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In signal injection sensorless drives, the injection voltage cannot be reduced under a certain value. The lower limit of the injection voltage is mainly enforced by the inverter nonlinearity that causes distortion of the injection voltage and degradation of the position estimation performance. After analyzing the inverter nonlinearity during the voltage injection, it is revealed that parasitic capacitances of insulated-gate bipolar transistors have positive effects on inverter output linearity and sensorless control. Based on this analysis, this paper proposes a method to reduce the injection voltage by connecting additional capacitors to the output terminals of the inverter. Simulation and experimental results are provided to verify the effectiveness of the proposed idea. In the experiments, using the capacitor-integrated inverter, it is shown that the injection voltage can be reduced by more than half without degrading the position estimation performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The maximum power point should be continuously tracked in a photovoltaic (PV) inverter. However, the maximum power point could be found at very low dc-link voltages around sunrise or sunset. Then, the overmodulation (OVM) of the inverter has to be considered to keep the power generation even at low dc-link voltages. In this paper, a series of implementation schemes is proposed to keep the current regulation, even if the inverter is under the OVM. These schemes can be helpful to increase the operating time of the PV inverter, which correlates with the daily amount of power generation. After being examined in a small-scale prototype inverter, the proposed method has been tested with a 250-kW PV inverter installed at a proving ground. In a sunset, the operation time of the inverter has been extended by about 12 min, and the generated energy has been increased by 234 Wh, when compared to the normal operation without the proposed methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Trapezoidal voltages can be used to compensate for the inverter nonlinearity. In particular, the modulating shape of these voltages facilitates the adaptation of the compensation to various operating conditions. In this paper, practical implementation schemes are proposed to improve the performance of the compensation method based on the trapezoidal voltage. After the implementation schemes are detailed, their effectiveness is discussed with experimental results. It has been proved that the proposed schemes are useful for the robust compensation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In conventional motor drive systems using pulsewidth modulation (PWM) inverters, large electrolytic capacitors are used for stabilization of the dc-link voltage. Since the electrolytic capacitors are bulky and reduce reliability of the system due to short lifetime, there have been many efforts to eliminate or reduce the electrolytic capacitors in the motor drive system. However, the PWM inverter with reduced dc-link capacitor has a problem that the dc-link voltage is less stable compared to the conventional inverter because the capability of storing energy is also reduced. In this paper, a dc-link voltage stabilization algorithm using an active damping is proposed so that the dc-link voltage can be stabilized with reduced dc-link capacitor. To achieve load-/source-independent stabilization, a source state estimator which estimates both source voltage and current is also proposed. The fluctuation of the dc-link voltage due to a step load change can be also suppressed under the tolerance range using the estimated source current. The effectiveness of the proposed methods is evaluated by experimental results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is important to improve the overall efficiency of a photovoltaic (PV) inverter when it is connected to the grid. Fundamentally, the conversion efficiency from dc to ac power of an inverter is important. However, in the presence of partial shading, maximum power point tracking (MPPT) on PV modules is more important than the conversion efficiency. In this paper, a new control method for a three-level inverter is proposed. With the proposed method, each dc-link voltage of the three-level inverter can be asymmetrically regulated. When PV modules are split into two and each split module is connected to the respective dc-link capacitors of the inverter, the asymmetric control can be helpful because separate MPPTs are possible. The effectiveness of the proposed method was examined through experiments with a T-type three-level inverter, where each dc-link capacitor was supplied by a PV simulator emulating two separate PV modules under different shading conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The nonlinearity of an inverter could be regarded as the output distortions of the inverter. In this paper, voltages in a trapezoidal form were utilized to compensate for the nonlinearity of an inverter. Undesirable harmonic distortions in the overall system were mitigated through the modulating shape of the trapezoidal voltage. For trapezoidal modulation, a dedicated modulator was designed to facilitate adaptive compensation for a wide operating range. The compensation effects from the proposed method were examined in a practical system, in which a permanent magnet synchronous motor (PMSM) was driven without any position sensor. Additionally, it was shown that the proposed method could enhance the sensorless control of the PMSM by reducing the output distortions of the inverter. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper presents a novel flux-weakening strategy for an induction machine driven by an electrolytic-capacitor-less inverter. In the electrolytic-capacitor-less inverter, the dc-link voltage is fluctuating at six times the frequency of the input three-phase source due to its small dc-link capacitance. Hence, the decoupling of the fluctuation and maximum utilization of the dc-link voltage is a major issue in the electrolytic-capacitor-less inverter. In this paper, the cost function is set to increase the voltage utilization of the inverter for the flux-weakening operation of an induction machine. With the proposed flux-weakening strategy, the operating speed of the induction machine is extended above the base speed without any stability problems. The experimental results show the effectiveness of the proposed strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Investigates the dynamic overmodulation characteristics of current-regulated carrier-based high-performance pulsewidth modulation (PWM) voltage-source inverter drives. Review of the direct digital PWM dynamic overmodulation methods; Analysis of the characteristics of the modern triangle intersection PWM methods; Behavior of drive dynamic overmodulation.

