 22th Annual ,vol, 24-27,June 1991,pp. 96 103. [7] G. Carrara, S. Gardella, M. Marchesoni, R. Salutari, G. Sciutto, A New Multilevel PWM method: A Theoretical Analysis, IEEE Trans. Power Electronics., vol. 7, issue. 3, July. 1992,pp.497 505. [8] Muhammad H. Rashid, Power electronics: Circuits, Devices, and Applications, 3rd ed. Pearson Prentice Hall 2004, pp.267. [9]. Holmes, D.G, McGrath, B.P. Multicarrier PWM

[14] Maswood,A.I.Aswitching loss study in SPWM IGBT inverter,Power and Energy Conference,PECon 2008,IEEE 2nd International,2008,pp.609-613. [15] Fang Zheng Peng,Jih-Sheng Lai and Rodriguez.J,Multilevel inverters:a survey of topologies,controls and applications,IEEE Trans. On Industrial Electronics,vol.49,issue:4,Aug 2002,pp.724-738. strategies for multilevel inverters Industrial Electronics, IEEE Transactions, vol. 49, issue:4, ,Aug 2002,pp.858-867. [10]. Bierhoff,M.H., Fuchs,.W. Semiconductor losses in voltage source and current source IGBT converters based on analytical derivation, Power Electronics Specialists Conference PESC 04, IEEE 35th Annual, vol.4,2004,pp. 2836-2842. [11]. Casanellas, F. Notariat , C. Losses in PWM inverters using IGBTs, Electric Power Applications, IEEE Proceedings , vol. 141, issue:5, Sep 1994, pp. 231-239. [12]. Radan,A.H.,Shahirinia,M.Falahi, Evaluation of Carrier-Based PWM Methods for Multi-level Inverters in Proc. IEEE International Symposium on Industrial Electronics,ISIE07, June 2007,pp.389-394. [13]. Z.D.Far, A.Radan, M.D.Far, "Introduction and Evaluation of novel multi-level carrier based PWM strategies using a generalized algorithm, in Proc. European Conference on Power Electronics and Applications, EPE07, September