The goal of this thesis project was to design and build a three-phase inverter controlled by the TMS320F2812 DSP by Texas Instruments. The TMS320F2812 is controlled in order to make inverters generate output waveforms which mimic the main reference signal coming from a computer. The project included building three different inverters on two platforms including auxiliary circuits and designing five pulse width modulation (PWM) switching algorithms for the inverters. The motivation was that a newly designed inverter was required as an intermediary device between a computer and a laboratory-scaled model of a wind turbine. This type of wind turbine is used to educate students and engineers and to extract experimental wind power data. However, since commercial inverters don’t follow the main reference signal which is sent from the computer in order to operate the laboratory-scaled wind turbine, a controllable and variable inverter needed to be designed to receive that signal. The results are as follows. The voltage source inverter (VSI) and the current-controlled voltage source inverter (CC-VSI) were built on the VSI platform, and the current source inverter (CSI) was built on the CSI platform. Furthermore, the TMS320F2812’s analog digital converter (ADC) driver circuit and the output LC filter were also designed as auxiliary circuits. Five PWM switching programs were written; three switching algorithms for the VSI, and one algorithm each for the CC-VSI and the CSI. The output waveforms from the combination of hardware and software mentioned above were captured, and they follow the main reference signal very well. Although each of the inverters performed well, the VSI in combination with the Space Vector PWM switching algorithm produced the cleanest output voltage waveforms with the least amount of noise. The inverters built in this thesis project can be applied to the laboratory-scaled wind turbine, the maximum power tracking in solar panels, and equipment for analyzing digital signal processing. However, before using the inverters in those applications, much work remains to be done to solve the problems related to the signal distortion caused by the dead band time, harmonic signals caused by the fixed switching frequency, and the reliability issues caused by mounting on the bread board. In conclusion, although this thesis does not illustrate the entire process of or explain every requirement for building the three inverters, enough information about the topology of the inverters, the hardware design, and the PWM switching algorithms is provided in this thesis to enable one to remake all three of the three-phase inverters. / text

[pt] Neste trabalho descreve-se as partes de potência e de controle de um inversor trifásico existente na PUC / RJ e o estudo, em pormenor, do sistema de controle com microcomputador. A seguir, são descritas as interfaces entre o micro e o inversor e faz-se a modelação do sistema para o controle. Baseado nesta modelagem é feito o programa de um controlador proporcional-integral (PI) e o estudo de estabilidade do sistema. Os testes das interfaces projetadas e do controle PI acionando o inversor são apresentados e discutidos. Finalmente, são apresentadas as conclusões do trabalho desenvolvido. / [en] This work begins with a description of the power and the control section of a three-phase inverter, and a discussion of the control system with microcomputer. The microcomputer-inverter interfaces are described and a model for the system is developed. Based on this model, a proportional-integral (PI) controller algorithm is presented and the system stability is studied. The results of testes on the interfaces and the complete system are discussed, and the conclusions of this work are presented.

abstract: This thesis addresses the design and control of three phase inverters. Such inverters are used to produce three-phase sinusoidal voltages and currents from a DC source. They are critical for injecting power from renewable energy sources into the grid. This is especially true since many of these sources of energy are DC sources (e.g. solar photovoltaic) or need to be stored in DC batteries because they are intermittent (e.g. wind and solar). Two classes of inverters are examined in this thesis. A control-centric design procedure is presented for each class. The first class of inverters is simple in that they consist of three decoupled subsystems. Such inverters are characterized by no mutual inductance between the three phases. As such, no multivariable coupling is present and decentralized single-input single-output (SISO) control theory suffices to generate acceptable control designs. For this class of inverters several families of controllers are addressed in order to examine command following as well as input disturbance and noise attenuation specifications. The goal here is to illuminate fundamental tradeoffs. Such tradeoffs include an improvement in the in-band command following and output disturbance attenuation versus a deterioration in out-of-band noise attenuation. A fundamental deficiency associated with such inverters is their large size. This can be remedied by designing a smaller core. This naturally leads to the second class of inverters considered in this work. These inverters are characterized by significant mutual inductances and multivariable coupling. As such, SISO control theory is generally not adequate and multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) theory becomes essential for controlling these inverters. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Electrical Engineering 2015

No description available.

