On the reliability of electrical drives for safety-critical applications

The aim of this work is to present some issues related to fault tolerant electric drives,which are able to overcome different types of faults occurring in the sensors, in thepower converter and in the electrical machine, without compromising the overallfunctionality of the system. These features are of utmost importance in safety-criticalapplications. In this paper, the reliability of both commercial and innovative driveconfigurations, which use redundant hardware and suitable control algorithms, will beinvestigated for the most common types of fault: besides standard three phase motordrives, also multiphase topologies, open-end winding solutions, multi-machineconfigurations will be analyzed, applied to various electric motor technologies. Thecomplexity of hardware and control strategies will also be compared in this paper, sincethis has a tremendous impact on the investment costs

A fault-tolerant photovoltaic integrated shunt active power filter with a 27-level inverter

This paper introduces a fault-tolerant shunt active power filter (SAPF). The novility in of this work is that it poposes a solutions to increase the reliability of shunt active power filter to maintain its operation under a single-phase open-circuit fault in the SAPF. This will increase the reliability of the whole power system. The SAPF is composed of a 4-leg 27-level inverter based on asymmetric cascaded H-bridge topology. If an open-circuit fault is introduced to the operation of the SAPF, a special control technique will be implemented and the redundant leg of the SAPF will be activated. The fault-tolerant SAPF can do many tasks under healthy operating conditions and post and open circuit fault depending on the state of charge (SOC) of the batteries. It can mitigate harmonics in the power system, improve power factor in the system by injecting reactive power, and inject real power to the system. The proposed SAPF is tested and simulated in MATLAB/Simulink and the results have shown a significant improvement in total harmonics distortion (THD) of the source current from 13.9% to 3.9% under the normal operating condition and from 42% to 8.4% post and open circuit fault

Fault estimation and fault-tolerant control for discrete-time dynamic systems

In this paper, a novel discrete-time estimator is proposed, which is employed for simultaneous estimation of system states, and actuator/sensor faults in a discrete-time dynamic system. The existence of the discrete-time simultaneous estimator is proven mathematically. The systematic design procedure for the derivative and proportional observer gains is addressed, enabling the estimation error dynamics to be internally proper and stable, and robust against the effects from the process disturbances, measurement noise, and faults. Based on the estimated fault signals and system states, a discrete-time fault-tolerant design approach is addressed, by which the system may recover the system performance when actuator/sensor faults occur. Finally, the proposed integrated discrete-time fault estimation and fault-tolerant control technique is applied to the vehicle lateral dynamics, which demonstrates the effectiveness of the developed techniques

Sensorless Speed Control of a Fault-Tolerant Five-Phase PMSM Drives

This paper introduces a novel method to achieve sensorless speed control of a Five-phase Permanent Magnet Synchronous Motor (PMSM) drive in case of a single-phase open-circuit fault regardless which phase is open. The motor performance when an open circuit fault occurs is as good as it is before the fault. The degradation in motor performance, when an open circuit fault occurs, is minimized due to implementing a novel control technique that is using the four remaining healthy currents. This strategy includes introducing two software modifications to the operation of the five motor post the fault. Firstly, an asymmetric SVPWM is used post the fault instead of multi-dimension SVPWM that is used before the fault. Secondly, a new algorithm is introduced to track the saliency post the fault. The new algorithm is considering the application of the new modulation technique. Moreover, it uses only the excitation in the healthy currents of the motor due to the IGBT switching actions. Simulation results presented in this paper shows that the performance of the motor over a wide speed range and at different load conditions is maintained post the fault

