Sharif Digital Repository

This paper presents a single-phase Cascaded H-Bridge (CHB) inverter for photovoltaic applications. The proposed control strategy permits the optimum control of each string of PV panels in different insolation conditions. Based on the presented mathematical analysis, an analytic constraint is derived to check the stable operation of the inverter. A modified MPPT control strategy is also proposed based on this new condition. This strategy enhances the stability margins of the system by changing the operating point of some PV arrays. In this approach, the extracted power from high power cell is reduced to prevent instability issue and to avoid injection of highly distorted current into the... 

Multilevel converters are mainly used in high power applications (usually more than a few hundred kW). It is therefore important that they can continue working under faulty condition. In this paper, a new method is proposed to improve performance of CHB inverter under faulty condition. The proposed method will be compared with existing methods in term of voltage availability. The converter is simulated in Simulink and the results are provided. These results confirm the effectiveness of the proposed scheme, and are in accordance with the theoretical results  

Fault tolerant ability is one of the most important tasks in high power converters. In this paper, a comparison between conventional fault tolerant methods is done for four applicable methods. For this purpose, their performance is investigated in specific case study and simulation results are used to illustrate their advantages and disadvantages. The most important features taken into account are maximum available voltage, harmonic distortion of output voltage and input current, and magnitude of common mode voltage. Finally, a decision algorithm based on the results is suggested to select suitable method to control inverter under specific faulty condition  

This paper is focused on improving the post-fault performance of cascaded H-bridge multilevel inverters by decreasing the common-mode voltage. First, an algorithm is proposed to determine the optimal post-fault state among all possible states, which have the same maximum available voltage. Furthermore, a modified technique is proposed to calculate the references of inverter phase voltages under faulty conditions. This technique leads to a decrease in the common-mode voltage when the required output voltage is less than its maximum value. These solutions are mutually employed in the post-fault control system. Simulation and experimental results confirm the effectiveness of the proposed... 

Cascaded H-Bridge converter has recently been utilized in different high-power applications due to its modular and simple structure. In order to have a balanced operation after a fault occurrence in this converter, it is necessary to detect the switch fault and its location. In this paper, a fast power switch fault detection method is presented to identify the fault and its location. Only one voltage measurement per phase is required by this method, and the fault detection is faster compared to the existing methods. Moreover, it is easy for implementation on an FPGA device, due to the use of simple math, relational and state machine blocks. The proposed method is verified by computer... 

Fault detection is one of the most important tasks in fault tolerant converters. In this paper, a new method is proposed to detect the faulty cell in a cascaded H-bridge multilevel inverter. The detection technique is based on comparison of the output voltage with reference voltage made by using switching control pulses and DC-Link voltage. Because of the simplicity of this method, it is possible to use a single field-programmable gate array (FPGA) to implement this method and inverter control. The simulation and experimental results confirm the effectiveness of the proposed fault detection technique  

Cascaded H-bridge converter has been utilized recently in different high-power applications due to its modular and simple structure. In order to have a balanced operation after a fault occurrence in this converter, it is necessary to detect the switch fault and its location. In this paper, a fast power-switch fault detection method is presented to identify a fault and its location. Only one voltage measurement per phase is required by this method, and the fault detection is faster compared to the existing methods. Moreover, it is suitable for implementation on an FPGA device due to the use of simple math, relational, and state machine blocks. The proposed method is verified by computer... 

In This paper, a new post-fault control method for symmetric cascaded H-bridge multilevel inverters (CHB-MLIs) is proposed with the aim of the development of CHB-MLIs performance under faulty conditions due to decrease in common mode voltage (CMV). In other words, this technique addresses the exclusive process to select the optimal post-fault state among all available states possess the same amplitude of the output line to line voltages. As a result, this process leads to provide computed phase voltages references to apply to PWM block. Hence, this technique leads to decrease the common mode voltage and eliminate it under some desired output line-line voltages. Finally, the feasibility of... 

Improvement in switching techniques is one of the effective methods for increasing the voltage quality in Multilevel Inverters. In this paper, a novel switching technique using frequency modulation is proposed to achieve high quality output voltage of multilevel inverters. This method is employed to different configurations of multilevel inverters consist of Diode Clamped (or Neutral Point Clamped), Flying Capacitor and Cascaded H-bridge. Each multilevel inverter which utilizes this technique is modeled and simulated to investigate the performance of this method by the help of MATLAB/Simulink software. The Results show that this innovative method considerably reduces total harmonic... 