In this paper, the theoretical analysis of the position estimation error in position-sensorless operation using pulsating square wave signal injection is presented. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the phenomenon that the position estimation performance varies depending on the injection frequency. Mathematical derivation supported by simulation and experimental results shows that, in no-load condition, the voltage distortion induces position estimation error with 3rd-order harmonics if the frequency of the injected square wave is the same to the switching frequency. While, if the frequency is a half of the switching frequency or heavier load condition in either injection frequency, the effect of nonideal characteristics of inverter disappears and there is no 3rd harmonics in the position estimation error. Therefore, only the effect of cross-coupling inductance is reflected in the estimation error. As the result, the position estimation error appears in the form of 6th-order harmonics due to the spatial harmonics of inductances, and the error is relatively small compared with the switching frequency injection case. The theoretical analysis was verified by simulation and experimental results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, it is described how the circulating current flows between inverters that have isolated dc link such as cascaded H-bridge (CHB) topology when they are operating in parallel. In this case, zero sequence circulating current, which normally flows through shared dc link, cannot flow between inverters in parallel. However, circulating current is provoked by asynchronous switching instant of devices, difference of dc-link voltages of parallel inverters, and unbalanced impedance. The circulating current should be suppressed by a sharing inductor that is inserted between inverters. Generally, all of the inverters should synthesize the same output voltage reference for load current control to minimize the size of this sharing reactor. However, this conventional method cannot guarantee diminishing circulating current in the transient state and even in the steady state. In this paper, in order to reduce sharing reactance, after deriving circulating current model from general case of n-parallel operation, circulating current control method is devised based on the model. This proposed algorithm is applied to active front end five-level-CHB inverter system for medium voltage drive. Simulation and experimental results are provided to verify the effectiveness of the proposed control scheme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the square-wave voltage signal injection sensorless drive of the interior permanent-magnet synchronous machine, the injection voltage can be distorted by the inverter nonlinearity effects especially when the injection voltage is low. If that happens, a high-frequency (HF) current signal which contains the rotor position information could be also distorted, which directly leads to an error in the position estimation. This paper analyzes the effects of the inverter nonlinearity on injection voltage, on induced current ripple, and on the position estimation performance in sequence and proposes a voltage injection method to minimize the impact of the inverter nonlinearity by the regulation of the HF current ripple. By simulations and experiments, the performance of the proposed method has been verified. The experimental results show 19.7% reduction of position estimation error under 15% of rated voltage signal injection without increasing the current ripple at a certain operating condition. Moreover, the performance of position estimation is kept uniform regardless of the loading condition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a new sensorless method for a synchronous machine with an inverter integrated rotor (SMIIR). The SMIIR is a newly developed machine based on the wound rotor synchronous machine (WRSM) but has no brushes and slip-rings. The conventional high-frequency signal injection sensorless methods are based on a physical magnetic saliency. Therefore, the conventional methods cannot be applied to the SMIIR since it has no adequate physical magnetic saliency. The proposed sensorless method suggests a virtual resistance saliency created by the rotor-side inverter, of which the saliency ratio and axes can be arbitrarily set. Based on this virtual saliency, the rotor position information can be included in the relationship between the high-frequency stator voltage and stator current independent of the machine parameters or operating conditions. Because the SMIIR inherently injects a high-frequency voltage for the power transfer, there is no need to inject additional voltage for the proposed high-frequency sensorless control. The initial $d$-axis detection algorithm using