The Essential Role and the Continuous Evolution of Modulation Techniques for Voltage-Source Inverters in the Past, Present, and Future Power Electronics

The cost reduction of power-electronic devices, the increase in their reliability, efficiency, and power capability, and lower development times, together with more demanding application requirements, has driven the development of several new inverter topologies recently introduced in the industry, particularly medium-voltage converters. New more complex inverter topologies and new application fields come along with additional control challenges, such as voltage imbalances, power-quality issues, higher efficiency needs, and fault-tolerant operation, which necessarily requires the parallel development of modulation schemes. Therefore, recently, there have been significant advances in the field of modulation of dc/ac converters, which conceptually has been dominated during the last several decades almost exclusively by classic pulse-width modulation (PWM) methods. This paper aims to concentrate and discuss the latest developments on this exciting technology, to provide insight on where the state-of-the-art stands today, and analyze the trends and challenges driving its future

Right Harmonic Spectrum for the back-electromotive force of a n-phase synchronous motor

This paper deals with a vector control of n-phase permanent magnet synchronous machine. To use control algorithms already developed for sine-wave 3-phase machines, the spectrum of back electromotive force (EMF) must contain only odd 2k+1 harmonics which verify the following inequality, 1≤ 2k +1< n . In an experimental vector control of a 5-phase drive, two usual algorithms of sine-wave 3-phase machine are thus used to supply a machine with trapezoidal waveform back EMF. In this case, the first and third harmonics are used to produce torque: the other harmonics, and particularly the 7th one, induce effects as torque ripples and parasitic currents

Characteristics of Two-Dimensional Quantum Turbulence in a Compressible Superfluid

Under suitable forcing a fluid exhibits turbulence, with characteristics strongly affected by the fluid's confining geometry. Here we study two-dimensional quantum turbulence in a highly oblate Bose-Einstein condensate in an annular trap. As a compressible quantum fluid, this system affords a rich phenomenology, allowing coupling between vortex and acoustic energy. Small-scale stirring generates an experimentally observed disordered vortex distribution that evolves into large-scale flow in the form of a persistent current. Numerical simulation of the experiment reveals additional characteristics of two-dimensional quantum turbulence: spontaneous clustering of same-circulation vortices, and an incompressible energy spectrum with $k^{-5/3}$ dependence for low wavenumbers $k$ and $k^{-3}$ dependence for high $k$.Comment: 7 pages, 7 figures. Reference [29] updated for v

Modelling and control techniques for multiphase electric drives: a phase variable approach

Multiphase electric drives are today one of the most relevant research topics for the electrical engineering scientific community, thanks to the many advantages they offer over standard three-phase solutions (e.g., power segmentation, fault-tolerance, optimized performances, torque/power sharing strategies, etc...). They are considered promising solutions in many application areas, like industry, traction and renewable energy integration, and especially in presence of high-power or high-reliability requirements. However, contrarily to the three-phase counterparts, multiphase drives can assume a wider variety of different configurations, concerning both the electrical machine (e.g., symmetrical/asymmetrical windings disposition, concentrated/distributed windings, etc...) and the overall drive topology (e.g., single-star configuration, multiple-star configuration, open-end windings, etc…). This aspect, together with the higher number of variables of the system, can make their analysis and control more challenging, especially when dealing with reconfigurable systems (e.g., in post-fault scenarios). This Ph.D. thesis is focused on the mathematical modelling and on the control of multiphase electric drives. The aim of this research is to develop a generalized model-based approach that can be used in multiple configurations and scenarios, requiring minimal reconfigurations to deal with different machine designs and/or different converter topologies, and suitable both in healthy and in faulty operating conditions. Standard field-oriented approaches for the analysis and control of multiphase drives, directly derived as extensions of the three-phase equivalents, despite being relatively easy and convenient solutions to deal with symmetrical machines, may suffer some hurdles when applied to some asymmetrical configurations, including post-fault layouts. To address these issues, a different approach, completely derived in the phase variable domain, is here developed. The method does not require any vector space decomposition or rotational transformation but instead explicitly considers the mathematical properties of the multiphase machine and the effects of the drive topology (which typically introduces some constraints on the system variables). In this thesis work, the proposed approach is particularized for multiphase permanent magnet synchronous machines and for multiphase synchronous reluctance machines. All the results are obtained through rigorous mathematical derivations, and are supported and validated by both numerical analysis and experimental tests. As proven considering many different configurations and scenarios, the main benefits of the proposed methodology are its generality and flexibility, which make it a viable alternative to standard modelling and control algorithms

Torque capability enhancement of dual three-phase PMSM drive with fifth and seventh current harmonics injection

