A High Power Inverter for Remote Applications

Clifton Cunningham Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering University of Queensland Abstract
This document outlines the research and development of a high power inverter for remote applications. The inverter developed consists of a push-pull DC-DC conversion stage and a fullbridge DC-AC inversion stage controlled by an Hitachi SH-1 Microprocessor. The control system was to be implemented as a small Proportional-Integral-Diferrential (PID) control loop via the SH-1 Microprocessor. The entire system did not function as specified but many significant issues with high power switchmode converter design were raised and will be discussed.

Fig 1. Push-Pull Converter with Voltage Mode Control and Current Limiting

1 High Power Inverters

A high power inverter is a device that can convert a DC source (of varying magnitude) into a useable AC signal typically 240V 50Hz for Australian residential applications. The inverter outlined in this document steps 12Vdc to 400Vdc through the push-pull converter stage. The full-bridge inverter then chops this 400Vdc into a 240Vac sinusoid. The sinusoidal Pulse-WidthModulation required at the gates of the full-bridge inverter is supplied the Hitachi SH-1. Inverters of this type have a wide variety of uses, for example: Remote Electricity Supply. Un-interruptible Power Supply (UPS). Power Factor Correction Systems.

3 Full Bridge DC-AC Inverter and Control

In order to generate a true sinusoidal 240Vac 50Hz output the full-bridge inverter needs to be driven with a complex sinusoidal PWM wave. The wave in this case was chosen to be uni-polar in an effort to reduce switching stresses and reduce EMI. The gate drive was supplied by two IRF2110s, that can switch power MOSFETs up to 600V which is ideal for this application. The control system was built on a Hitachi SH-1 32bit RISC microcontroller. The SH-1 contains six internal PWM channels, 8 A/D Channels and powerful Multiplyand-Accumulate functionality that make it ideal for this type of application. The control system was a simple PID algorithm that ran each 500uS. The chopping wave was generated from up-down counters in the third and fourth channels while the sinusoid control signal was read from a lookup table by the PID control loop. Figure 2 how sinusoidal PWM can be generated from the SH-1:

The system developed could theoretically be adapted to suit any of the above applications due to the inherent flexibility of the microprocessor control scheme.

2 The Push-Pull DC-DC Conversion Stage

The Push-Pull configuration was chosen for the DCDC Step-Up stage due to its solid power handling capabilities and isolation through a 1:36 step up transformer (in this case). This stage was based around a UC3825 Current Mode PWM IC from Unitrode and in particular application note U110 [1]. This PWM control IC allows complex current mode and voltage mode control, although only the voltage mode control with current limiting was utilised in this thesis. The following figure demonstrates the basic circuitry behind this stage:

Fig 2. Complementary PWM on the SH-1.

A High Power Inverter for Remote Applications 4 Results

The DC-DC converter performed quite well although very inefficiently under final testing. The following graphs depicts the generation of the PWM signal to and the corresponding output to the MOSFETs:

1999

The errors shown in figure 6 were unable to be corrected in the course of this thesis. Despite the obvious failings this thesis still can still be viewed in a successful light. The thesis provided significant coverage of many points of switchmode power supply design and highlighted many of the dangers of poor design. This thesis provides significant ground for future work and will provide many interesting opportunities for future undergraduate students.

Acknowledgment
I would like to thank my fellow thesis students, and my thesis supervisor Mr Geoff Walker for their assistance throughout the year.

References
Fig 3. Generation of PWM from an error signal and chopping wave. 1. B. Andreycak, 1.5Mhz Current Mode IC Controlled 50 Watt Power Supply, Unitrode Application Note, no. U-110, Unknown Publication Date.

Biography
The author is a twenty two year old from Mackay in Central Queensland. He studied for two years at the University of New South Wales under a Co-Op Scholarship and transferred to the University of Queensland in 1998. His main interests in Electrical Engineering are in Power Electronics, Power Systems and Control Systems. He is hoping to pursue a career in the Coal Mining industry and currently owns a company that develops and sells specialist software to the mining industry.

Fig 4. Corresponding output to Fig 1 from UC3825. This section was the most succesfull in the terms of this thesis though with a measured efficiency of roughly 28% at low power levels leaves significant room for improvement. The DC-AC component of this thesis failed to work in its entirety. Some success was had with the SH-1 as the waveforms at the bottom of this page will show.

Fig 5. Ideal Sinusoidal PWM

Fig 5. Actual Sinusoidal PWM