the rotor-side inverter without magnetic saturation is also proposed. The feasibility of the proposed sensorless method was verified by the experimental results of the prototype SMIIR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a nine-phase permanent-magnet synchronous motor (PMSM) drive system based on multiple three-phase voltage source inverters. The nine-phase PMSM was developed as a traction motor for an ultrahigh-speed elevator. The mathematical model of the motor was simplified through symmetry of the system. Using the simplified model, the drive system can be controlled by the well-known d-q control theory. The feasibility and validity of the drive system were experimentally demonstrated at the world's tallest elevator test tower. Moreover, an additional experiment was performed to ensure the fault-tolerance capability of the system. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Describes a voltage modulation technique named `unified pulsewidth modulation (PWM)' for high-performance voltage generation in a three-phase voltage-fed inverter. Overview of the unified voltage modulation; Various carrier-based PWM's by unified PWM strategy; Implementation of the proposed PWM scheme.

In this paper, the characteristics of ripple current of a multimegawatt drive system fed by a pulse-width modulation (PWM) inverter are investigated. Based on the investigation, a novel PWM scheme is devised to reduce the switching loss of the inverter under an identical amount of torque ripple of a motor. The proposed PWM is composed of two parts. The first is minimum torque ripple PWM (MTRPWM), which is optimized in terms of the minimum torque ripple in high modulation index (MI). The second determines the minimum switching frequency while holding the average torque ripple less than the allowable value under various operating conditions. It is termed reduced switching frequency PWM (RSFPWM). Consequently, by simply changing the PWM method from conventional fixed switching frequency continuous PWM to the proposed PWM, MTRPWM and RSFPWM, simulation results show that the switching loss of the inverter driving a 3.5 MW induction motor is reduced to 51.6% while keeping the torque ripple in the allowable boundary, where MI is 1.12. This approach is applied to small-scale experimental sets consisting of an interior permanent magnet synchronous machine (IPMSM) motor-generator set, and an induction machine MG set in an effort to verify the validity and feasibility of the proposed method. Based on these experimental results, the cost indexes of the IPMSM and the induction machine, as defined in this paper, decrease by up to 66% and 77%, respectively, when the proposed method is applied when MI is 1.12 compared with the outcome with the conventional PWM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the inverter nonlinearity of a three-level T-type inverter. The main causes of the nonlinearity are pulse shaping, pulse skipping due to narrow pulses for the dead time, and voltage drop of the switching devices. Although the same causes have existed in two-level inverters, the pulse skipping phenomenon and results are quite different in the case of the three-level T-type inverter. The effects of pulse shaping and skipping have been investigated and discussed. In addition, the voltage drop of the switching devices has been considered in conjunction with the conduction path of the T-type inverter. Compensation methods based on the pulse width modulation (PWM) of T-type inverter to alleviate the inverter nonlinearity have been proposed from research results. The proposed methods could be easily implemented by adding appropriate offset voltages to the voltage references of the inverter in PWM. Furthermore, a neutral voltage balancing method of a three-level T-type inverter has been proposed in conjunction with the proposed PWM methods using offset voltage. Through extensive experimental tests, the fifth- and seventh-harmonic components of the current are conspicuously reduced along with the even harmonics. The neutral voltage of the inverter can be balanced effectively with the proposed offset voltage adjustments as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a synchronous motor with an inverter integrated rotor (SMIIR) is introduced, and its control scheme is proposed. This presents a new breed of synchronous motor in that it integrates an inverter inside the rotor. The basic operational principle and control strategies are discussed. Given these new strategies, the SMIIR can be considered as a synchronous motor which changes its field according to the harmonic voltage of the stator inverter. The feasibility of the proposed structure of the drive system and its operation principle are evaluated through experimental results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]