Electric and more-electric vehicle proliferation continues unabated as government mandates worldwide demand fuel economies in excess of what conventional internal combustion engines are capable of. Vehicle electrification, to any degree, is perceived to be the means by which automotive companies may meet these targets. Electrification introduces a myriad of problems including cost, weight and reliability, all of which must be addressed in their own right. The rapid commercialisation of wide-bandgap semiconductor materials which, as a whole, exhibit properties superior to ubiquitous Silicon, provides the opportunity for power electronic converter minimisation and efficiency maximisation, easing the challenge of meeting current and incoming standards. This thesis concerns itself with the design methodology of a highly power dense converter, as applied to a three-phase inverter. By using figures of merit, simple modelling techniques and novel discrete component selection tools, a converter is designed that is capable of switching 30kW of electric power at 100kHz in a small package. Testing results show that the converter, with a simple forced air heatsinking solution, can effectively switch 9kW of power and is capable of reaching 15kW. Given the temperature rise of one phase leg of the inverter relative to the others, a superior heatsink design would allow the inverter to reach its rated power levels. / Dissertation / Master of Applied Science (MASc)

This dissertation presents control, analysis, and design of silicon carbide (SiC)-based critical conduction mode (CRM) high-frequency soft-switching three-phase ac-dc converters (inverter and rectifier). The soft-switching technique with SiC devices grounded in CRM makes the operation of the ac-dc converter at hundreds of kHz possible while maintaining high efficiency with high power density. This is beneficial for rapidly growing fields such as electric vehicle charging, photovoltaic (PV) systems, and uninterruptable power supplies, etc. However, for the soft-switching technique to be practically adopted to real products in the markets, there are a lot of challenges to overcome. In this dissertation, four types of the challenges are carefully studied and discussed to address them. First, the grid-tied inverters used for distributed energy resources, such as PV systems, must continue operating to deliver power to the grid, when it faces flawed grid conditions such as voltage drop and voltage rise. During abnormal grid conditions, delivering constant active power from the inverter to the grid is essential to avoid large voltage ripples on the dc side because it could trigger over-voltage protection or harm the circuitries, eventually shutting down the inverter. Hence, in such cases, unbalanced ac currents need to be injected into the grid. When the grid voltages and the ac currents are not balanced, there is a chance for the CRM soft-switching inverter to lose its soft-switching capability. Continuous conduction mode operation emerges, causing hard-switching where discontinuous conduction mode (DCM) operation is expected. This leads to huge turn-on loss and high dv/dt noise at the active switch's turn-on moment. To eradicate the hard-switching problem, two improved modulation schemes are developed; one with off-time extension in the CRM phase, the other by skipping switching pulses in the DCM phase. The DCM pulse skipping is applied for a variety of grid imbalance cases, and it is proven that it can be a generalized solution for any kinds of unbalanced grid conditions. Second, the CRM soft-switching scheme with 2-channel interleaving achieves high efficiency at heavy load. Nevertheless, the efficiency plunges as the output load is reduced. This is not suitable for PV inverters, which take account of light load efficiency in terms of "weighted efficiency". Small inductor currents at light load cause the switching frequency to soar because of its CRM-based operation characteristic, causing large switching loss. To increase the inductor current dealt with by the first channel, a phase shedding control is proposed. Gate signals for the second channel are not excited, increasing the first channel's inductor current, thus cutting down the first channel's switching frequency. To prevent the unwanted circulating current formed by shared zero-sequence voltage in the paralleled structure, only two phases in the second channel working in high frequency are shed. The proposed phase shedding control achieves a 0.5 to 3.9 % efficiency improvement with light loads. Third, due to the usage of SiC devices, high dv/dt generated at switching nodes over the system parasitic capacitance causes substantial common mode (CM) noise compared to that with Si devices. In this case, a balance technique with PCB