Multilevel converters are being widely used in a large number of power electronics applications. Due to the increased number of switching devices, they are more likely to have faults in their switches than the conventional converters. In order to have a balanced operation after a short circuit power switch fault occurrence, it is necessary to detect the fault location. In this paper, a fast power switch fault detection method is presented to identify the fault location. This method only needs one additional voltage sensor per phase, and is faster compared to most of the existing methods. Also it is easy for implementation on a FPGA chip. The proposed method is verified by computer... 

Fast and accurate fault detection is the primary step and one of the most important tasks in fault tolerant converters. In this paper, a fast and simple method is proposed to detect and diagnosis the faulty cell in a cascaded H-bridge multilevel inverter under a short circuit fault. In this method, the reference voltage is calculated using switching control pulses and DC-Link voltages. The comparison result of the output voltage and the reference voltage is used in conjunction with active cell pulses to detect the faulty cell. To achieve this goal, the cell which is active when the Fault signal turns to “0” is detected as the faulty cell. Furthermore, consideration of generating the active... 

In this paper, a new post-fault vector control of an induction motor, fed by a faulty Cascaded H-Bridge (CHB) inverter, is presented. Among fault tolerant control methods, waveform based methods are suitable for closed-loop control and provide higher output voltage. In order to control the speed of the motor, a rotor field oriented control (RFOC) is used. During the fault, the FOC is modified to decrease the fault impact on the motor as low as possible. The proposed method is validated by means of simulation results for different loads and faults. The results show an improvement in both the final operating point and the transient response of the motor  

This paper presents a control strategy for an islanded medium voltage microgrid to coordinate hybrid power source (HPS) units and to control interfaced multilevel inverters under unbalanced and nonlinear load conditions. The proposed HPS systems are connected to the loads through a cascaded H-bridge (CHB) multilevel inverter. The CHB multilevel inverters increase the output voltage level and enhance power quality. The HPS employs fuel cell (FC) and photovoltaic sources as the main and supercapacitors as the complementary power sources. Fast transient response, high performance, high power density, and low FC fuel consumption are the main advantages of the proposed HPS system. The proposed... 

In this paper, the whale optimization algorithm is proposed for harmonics elimination in a cascaded multilevel inverter. In selective harmonic elimination pulse width modulation, the selected low-order harmonics are eliminated by solving nonlinear equations, while the fundamental of output waveform is adjusted to a desired value. In this paper, whale optimization algorithm is applied to a 7-level cascaded H-bridge inverter to solve the equations. Also, it was validated by experimental results, since this algorithm has an ability to search in entire solution space, the probability of catching a global best solution is very high. This method has higher accuracy and probability of convergence... 

In this paper, the whale optimization algorithm is proposed for harmonics elimination in a cascaded multilevel inverter. In selective harmonic elimination pulse width modulation, the selected low-order harmonics are eliminated by solving nonlinear equations, while the fundamental of output waveform is adjusted to a desired value. In this paper, whale optimization algorithm is applied to a 7-level cascaded H-bridge inverter to solve the equations. Also, it was validated by experimental results, since this algorithm has an ability to search in entire solution space, the probability of catching a global best solution is very high. This method has higher accuracy and probability of convergence... 

This paper proposes a control strategy for an islanded microgrid to effectively coordinate hybrid power source (HPS) units and to robustly control individual interfaced inverters under unbalanced and nonlinear load conditions. Cascaded H-bridge (CHB) multilevel inverters are flexibly deployed in order to enhance the power quality and redundancy. The HPS employs fuel cell (FC) as the main and supercapacitors (SC) as complementary power sources. Fast transient response; high performance; and high power density are the main characteristics of the proposed HPS system. The presented control strategy consists of a power management strategy for the HPS units and a voltage control strategy for the... 

This paper presents an effective hybrid optimal modulation technique for a cascaded H-bridge (CHB) multilevel inverter. The introduced method is generalized optimal pulsewidth modulation, which can be extended to any m-level CHB multilevel inverter operating at any switching frequency. The presented hybrid optimal modulation strategy includes the pattern exchange and optimal modulation techniques. In the optimal modulation technique, the hybrid interior-point algorithm, which is more flexible and efficient than conventional optimization techniques, is applied. The proposed hybrid optimal modulation strategy yields balanced units' output fundamental voltages, and low total harmonic distortion...