MULTILEVEL INVERTER, BASED ON MULTI-STAGE CONNECTION OF THREE-LEVEL CONVERTERS, SCALED IN POWER OF THREE.

Juan Dixon (SM IEEE) Department of Electrical Engineering Pontificia Universidad Catlica de Chile Casilla 306, Correo 22, Santiago, Chile phone 56-2-686-4278 fax 56-2-552-2563 e-mail jdixon@ing.puc.cl

Luis Morn (SM IEEE) Department of Electrical Engineering Universidad de Concepcin Casilla 53-C, Concepcin, Chile fax 56-41-246-999 e-mail lmoran@renoir.die.udec.cl

Contact author. Dr. Juan W. Dixon Preferred topical area: power converters Subject area and keywords: multiconverters, multi-stage converters.

MULTILEVEL INVERTER, BASED ON MULTI-STAGE CONNECTION OF THREE-LEVEL CONVERTERS, SCALED IN POWER OF THREE.

Department of Electrical Engineering Pontificia Universidad Catlica de Chile Casilla 306, Correo 22, Santiago, Chile

Department of Electrical Engineering Universidad de Concepcin Casilla 53-C, Concepcin, Chile

ABSTRACT A multi-stage inverter using three-state converters is being analyzed for multipurpose applications, such as active power filters, static var compensators and machine drives for sinusoidal and trapezoidal current applications. The great advantage of this kind of converter is the minimum harmonic distortion obtained. The drawbacks are the isolated power supplies required for each one of the stages of the multiconverter. In this paper this problem has been overcome by using isolated, bidirectional dc power supplies, which are fed from a common power source. This solution becomes practical because only one converter of the chain, called Master, takes more than 80% of the total active power required by the system. The rest of the converters, called Slaves, need very low power, and then those dc supplies are small. Another configuration with common dc supply and output transformers is displayed, and simulation results for different applications are shown and compared with similar results obtained with conventional PWM converters. The control of this multi-converter is being implemented using DSP controllers, which give flexibility to the system.

MULTILEVEL INVERTER, BASED ON MULTI-STAGE CONNECTION OF THREE-LEVEL CONVERTERS, SCALED IN POWER OF THREE.
Juan Dixon Department of Electrical Engineering Pontificia Universidad Catlica de Chile Casilla 306, Correo 22, Santiago, Chile fax 56-2-552-2563 e-mail jdixon@ing.puc.cl Luis Morn Department of Electrical Engineering Universidad de Concepcin Casilla 53-C, Concepcin, Chile fax 56-41-246-999 e-mail lmoran@renoir.die.udec.cl

Abstract. A multi-stage inverter using three-state converters is being analyzed for multipurpose applications, such as active power filters, static var compensators and machine drives for sinusoidal and trapezoidal current applications. The great advantage of this kind of converter is the minimum harmonic distortion obtained. The drawbacks are the isolated power supplies required for each one of the stages of the multiconverter. In this paper this problem has been overcome by using isolated, bidirectional dc power supplies, which are fed from a common power source. This solution becomes practical because only one converter of the chain, called Master, takes more than 80% of the total active power required by the system. The rest of the converters, called Slaves, need very low power, and then those dc supplies are small. Another configuration with common dc supply and output transformers is displayed, and simulation results for different applications are shown and compared with similar results obtained with conventional PWM converters. The control of this multi-converter is being implemented using DSP controllers, which give flexibility to the system. I. INTRODUCTION Power Electronics devices contribute with important part of harmonics in all kind of applications, such as power rectifiers, thyristor converters, and static var compensators (SVC). On the other hand, the PWM techniques used today to control modern static converters such as machine drives, power factor compensators or active power filters, do not give perfect waveforms, which strongly depend on switching frequency of the power semiconductors. Normally, voltage (or current in dual devices) moves to discrete values, forcing the design of machines with good isolation, and sometimes loads with inductances in excess of the required value. In other words, neither voltage nor current are as expected. This also means harmonic contamination, additional power losses, and high frequency noise that can affect the controllers. All these reasons have generated many research works on the topic of PWM modulation [1-4]. Multi-stage converters [5-7] work more like amplitude modulation rather than pulse modulation, and this fact makes the outputs of the converter very much cleaner. This way of operation allows having almost perfect currents, and very