winding inductors can effectively reduce the CM noise. First, winding interleaving structure is selected to minimize the eddy current loss in the windings. But the interwinding capacitance caused by the winding interleaving structure aggravates the CM noise. Impact of the interwinding capacitance on the CM noise is analyzed with a new inductor model containing the interwinding capacitance. Then, finally, a novel inductor structure is proposed to remove the interwinding capacitance and to improve the CM noise reduction performance. The soft-switching ac-dc converter built with the final PCB magnetics features almost similar efficiency compared to that with litz-wire inductor and 14 to 18 dB CM noise reduction up to 15 MHz. Lastly, the soft-switching technique is extended to inverters in standalone mode. To meet tight ac voltage total harmonic distortion requirements, a current control in dq-frame is introduced. As for the ac voltage regulation at no-load, on top of the improved phase shedding control, a frequency limiting with fixed frequency DCM method is applied to prevent excessive increase in the switching frequency. Then, how to deal with short-circuit at the output load is investigated. Since the soft-switching modulation violates inductor voltage-second balance during the short-circuit, the modulation method is switched to a conventional sinusoidal PWM at fixed frequency. It is concluded that all the additional requirements for the standalone inverters can be satisfied by the introduced control strategies. / Doctor of Philosophy / The world is facing an unprecedented weather crisis. Global warming is getting more severe because of excessive amount of carbon emission. In an effort to overcome this crisis, paradigm of energy and lifestyle of people have changed. Penetration of distributed energy resources (DERs) such as wind turbines, and photovoltaic systems has been dramatically increased. Instead of internal combustion engine vehicles (EVs), electric vehicles hit the mainstream. In these changes, power electronics plays a critical role as the key element of the systems. Especially, three-phase inverter/rectifiers are essential parts in such applications. Most important aspects of the three-phase inverter/rectifier are efficiency and power density. In the past decades, Silicon (Si) power devices were mostly used for the systems and the technology based on Si has almost reached to its physical limits. The switching frequency of Si-based inverter/rectifier is limited below 20 – 30 kHz to reduce switching loss. This impedes high power density due to bulky passive components such as inductors and capacitors. Nowadays, the advent of wideband gap such as Silicon Carbide (SiC) and Gallium Nitride (GaN) power devices gives us a great opportunity to improve the efficiency and the power density with its high switching speed capability, low switching energy and low on-resistance. The SiC power devices are more suitable for DERs and EVs due to higher voltage rating. Using SiC power devices allows to increase inverter/rectifier' switching frequency about five times to have similar efficiency with those based on Si power devices, making the power density high. However, there is still room to push the switching frequency even higher to hundreds of kHz with soft-switching. In this sense, studies on soft-switching techniques for three-phase inverter/rectifier have been intensively conducted. Particularly, soft-switching techniques based on critical conduction mode (CRM) are regarded as the most promising solutions because it does not have any additional circuits to achieve the soft-switching, keeping the system as straightforward as possible. However, most of the studies for the CRM-based soft-switching three-phase inverter/rectifier mainly focus on limited occasions such as ideal operation conditions. For this technique to be widely used and adopted in industry, more practical cases for the systems need to be studied. In this dissertation, the soft-switching three-phase inverter/rectifier under diverse situations are investigated in depth. First, behavior of the soft-switching inverter/rectifier under unbalanced grid conditions are analyzed and control methods are developed to maintain its soft-switching capability. Second, how to improve light load efficiency is explored. Circulating current issue for the light load efficiency improvement is analyzed and a control method is proposed to eliminate the circulating current. Third, a design methodology and considerations of inductors based on PCB magnetics are discussed to reduce electromagnetic noise and improve system efficiency. Lastly, the soft-switching technique is extended to standalone mode applications dealing with strict voltage regulation, no-load operation, and output short-circuit.

