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Small size, light weight, high efficacy, longer lifetime and controllable output are the main advantages of high-frequency electronic ballasts for gas discharge lamps. However, power line quality and electromagnetic interference (EMI) issues arise when a simple peak rectifying circuit is used. To suppress harmonic currents and improve power factor, input-current-shaping (ICS) or power-factor-correction (PFC) techniques are necessary. This dissertation addresses advanced high-frequency electronic ballasting techniques by using a single-stage PFC approach. The proposed techniques include single-stage boost-derived PFC electronic ballasts with voltage-divider-rectifier front ends, single-stage PFC electronic ballasts with wide range dimming controls, single-stage charge-pump PFC electronic ballasts with lamp voltage feedback, and self-oscillating single-stage PFC electronic ballasts. Single-stage boost-derived PFC electronic ballasts with voltage-divider-rectifier front ends are developed to solve the problem imposed by the high boost conversion ratio required by commonly used boost-derived PFC electronic ballast. Two circuit implementations are proposed, analyzed and verified by experimental results. Due to the interaction between the PFC stage and the inverter stage, extremely high bus-voltage stress may exist during dimming operation. To reduce the bus voltage and achieve a wide-range dimming control, a novel PFC electronic ballast with asymmetrical duty-ratio control is proposed. Experimental results show that wide stable dimming operation is achieved with constant switching frequency. Charge-pump (CP) PFC techniques utilize a high-frequency current source (CS) or voltage source (VS) or both to charge and discharge the so-called charge-pump capacitor in order to achieve PFC. The bulky DCM boost inductor is eliminated so that this family of PFC circuits has the potential for low cost and small size. A family of CPPFC electronic ballasts is investigated. A novel VSCS-CPPFC electronic ballast with lamp-voltage feedback is proposed to reduce the bus-voltage stress. This family of CPPFC electronic ballasts are implemented and evaluated, and verified by experimental results. To further reduce the cost and size, a self-oscillating technique is applied to the CPPFC electronic ballast. Novel winding voltage modulation and current injection concepts are proposed to modulate the switching frequency. Experimental results show that the self-oscillating CS-CPPFC electronic ballast with current injection offers a more cost-effective solution for non-dimming electronic ballast applications. / Ph. D.

In the emergence of switched reluctance motors to the commercial market, two-phase motors have received relatively little attention. Higher power and industrial applications have focused on the use of three and occasionally four phase machines, while low cost applications demanding only modest performance have largely been the domain of single phase machines. By contrast, while two phase systems have been the subject of occasional studies, they have not been widely applied. Two phase systems represent a compromise between the higher cost but higher performance three phase machines, and the lower cost but lower performance single phase systems. They do not suffer from the same magnitude of peak to peak torque ripple that single phase machines experience due to their wide zero torque arcs. Yet two phase systems keep a relatively low component count in their power-converter designs. The primary drawback to two phase motors is the difficulty of torque production at startup speeds. Although sizably reduced from single phase machines, the zero torque regions in two phase machines can still result in rotor lock unless steps are taken to circumvent them. These steps can include measures such as: placement of permanent magnets or other means to ensure the rotor is positioned outside of these zero torque regions when at rest, mechanically spinning the motor before energizing the phase windings on startup, shaping of the rotor or stator poles to extend the positive torque regions of each phase, or use of the machines mutual inductance with both phases energized to produce enough torque to initiate motion. This project is intended to develop a variable speed controller for a 4:6 two-phase switched reluctance motor. The motor is to operate in all four quadrants, and is to demonstrate self starting capability. The controller is also supposed to produce signals needed to operate the motor with multiple converter designs. Two different converter designs will be built and tested with the converter. One makes use of a single switch and two diodes per phase, the other has one switch and one diode per phase plus a common switch and common diode shared by all phases. There are many possible applications of the system being developed in this project. Any application needing four quadrant operation while still being constrained by low cost requirements would be ideal. Some examples include washing machines, power tools, and low power industrial applications. / Master of Science

Electronic power conversion systems with large number of power converters have a variety of applications, such as data center, electric vehicles and future smart "nanogrid" in residential home. Those systems could have very different architectures. For example, one system could be based on ac, dc or hybrid power distribution bus, and the bus voltage could be different. Also those systems have great need to develop low-cost architectures which reduce weight, increase efficiency and improve reliability of the system. However, how to evaluate different architectures and select a better one is still not clear. This thesis presents a procedure to estimate weight of electronic power conversion systems, which provides an angle to evaluate different system architectures. This procedure has three steps. Step I, according to application of the system and system structure, determines the electrical and environmental specifications for each converter in the system. Step II studies the design procedures for each converter in the system and determines parameters such as the wire gauge and length of cable; the parameters of the passive components, such as inductance and capacitance; the parameters of the power switch, such as the voltage rating, current rating and loss; and parameters of the cooling system, such as the thermal resistance of the heat sink. Step III, according to the converters' parameters, carry out the physical design and selection of sub-components such as the inductor and heat sink to get the components' weight; the sum of those components' weight is the estimated system weight. This procedure has also been implemented in the form of software – system weight estimation tool. Using this software, weight of sample systems with ac dc bus and two different bus voltages have been estimated and compared. / Master of Science