good voltage waveforms, eliminating most of the undesirable harmonics. And even better, the bridges of each converter work at a very low switching frequency, which gives the possibility to work with low speed semiconductors, and to generate low switching frequency losses. The objective of this paper is to show the advantages of multi-stage converters for all kind of applications. The drawbacks of requiring isolated power supplies is solved using different techniques, which depend on the type of application, and based on the fact that the first converter, called Master, takes more than 80% of the total power delivered to the load. A four-stage converter using three-state power modules, which gives 81 different levels of voltage amplitude is studied. The results are compared with conventional PWM modulators working at a switching frequency of 10 kHz. All the load parameters of both types of converters are set at the same values. II. BASICS OF MULTI-STAGE CONVERTERS A. Basic Principle The circuit of fig.1 shows the basic topology of one converter used for the implementation of multi-stage converters. It is based on the simple, four switches converter, used for single phase inverters or for dual converters. These converters are able to produce three levels of voltage in the load: +Vdc, -Vdc, and Zero.

Driver

+ _

Vdc

LOAD

Figure 1. Three-level module for building multiconverters The figure 2 displays the main components of a four-stage converter which is being analysed in this work. The figure only shows one of the three phases of the complete system. As can be seen, the dc power supplies of the four converters are isolated, and the dc supplies are scaled with levels of voltage in power of three. The scaling of voltages in power of three allows having, with only four converters, 81 (34) different levels of voltage: 40 levels of positive values, 40 levels of

negative values, and zero. The converter located at the bottom of the figure has the bigger voltage, and will be called Master. The rest of the modules will be the Slaves. The Master works at the lower switching frequency, which is an additional advantage of this topology. With 81 levels of voltage, a four-stage converter can follow a sinusoidal waveform in a very precise way, as shown in figure 3. It can control the load voltage as an AM device (Amplitude Modulation). The figure 3 shows different levels of amplitude, which are obtained through the control of the gates of the power transistors in each one of the four converters.

The Figure 4 shows the voltage modulation of each one of the four converters of the chain of figure 2.
3RD S L A V E

0
2ND SLAV E

0
1 ST S L A V E

0
Driver
+ _

Vdc

3 Slave
M ASTER

rd

0
+

Driver

_ 3xVdc

2nd Slave

Figure 4. Voltage modulation in each converter B. Power Distribution One of the good advantages of the strategy described here for multiconverters is that most of the power delivered comes from the Master. The example of figure 5 shows the power distribution in one phase of the four-stage converter, feeding a pure resistive load with sinusoidal voltage. A little more than 80% of the real power is delivered by the Master converter, and only 20% for the Slaves. Even more, the second and third slave only deliver 5% of the total power. That means, the dc power sources needed by the Slaves are small.
1 % P O W E R IN 3 R D S L A V E

LOAD

Driver

9xVdc

1st Slave

Driver

27xVdc

Master

Figure 2. Main components of the four-stage multiconverter.

4 % P O W E R IN 2 N D S L A V E

0
1 5 % P O W E R IN 1 S T S L A V E

0
8 0 % P O W E R IN M A S T E R

0
Figure 3. Voltage AM using a four-stage converter Figure 5. Active power distribution in a four-stage converter.

This characteristic makes possible to feed the Slaves with low power, isolated power sources, fed by a common power supply from the Master. These power sources need to be bidirectional, because the power factor of the load can produce negative active power in some of the Slaves. The figure 6 shows a bi-directional dc-dc power supply which can be used for this purpose [8].

a:1

Driver

3 rd Slave

a:3
DC

Input From Master High Frequency Switching Square Wave

a:1

DC Output To Slave

Driver

nd

Slave

LOAD

Driver

1 st Slave a:9

Figure 6. Bidirectional DC-DC Power Supply Another attribute of this configuration, which is possible to see in figures 4 and 5, is the very low switching frequency of each converter. But even better, the Master, which carries most of the power, operates at the lower switching frequency. Then, the larger the power of the unit, the lower its switching frequency. In large power applications, the Master can be implemented with GTOs, and the Slaves with IGBTs. This configuration is good for variable frequency output, such as machine drives of different kinds (induction motors, synchronous and brushless dc motors). To avoid the three Masters having to be isolated one from each other, the three windings of the machine have to be fed independently (no electrical connection between them). It is also possible to use independent output transformers with a common dc supply, as shown in figure 7. A variation of this configuration was used by ABB [9], in his 16 Hz substation for railroads in Bremen (Germany). The ABB system uses identical transformers for each converter, combined with shifted PWM modulation. In the system described here, the transformers are smaller for higher order converters, because voltages are scaled in power of three. Besides, no PWM modulation is used, and the switching frequency of the transformers connected to the slaves, work at frequencies which are higher for smaller slaves. Then the transformers of the slaves become smaller and smaller for two reasons: voltage and switching frequency. This configuration is good for fixed frequency output, in which the load could be the power system (50 or 60 Hz), and the input could be a fuel cell, photovoltaic array, microturbine or a dc voltage connecting a HVDC system. If the load is the power system, power factor compensation and harmonic filtering becomes feasible. If the multi-stage converter is going to work as a power factor compensator or active power filter only, then the dc supply can be a simple voltage controlled dc capacitor.
+ _
Master a:27