© 2017 IEEE. A method for enhancing torque capability of a dual three-phase permanent magnet synchronous machine (PMSM) based on conventional dual three-phase drive system by injecting the fifth and seventh current harmonics without any hardware re-configuration is proposed in this paper. Compared with the third current harmonic injection, which is commonly used to enhance the torque capability of dual three-phase machine, the two isolated neutral points of each set of single three-phase windings do not need to be reconnected to the middle point of dc-link capacitors or an additional power switching bridge to provide flowing path for zero-sequence current. Further, no additional current sensors are required to obtain the feedback of zero-sequence current to regulate it effectively. For a prototype dual three-phase PMSM, the average torque increases approximately by 9% at the cost of 0.56% increase in the 12th harmonic torque ripple. The effectiveness of the torque capability enhancement is confirmed by experiments

Torque Enhancement of Dual Three-Phase PMSM by Harmonic Injection

The torque enhancement of dual three-phase permanent magnet synchronous machine (DT-PMSM) drive system by full exploitation of flux-linkage and current harmonics are comparatively studied in this paper. The torque capability of DT-PMSM is previously evaluated with strategies of harmonics utilization, i.e. Strategy-1 of 3rd harmonic utilization and Strategy-2 of 5th and 7th harmonic utilization, which can extend the torque capability by 18.2% and 9.0% respectively. However, the full exploitation of harmonics including 3rd, 5th and 7th harmonics in the dual three-phase system are not addressed. In this paper, the Strategy-3 of 3rd, 5th and 7th harmonic utilization is also included. Its corresponding harmonic current control is proposed and the average torque and harmonic torque are analyzed in detail. Based on a test rig with existing prototype DT-PMSM, the torque with Strategy-3 is increased up to 26.5%, which is superior to the previous strategies

Non-Uniform Time Sampling for Multiple-Frequency Harmonic Balance Computations

A time-domain harmonic balance method for the analysis of almost-periodic (multi-harmonics) flows is presented. This method relies on Fourier analysis to derive an efficient alternative to classical time marching schemes for such flows. It has recently received significant attention, especially in the turbomachinery field where the flow spectrum is essentially a combination of the blade passing frequencies. Up to now, harmonic balance methods have used a uniform time sampling of the period of interest, but in the case of several frequencies, non-necessarily multiple of each other, harmonic balance methods can face stability issues due to a bad condition number of the Fourier operator. Two algorithms are derived to find a non-uniform time sampling in order to minimize this condition number. Their behavior is studied on a wide range of frequencies, and a model problem of a 1D flow with pulsating outlet pressure, which enables to prove their efficiency. Finally, the flow in a multi-stage axial compressor is analyzed with different frequency sets. It demonstrates the stability and robustness of the present non-uniform harmonic balance method regardless of the frequency set

Impact of Slim DC Capacitance on Floating Capacitor H-bridge Motor Drive

This paper discusses the impact of small dc capacitance in a motor drive using a floating capacitor H-bridge topology. The proposed topology is intended for applications where variable frequency control is not required. Special attention is paid on investigating the second-order dc capacitor voltage ripples, whose influence on the induction motor as well as on the motor drive itself is of importance. This issue is addressed in this paper through rigorous mathematical formulations. It is found that by inverting the second-order dc ripple voltage using the conventional SVPWM, no harmful harmonics will be generated in the motor line voltage. This demonstrates the possibility of drastically reducing the dc capacitance of the proposed system. Induction motor as well as H-bridge performance with respect to different dc capacitance values is demonstrated by experiments, which lays the foundation for cost reduction and reliability enhancement of the proposed system

Sensitivity of a 5-phase Brushless DC machine to the 7th harmonic of the back-electromotive force

This paper presents a vector control of a 5-phase drive composed of a 5-leg Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) Voltage Source Inverter (VSI) supplying a permanent-magnet Brushless DC (BLDC) machine with trapezoidal waveform of the back-electromotive force (EMF). To achieve this control a Multi-machine Multi-converter model is used: the 5-phase machine is transformed into a set of two 2-phase fictitious machines which are each one controlled in a (d,q) frame as 3-phase machines with sine waveform back-EMF. In comparison with the 3-phase BLDC drives, the 5-phase ones present one particularity: a high sensitivity to the 7th harmonic of back-EMF. Experimental results show that the 7th harmonic of back-EMF, which represents only 5% of RMS back-EMF, induces high amplitude parasitic currents (29 % percent of RMS current). The model allows to explain the origin of this sensitivity and how to modify simply the control algorithm. Experimental improvements of the drive are presented