Demand for energy-saving variable speed drives in low-cost, high-volume appliances has increased due to energy and environmental concerns and hence the need to comply with new regulations. Switched reluctance motor (SRMs) have been considered by many as attractive alternatives for brush commutated motors or permanent magnet brushless dc motors (PMBDCMs) in such cost-sensitive applications. The SRMs' unique features such as simple and fault-tolerant structure and unidirectional flow of their phase currents endow them with the possibility of various configurations on both machine and converter topologies for different applications. In the present study, three different variable-speed motor drive systems are proposed, studied, and implemented for their deployment in low-cost, high-volume applications with the power rating of 1.5kW or less. Two different two-phase SRMs and three different power converters are employed to realize three different low-cost drive systems. The first drive system is realized using a novel converter requiring only a single-controllable switch and an asymmetric two-phase 8/4 SRM capable of self-starting and four-quadrant operation. The second drive system is realized using another novel converter requiring two controllable switches, that way to achieve better control and utilization of the asymmetric 8/4 motor. The target applications for both drive systems are low power, low performance drives such as fans, hand tools, small appliances, etc. The third system is realized using a high-speed two-phase 4/2 SRM and a split ac source converter, which is designed for high-speed applications such as vacuum cleaners, ultracentrifuges, etc. The control and design aspects for each drive system are studied. Selection of optimal firing angles and optimal number of winding turns are also investigated. All of the drive systems are first demonstrated on the position sensor-based speed-control scheme. To make the drive system even more cost-competitive, operation without the position sensor using the novel parameter insensitive sensorless control scheme is proposed and implemented. Concept, analysis, simulation, and experimental verification of the proposed sensorless scheme are discussed in detail. / Ph. D.

In order to avoid the accidents like Fukushima Disaster and monitor the operation status of nuclear power plant, a wireless sensor system which is powered by the Thermoelectric Generator (TEG) Energy Harvester is designed and built. Meanwhile, a power converter circuit has also been designed to converter the output voltage of TEG Energy Harvester to a DC voltage to charge the battery or power the application systems. Several prototypes based on this power converter circuit have been built for Thermoelectric Generator (TEG) energy harvester and tested in both working and laboratory conditions. The reliability of the TEG Energy Harvester system in the gamma radiation environment has been examined in the experiments. Based on the experiments results, the design was optimized. And an optimized Maximum Power Point Tracking algorithm has also been applied in the prototype to extract the maximum power from the TEG Energy Harvester in all conditions. The TEG Energy Harvester system would be greatly simplified as a new type of sensor will be applied. The design of the signal conditioning circuit for this sensor has also been presented. / Master of Science

Power electronic converters have become popular in the field of power transformation for renewable energy. Power electronics converters achieve high efficiency, and the price of their components is falling, thus making them even more beneficial for renewable energy applications. Those systems coupled to the grid need to withstand certain utility-defined circumstances which may occur during operation. Additionally the new net regulations for large generation plants specify that during specified severe grid disturbances the relatively delicate converters should stay connected supporting the system. For PV inverters the forthcoming standards may optionally add the possibility of reactive power compensation where for wind-power those standards are already in use. This thesis focuses on reliable, sensor-less control of the PWM converters coping with varying grid conditions and existing problems. The thesis presents a variety of digital control solutions for interfacing PWM converter with the grid, synchronization, sensorless operation and grid impedance detection. The introductory chapter gives the fundamental theory about three-phase converters and control.The following chapters deal with unbalanced condition and symmetric component decomposition, which is the tool to cope with unbalanced grid voltages or currents. A sensor-less operation method using dual frame virtual flux model is presented with good results. In addition sensor-less synchronization to the grid is shown. Moreover an algorithm based on virtual flux for grid inductance estimation is also successfully demonstrated. Knowing the grid inductance is important during weak grid operation, since it is needed in order to provide unity power factor to the point of common connection. At the end of the thesis, a control algorithm for voltage harmonic compensation during stand alone operation is presented. The presented algorithm gives the possibility to supply high quality power in isolated islands, where the load is unknown. Furthermore, this algorithm can be successfully used for UPS applications. The last chapter applies the voltage harmonic control to the Z-source converter having the possibility of achieving higher ac voltage than in conventional VSI, results are promising.

Low-cost test and tuning methods for difficult-to-measure specifications are presented in this research from the following perspectives: 1)"Safe" test and self-tuning for power converters: To avoid the risk of device under test (DUT) damage during conventional load/line regulation measurement on power converter, a "safe" alternate test structure is developed where the power converter (boost/buck converter) is placed in a different mode of operation during alternative test (light switching load) as opposed to standard test (heavy switching load) to prevent damage to the DUT during manufacturing test. Based on the alternative test structure, self-tuning methods for both boost and buck converters are also developed in this thesis. In addition, to make these test structures suitable for on-chip built-in self-test (BIST) application, a special sensing circuit has been designed and implemented. Stability analysis filters and appropriate models are also implemented to predict the DUT’s electrical stability condition during test and to further predict the values of tuning knobs needed for the tuning process. 2) High bandwidth RF signal generation: Up-convertion has been widely used in high frequency RF signal generation but mixer nonlinearity results in signal distortion that is difficult to eliminate with such methods. To address this problem, a framework for low-cost high-fidelity wideband RF signal generation is developed in this thesis. Depending on the band-limited target waveform, the input data for two interleaved DACs (digital-to-analog converters) system is optimized by a matrix-model-based algorithm in such a way that it minimizes the distortion between one of its image replicas in the frequency domain and the target RF waveform within a specified signal bandwidth. The approach is used to demonstrate how interferers with specified frequency characteristics can be synthesized at low cost for interference testing of RF communications systems. The frameworks presented in this thesis have a significant impact in enabling low-cost test and tuning of difficult-to-measure device specifications for power converter and high-speed devices.