A new concept of current sensor reduction technique called multi-branch current sensing technique (MCST) is proposed in this dissertation. In the proposed current sensing method, one more branch currents are simultaneously measured several times in a single switching cycle by using a single current sensor. After that, the current reconstruction algorithm is applied to obtain all phase currents information. Compared to traditional single current sensor techniques (SCSTs), the proposed method samples the output of the current sensor regularly, and the current sensing dead-zone is dramatically reduced. Since the current sampling is performed periodically, its implementation using a digital controller is extremely simple. Moreover, the periodical dead-zone and the dead-zone near the origin of the voltage vector space which have been a big problem in the existing methods can be completely eliminated. Accordingly, there is no need to have a complicated vector reconfiguration or current estimation algorithm. The proposed MCST also takes the advantages of a SCST such as reduced cost and elimination of the sensor gain discrepancy problem in the multiple current sensor method. The fundamental concept, implementation issues, and limitation of the proposed MCST are described based on three-phase systems first. After that, the proposed MCST is adopted to two-phase inverters and multi-phase dc-dc converters with little modifications. Computer simulations and hardware experiments have been conducted for a three-phase boost converter, a three-phase motor drive system, a two-phase two-leg inverter, a two-phase four-leg inverter with bipolar modulation, a two-phase four-leg inverter with unipolar modulation, and a four-phase dc-dc converter applications. From the simulations and the experimental results, the feasibilities of the proposed method mentioned above are fully verified. / Ph. D.

Hysteresis current control has been widely used in power electronics with the advantages of fast dynamic response under parameter, line and load variation and ensured stability. However, a main disadvantage of hysteresis current control is the uncertain and varying switching frequency which makes it difficult to form an average-value model. The changing switching frequency and unspecified switching duty cycle make conventional average-value models based on PWM control difficult to apply directly to converters that are controlled by hysteresis current control. In this work, a new method for average-value modeling of hysteresis current control in boost converters, three-phase inverters, and brushless dc motor drives is proposed. It incorporates a slew-rate limitation on the inductor current that occurs naturally in the circuit during large system transients. This new method is compared with existing methods in terms of simulation run time and rms error. The performance is evaluated based on a variety of scenarios, and the simulation results are compared with the results of detailed models. The simulation results show that the proposed model represents the detailed model well and is faster and more accurate than existing methods. The slew-rate limitation model of hysteresis current control accurately captures the salient detail of converter performance while maintaining the computational efficiency of average-value models. Validations in hardware are also presented.

