Nowadays high power density has become an emerging need for the medium-voltage (MV) high-power converters in applications of power distribution systems in urban areas and transportation carriers like ship, airplane, and so forth. The limited footprint or space resource cost such immensely high price that introducing expensive advanced equipment to save space becomes a cost-effective option. To this end, replacing conventional Si IGBT with the superior SiC MOSFET to elevate the power density of MV modular converters has been defined as the concentration of this research work. As the modular multilevel converter (MMC) is the most typical modular converter for high power applications, the research topic is narrowed down to study the SiC MOSFET-based MMC. Fundamentals of the MMC is firstly investigated by introducing a proposed state-space switching model, followed by unveiling all possible operation scenarios of the MMC. The lower-frequency energy fluctuation on passive components of the MMC is interpreted and prior-art approaches to overcome it are presented. By scrutinizing the converter's switching states, a new switching-cycle control (SCC) approach is proposed to balance the capacitor energy within one switching cycle is explored. An open-loop model-predictive method is leveraged to study the behavior of the SCC, and then a hybrid-current-mode (HCM) approach to realize the closed-loop SCC on hardware is proposed and verified in simulation. In order to achieve the hybrid-current-mode SCC (HCM-SCC), a high-performance Rogowski switch-current sensor (RSCS) is proposed and developed. As sensing the switching current is a critical necessity for HCM-SCC, the RSCS is designed to meet all the requirement for the control purposes. A PCB-embedded shielding design is proposed to improve the sensor accuracy under high dv/dt noises caused by the rapid switching transients of SiC MOSFET. The overall system and control validations have been conducted on a high-power MMC prototype. The basic unit of the MMC prototype is a SiC Power Electronics Building Block (PEBB) rated at 1 kV DC bus voltage. Owing to the proposed SCC, the PEBB development has achieved high power density with considerable reduction of passive component size. Finally, experimental results exhibit the excellent performance of the RSCS and the HCM-SCC. / Ph. D.

Nowadays, major public concern is concentrated on reducing the usage of fossil fuels and reducing emissions of CO₂ by different energy advancement. Electric vehicle technology presents extremely effective way of reducing carbon emissions and paves the way of having sustainable and renewable energy future. In order to wear the cost of electric vehicles down, batteries have to be improved as well as higher power density and high reliability has to be achieved. This research work mainly focuses on achieving higher power density and higher reliability of the inverter stage by utilizing wide-bandgap SiC MOSFET semiconductor devices in electric vehicle application. In order to achieve higher reliability of the inverter stage, high bandwidth, high performance Rogowski coil switch current sensors are employed. These sensor were embedded on the PCB and integrated on the gate driver. High bandwidth switch current sensor measurement is used for fast short-circuit detection and protection of the SiC MOSFET semiconductor switches. Furthermore, comparison with conventional detection and protection method used in automotive IGBT applications is shown where novel protection showed superior performance. This thesis also shows principle of how to obtain phase currents of the system using Rogowski coil switch current sensor measurements. Digital reconstruction principle is employed to obtain the phase currents. Accurate and linear current sensor is achieved. By successfully realizing this integrated phase current measurement on the gate driver, elimination of the commercial current sensors from the system is possible. By eliminating existing phase current sensors, higher power density could be achieved. Sensor is evaluated in both continuous and discontinuous PWM schemes. / Master of Science / Together with renewable sources, electric vehicle will play an important role as a part of sustainable and renewable energy future by significantly reducing emissions of CO₂ into the atmosphere. In order to make electric cars more acceptable and accessible and make a significant impact on the environment, cost must be lowered down. To wear the cost of the electric vehicles down, powertrain of the car must be significantly improved and made smaller as well as lighter. This thesis mainly focuses on improving the reliability of the motor driving stage by implementing novel protection during fault periods such as short-circuit event. Furthermore, this novel protection allows current sensing that is crucial for motor control during normal operation periods. This will enable more compact motor driving stage since existing current sensing elements can be eliminated.