Driver

Figure 7. Four-stage multiconverter with output transformers. III. MULTICONVERTER APPLICATIONS Once the problem of isolated power supplies has been solved, the multiconverters can be applied to almost every practical situation. Active power filters, sinusoidal current rectifiers, machine drives, power factor compensators, and back-to-back frequency link systems, are some of the applications available with this methodology. For example, the figure 8 shows a typical configuration for a shunt active power filter, using PWM strategy. The source is feeding a contaminating load, such as a power rectifier, and the active filter, connected in parallel, injects the harmonics the load needs, and the power system sees a cleaner sinusoidal current waveform.
LS Is IL
a b c

General load

VS

if
TF

Lf
C

V DC

APF

PWM
FILTER CONTROL

_ e + V REF

Figure 8. Shunt active filter using PWM techniques

Looking at the active power filter showed in figure 8, the replacement of the PWM modulator for the multiconverter of figure 7 is straightway. The common voltage supply of the four-stage converter is replaced by a capacitor C, whose voltage is kept at a VREF voltage, by a feedback control loop. The power transformers remain isolated at the converter side, and are connected in star at the mains side. The PWM control is replaced by an instantaneous voltage signal, which goes through the DSP, to give the corresponding ON-OFF signals to each one of the four converters. Similar arrangements and adaptations can be built for other applications, but almost every PWM converter can be replaced by the less polluted multi-stage topology. IV. OPERATION RESULTS The following results show a comparison between PWM and multilevel converter methodologies. These results have been obtained using a software called PSIM [10], which has demonstrated its reliability for almost 10 years of simulations, which have been corroborated with real experimental results. Shunt active power filters, sinusoidal voltage power supplies, and machine drives for brushless dc motors, are compared. A. Shunt Active Power Filter. The figure 9 compares the current quality obtained with a shunt active power filter implemented with a PWM converter working at 10 kHz switching frequency, and with the fourstage converter described in this paper. Both the figures show the load current (a three-phase diode rectifier), the source current, and the filter current. The parameters are the same for both the systems: Vsource=120 Vff, line impedance ZL = .01+j0.314 , rectifier input impedance ZR = .1+j0.157 , rectifier output dc load RD = 5 plus a smoothing reactor LS = 20 mH. The more sinusoidal current correspond to the source. The quasi-square current is from the rectifier, and the more distorted current is the compensating current coming from the active power filter. There is an evident difference between the bad quality of the currents when PWM techniques are used, and the excellent quality of the currents when multi-converters are used. The figures 10a) and b) show in more detail the current waveforms of the active power filter. Now is more evident the quality of the current generated by the active filter implemented with the four-stage converter. In fact, the more levels has the converter, the better the current, but with only four converters the source current is almost a perfect sinusoidal waveform, because the active filter has 81 levels of voltage. B. Sinusoidal Voltage Supply. With PWM techniques, it is not possible to implement a sinusoidal voltage power supply. The multiconverter topology, scaled in power of three, with a few quantity of inverters, can generate a very good sinusoidal voltage

waveform. A four-stage converter can generate 81 steps of voltage levels, as was shown in figure 3. Forty positive levels, forty negative levels, and zero. The figure 11 shows the current of the load when is fed with a PWM power supply, and with a four-stage power supply. The load is ZL=1 + j 0.0314, and the supply frequency is 50 Hz. It is clear the difference: the current in the four-stage converter is almost harmonic-free.
40,0 30,0 20,0 10,0 0,0 -10,0 -20,0 -30,0 -40,0

Amps

a)

Amps
40,0 30,0 20,0 10,0 0,0 -10,0 -20,0 -30,0 -40,0

b)

Figure 9. Active power filter waveforms. a) PWM technique b) Multilevel technique

40,0 30,0 20,0 10,0 0,0 -10,0 -20,0 -30,0 -40,0

Amps

a)

40,0 30,0 20,0 10,0 0,0 -10,0 -20,0 -30,0 -40,0

Amps

b)