Control of 7-phase permanent magnet synchronous motor drive post three failures

The article is introducing a new control technique for the 7-phase permanent magnet synchronous motor (PMSM) drive to enhance its robustness against the failure of phases ‘a’ and ‘c’ in addition to the failure of the encoder occurring simultaneously. The article is firstly developing a new multi-dimension space vector pulse width modulation (SVPWM) technique as a part of the fault-tolerant control technique (FTC) to control the magnitudes and angles of the motor’s current after the failures of phases ‘a’ and ‘c’. Moreover, the paper is developing another FTC to obtain a sensorless operation of the 7-phase motor after the failure in the encoder while the phase ‘a’ and ‘c’ are faulted based on the tracking of the saturation saliency. Simulation results prove that the ripple in the speed post the three failures was maintained to be less than 10 rpm compared to 2 rpm when the 7-phase drive is running without faults. In addition to that, the results demonstrated that the motor responded to instant changes in speeds and loads with a dynamic response very close to that obtained when the 7-phase motor ran under healthy operating conditions

Fault-tolerant Operation of Six-phase Energy Conversion Systems with Parallel Machine-side Converters

The fault tolerance provided by multiphase machines is one of the most attractive features for industry applications where a high degree of reliability is required. Aiming to take advantage of such postfault operating capability, some newly designed full-power energy conversion systems are selecting machines with more than three phases. Although the use of parallel converters is usual in high-power three-phase electrical drives, the fault tolerance of multiphase machines has been mainly considered with single supply from a multiphase converter. This study addresses the fault-tolerant capability of six-phase energy conversion systems supplied with parallel converters, deriving the current references and control strategy that need to be utilized to maximize torque/power production. Experimental results show that it is possible to increase the postfault rating of the system if some degree of imbalance in the current sharing between the two sets of threephase windings is permitted.Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación ENE2014-52536-C2–1-R DPI2013-44278-RJunta de Andalucía P11-TEP-755

Optimal Fault-Tolerant Control of Six-Phase Induction Motor Drives with Parallel Converters

Multiphase drives and parallel converters have been recently proposed in low-voltage high-power applications. The fault-tolerant capability provided by multiphase drives is then extended with parallel converters, increasing their suitability for safety-critical and renewable uses. This advantageous feature, compared to standard threephase drives, has been analyzed in the event of open-phase faults. However, when using parallel converters, a converter fault does not necessarily imply an open-phase condition, but usually just a limited phase current capability. This work analyzes the fault-tolerant capability of six-phase drives with parallel converter supply. Different scenarios considering up to three faults for single and two neutral configurations are examined, optimizing off-line the post-fault currents and modifying accordingly the control strategies. Experimental results confirm the smooth transition from pre- to post-fault situations and the enhanced post-fault torque capability.Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación ENE2014- 52536-C2-1-R DPI2013-44278-RJunta de Andalucía P11-TEP-755

Fault-Tolerant Operation of Six-Phase Energy Conversion Systems With Parallel Machine-Side Converters

The fault tolerance provided by multiphase machines is one of the most attractive features for industry applications where a high degree of reliability is required. Aiming to take advantage of such postfault operating capability, some newly designed full-power energy conversion systems are selecting machines with more than three phases. Although the use of parallel converters is usual in high-power three-phase electrical drives, the fault tolerance of multiphase machines has been mainly considered with single supply from a multiphase converter. This study addresses the fault-tolerant capability of six-phase energy conversion systems supplied with parallel converters, deriving the current references and control strategy that need to be utilized to maximize torque/power production. Experimental results show that it is possible to increase the postfault rating of the system if some degree of imbalance in the current sharing between the two sets of threephase windings is permitted

General design rules for space harmonic cancellation in multiphase machines with multiple converters and star-polygonal windings

This paper presents a general rule for the design of m-phase machines supplied by n-converters that employ a hybrid star-polygonal winding in each m-phase set. This rule shows that for any m-phase machine supplied by n-converters, there exists a set of feasible slot-pole numbers in conjunction with the star-polygonal connection that allows for optimum winding MMF harmonic performance. This also allows for tables of feasible solutions to be generated, including coil pitch and calculated winding factors. From this, the star of slots method is used to obtain the winding layout of any feasible machine for comparison of its winding MMF harmonic performance. An example 3-phase machine is investigated and a number of trends for all m-phase n-converter machines can be identified. In machines with a coil pitch of 1, excellent harmonic elimination is observed for all non-torque producing harmonics and machine performance is all-round enhanced. A prototype machine has been manufactured and EMF and static torque measurements validate the predictions