Dr. Espinosa-Neira, Eduardo

In this paper, we present an implementation of selective harmonic elimination modulation technique in a 27-Level asymmetric multilevel converter. The main issue in this kind of converters is the generation of the gating patterns to obtain an optimized AC voltage waveform. State-of-the art solutions use deep mathematical analysis in the frequency domain by means of the Fourier series, but they are mainly applied for two-level or symmetric multilevel converters. On the other hand, the modulation for asymmetric multilevel converters is mainly focused on nearest level control or nearest vector control. In this work, we propose a novel modulating technique that takes advantage of the switching angles optimization for a 27-level waveform. In fact, different set of solutions are obtained and presented in order to define the modulation index as well as the value of the switching angles for the multilevel waveform. A modulation index sweep was performed for the entire operating region of the converter, where it can be observed that the number of levels decreases when the modulation index is low, which are calculated in order to minimize the total harmonic distortion (THD) of the resulting voltage waveform. In order to validate the proposal, these results for different modulation indexes values are simulated, obtaining a THD < 5% for a modulation index 0.75 < M < 1.0. Finally, a small scale proof-of-concept prototype is implemented in order to validate the proposal. © 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.

The use of advanced modulation and control schemes for power converters, such as a Feedback Quantizer and Predictive Control, is widely studied in the literature. This work focuses on improving the closed-loop modulation scheme called Feedback Quantizer, which is applied to a three-phase voltage source inverter. This scheme has the natural behavior of mitigating harmonics at low frequencies, which are detrimental to electrical equipment such as transformers. This modulation scheme also provides good tracking for the voltage reference at the fundamental frequency. On the other hand, the disadvantage of this scheme is that it has a variable switching frequency, creating a harmonic spectrum in frequency dispersion, and it also needs a small sampling time to obtain good results. The proposed scheme to improve the modulation scheme is based on a Discrete Space Vector with virtual vectors to obtain a better approximation of the optimal vectors for use in the algorithm. The proposal improves the conventional scheme at a high sampling time (200 μs), obtaining a THD less than 2% in the load current, decreases the noise created by the conventional scheme, and provides a fixed switching frequency. Experimental tests demonstrate the correct operation of the proposed scheme.