Figure 10. A detail of currents from figure 9 a) PWM technique b) Multilevel technique

traction system for an electric vehicle, the DC-DC converters for the first Slave, are only 3 kW each. For the second Slave are 0.8 kW, and for the third Slave only 200 W each. These converters can be small today with a switching frequency link of hundreds of kHz. As the quality of sinusoidal current waveforms was already showed in figure 12, the figure 13 shows a comparison of current for a brushless dc motor, using PWM converter, and four level converter. Again, the quality of the current obtained with the last technology is superior.

a)
Figure 11. Load currents from a PWM voltage source, and a four-stage voltage source C. Machine Drives.

To implement multiconverters for machine drives, which operate at variable frequency output, the use of isolated power supplies for the Slaves is required, which are fed by the power supply of the Master. To avoid the isolation of the Masters of the three phases of the machine, isolated windings for each phase are required, as shown in figure 12.

b)

[ms]

+
VDC

DC-DC Conv. DC-DC Conv. DC-DC Conv.

3 Slave 2 Slave 1 Slave Master

st nd

rd

Figure 13. Current comparison for brushless-dc motor V. CONCLUSIONS A four-stage inverter, using three-state converters for multipurpose applications, has been analyzed. Some of these applications are active power filters, static var compensators and machine drives for sinusoidal and trapezoidal current waveforms. The advantages and drawbacks of this kind of converter have been displayed. The drawbacks of isolated power supplies have been overcome by using isolated, bidirectional dc power supplies, which are fed from a common power source from the Master. This solution becomes practical because the Master, takes more than 80% of the total active power required by the system. The rest of the converters, called Slaves, need very low power, and then those dc supplies are small. Another configuration with common dc supply and output transformers was displayed, and simulation results for different applications were shown and compared with similar results obtained with conventional PWM converters. The control of this multi-converter is being implemented using DSP controllers, which will give flexibility to the system.

_
DC-DC Conv. DC-DC Conv. DC-DC Conv.

3 Slave 2 Slave 1 Slave Master DC-DC Conv. DC-DC Conv. DC-DC Conv. 3 Slave 2 Slave 1 Slave Master
st nd rd st nd

rd

Figure 12. System configuration for machine drives Despite the system looks complicated, it can be adequately integrated. It is important to remember that the DC-DC converters are small power devices. For example, for 60 kW

ACKOWLEDGEMENTS The authors want to thank Conicyt through Projects Fondecyt 1020460 and 1020982, for the support given to this work. REFERENCES [1] H. Akagi, The State-of-the-art PowerElectronics in Japan, IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics, Vol.13, N 2, February 1998, pp. 345-356. B. Bose, Power Electronics and Motion ControlTechnology status and recent trends, IEEE Transactions on Industry Applications, Vol. 29 N 5, 1993, pp. 902-909. D. Chung, J. Kim, and S. Sul, Unified Voltage Modulation Technique for Real Time Three-Phase Power Conversion, IEEE Transactions on Industry Applications, Vol. 34, N 2, 1998, 374-380. J. Holtz and B. Beyer, Fast Current Trajectory Tracking Control Based on Synchronous Optimal Pulse Width Modulation, IEEE Transactions on Industry Applications, Vol. 31, N 5, 1995, pp. 11101120. A. Draou, M. Benghanen, and A. Tahri, Multilevel Converters and VAR Compensation, Chapter 25, Power Electronics Handbook, Muhamad H. Rashid, Editor-in Chief, Academic Press, 2001, pp. 615-622. F. Zheng Peng, A Generalized Multilevel InverterTopology with Self Voltage Balancing, IEEE Transactions on Industry Applications, Vol. 37, N 2, March-April 2001, pp. 611-618. K. Matsui, Y Kawata, and F. Ueda, Application of Parallel Connected NPC-PWM Inverters with Multilevel Modulation for AC Motor Drive, IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics, Vol. 15, N 5, September 2000, pp. 901-907. M. Jain, M. Danielle and P. K. Jain, A Bidirectional DC-DC Converter Topology for Low Power Application, IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics, Vol. 15, N 4, July 2000, pp. 595-606. O. Gaupp, P. Zanini, P. Daehler, E. Baerlocher, R. Boeck, J. Werninger, Bremens 100 MW Static Frequency Link, Issue N 9, 10/96, 1996, pp.4-17, M420 Powersim Technologies. PSIM Version 4.1, for Power Electronics Simulations. User Manual.

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