Η παρούσα διπλωματική εργασία πραγματεύεται τη μελέτη, το σχεδιασμό και την εξομοίωση ενός σύγχρονου κινητήρα μόνιμου μαγνήτη οδηγούμενο από ελεγχόμενο τριφασικό αντιστροφέα. Η εργασία αυτή εκπονήθηκε στο Εργαστήριο Ηλεκτρομηχανικής Μετατροπής Ενέργειας του Τμήματος Ηλεκτρολόγων Μηχανικών και Τεχνολογίας Υπολογιστών της Πολυτεχνικής Σχολής του Πανεπιστημίου Πατρών. Σκοπός λοιπόν της παρούσας εργασίας είναι η μελέτη και προσομοίωση ενός σύγχρονου κινητήρα μόνιμου μαγνήτη μέσω της μεθόδου των πεπερασμένων στοιχείων, με τη βοήθεια του λογισμικού Opera σε δύο διαστάσεις (2d). Στο περιβάλλον σχεδίασης κυκλωμάτων του ίδιου προγράμματος, μοντελοποιήθηκε και ο τριφασικός αντιστροφέας ισχύος για την οδήγηση του κινητήρα. Στην συνέχεια, έγινε διασύνδεση του λογισμικού Opera με το πρόγραμμα Simulink του λογισμικού Matlab, με απώτερο σκοπό να επιτευχθεί έλεγχος κλειστού βρόχου της ταχύτητας περιστροφής του κινητήρα Συγκεκριμένα, έγινε μελέτη και προσομοίωση ενός συγκεκριμένου 8πολικού κινητήρα τύπου Brushless DC, ονομαστικής ισχύος 660 W, ονομαστικής τάσης 48 V, και ονομαστικής ταχύτητας 3000 rpm ο οποίος τροφοδοτήθηκε στην είσοδό του με τριφασικό αντιστροφέα. Ιδιαίτερη προσοχή δόθηκε, στην εξομοίωση του τρόπου λειτουργίας των αισθητήρων Hall, μέσω των ημιαγωγικών διακοπτικών στοιχείων του αντιστροφέα, τα οποία ρυθμίστηκαν για να λειτουργούν σε κατάλληλες, για την υπό μελέτη μηχανή, χρονικές περιόδους. Κρίσιμη ήταν επίσης, η διαδικασία εύρεσης των κατάλληλων κερδών των ελεγκτών PI, έτσι ώστε να βελτιωθεί η μεταβατική απόκριση του συστήματος κλειστού βρόχου και να μειωθεί το σφάλμα μόνιμης κατάστασης ταχύτητας. Αναλυτικά, στο κεφάλαιο 1 γίνεται αναφορά στα θεμελιώδη μεγέθη του μαγνητικού πεδίου, καθώς και στις ιδιότητες των μαγνητικών υλικών που χρησιμοποιούνται στην κατασκευή σύγχρονων μηχανών μόνιμου μαγνήτη. Στο κεφάλαιο 2 αναλύονται οι σύγχρονοι κινητήρες μόνιμου μαγνήτη και γίνεται εκτενής αναφορά στα κατασκευαστικά χαρακτηριστικά, στη βασική αρχή λειτουργίας και στις μαθηματικές εξισώσεις που τους περιγράφουν. Στο κεφάλαιο 3 περιγράφεται η διάταξη οδήγησης του κινητήρα και αναλύονται λεπτομερώς η λειτουργία και του αντιστροφέα και του κυκλώματος ελέγχου κλειστού βρόχου. Στο κεφάλαιο 4 περιγράφεται η διαδικασία διεξαγωγής μετρήσεων και σχεδιασμού του μοντέλου πεπερασμένων στοιχείων της μηχανής στο περιβάλλον του υπολογιστικού προγράμματος Opera-2d. Στο κεφάλαιο 5 περιγράφεται η διαδικασία σχεδιασμού του τριφασικού αντιστροφέα και παρουσιάζονται τα αποτελέσματα εξομοίωσης για το σύστημα ανοικτού βρόχου. Στο κεφάλαιο 6 εξηγείται η διαδικασία διασύνδεσης των δύο προγραμμάτων (Matlab-Opera) και παρουσιάζονται τα αποτελέσματα της εξομοίωσης για το σύστημα ελέγχου κλειστού βρόχου. / In this dissertation, the design and simulation of a permanent magnet synchronous motor driven by a three-phase inverter, is presented. The work was conducted at the Laboratory of Electromechanical Energy Conversion, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Patras. The objective of this dissertation is the study and simulation of a permanent magnet synchronous motor employing the finite element method, with the help of Opera-2d simulation software. In the Circuit Editor environment of the same software, a three-phase inverter for driving the motor was designed, utilizing the PWM method and achieving open loop control of the motor rotation speed under constant loads. In addition, a closed loop control system was designed on Simulink user interface of Matlab software and making use of the interconnection capability of the two programs (Matlab-Opera) closed loop control of the motor rotation speed was achieved. Specifically, chapter 1 gives reference to fundamentals of the magnetic field and the magnetic properties of materials used in the construction of modern permanent magnet machines. Chapter 2 analyzes synchronous permanent magnet motors and makes an extensive reference to the constructional features, basic operation principle and the mathematical equations that describe them. Chapter 3 describes the motor driving converter and analyzes in detail the operation of the inverter and the closed loop control circuit. Chapter 4 describes the procedure for carrying out measurements and designing the finite element model of the machine in the environment of Opera-2d software. Chapter 5 describes the three-phase inverter design process and presents the simulation results for the open loop system. Chapter 6 explains the interconnection process of the two programs (Matlab-Opera) and presents the results of the simulation for the closed loop control system.

The goal of this master´s thesis is primarily the theoretical analysis of three-phase inverters and subsequent familiarization of the reader with their detailed practical structure. The first part is devoted to the general definition of the power semiconductor converter as such. The following part describes the principle of three-phase pulse width modulation including the widely used principle of scalar control of induction motors. The second half of the thesis is already focused on the practical design of a three-phase inverter for a 50 kW high-speed induction motor. This section explains the problem of sizing and selecting all of the sub-elements of the inverter based on the parameters specified by the end user of the device.