International Journal of Engineering Studies Volume 1, Number 2 (2009), pp. 7182 Research India Publications http://www.ripublication.com/ijes.

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Multicarrier Pulse Width Modulation Based Three Phase Cascaded Mulitilevel Inverter Including Over Modulation and Low Modulation Indices
1

P. Palanivel and 2Subhransu Sekhar Dash

M.A.M.College of Engineering, Tiruchirappalli 621 105, India E-mail:palanidash@gmail.com. 2 Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, SRM University, Chennai 603 203. India E-mail:munu_dash_2k@yahoo.com.

Abstract The emergence of Multilevel converter has been in increase since the last decade . These new type of converters are suitable in high voltage & high power application due to their ability to synthesize waveforms with better harmonic spectrum. This paper presents, two proposed scheme adopting the Multi carrier Pulse width modulation concept. The MCPWM Cascaded Multilevel inverter strategy enhances the fundamental output voltage and reduced Total harmonic distortion. The Multilevel inverter circuit analysis and selection of proper references discussed based on the formulation switching patterns. A Three phase Five level cascaded inverter is used to explain the methods. The method can be easily extended to a n-level inverter. The cascaded inverter is subjected to a new modulation scheme, which uses multiple modulating signals with a single carrier. From the modulation scheme, mathematical equations that define the PWM switching instants are derived. In order to justify the merits of the proposed modulation scheme, harmonic analysis for and measured THD and output voltages are compared and discussed .The method can be confirmed by experimental results obtained using a three phase cascaded five level inverter. Index Terms: Multilevel inverter, Multicarrier Pulse width modulation, Total harmonic distortion, Switching frequency optimal PWM, Subharmonic PWM, Over modulation, Low modulation indices.

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Introduction
Now a days multilevel inverters have achieved in increasing contribution in high performance application. Recently for high performance power application multi level converters are widely used such as static var compensators, drives and active power filters. The advantage of multilevel inverter is good power quality, low switching losses and high voltage capability. Increasing the number of voltage levels in the inverter without requiring high ratings on individual devices can increases the power rating. The topologies of multilevel inverters are classified in to three types the Flying capacitor inverter, the Diode clamped inverter and the Cascaded bridge inverter [1][2]. The proposed schemes of multilevel inverters are classified in to two types the multi carrier sub-harmonic pulse width modulation (MC-SH PWM) and the Multicarrier switching frequency optimal pulse width modulation (MC-SFO PWM)[4][5]. The MC-SH PWM cascaded multilevel inverter strategy reduced total harmonic distortion and the MC-SFO PWM cascaded multilevel inverter strategy enhances the fundamental output voltage [6].

Multicarrier Pulse Width Modulation

Fig.1 shows the five level inverter. It requires two separate DC sources per phase leg; this means that two H-bridge inverters are used for single phase structure.

Figure 1: Three phase Five level Inverter.

Multicarrier subharmonic pulse width modulation (MC-SH PWM) Fig.2 shows Multicarrier subharmonic pulse width modulation (MC-SH PWM) modulating signal generation. Fig.3 shows Multicarrier subharmonic pulse width modulation signal generation. Fig.4 shows a m-level inverter, m-1 carriers with the same frequency fc and the same amplitude Ac are disposed such that the bands they occupy are contiguous.

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The reference wave form has peak to peak amplitude Am, the frequency fm, and its zero centered in the middle of the carrier set. The reference is continuously compared with each of the carrier signals. If the reference is greater than s carrier signal, then they active device corresponding to that carrier is switched off.

Figure 2: Multicarrier subharmonic PWM modulating signal generation.

Figure 3: Multicarrier subharmonic PWM signal generation.

Figure 4: Multicarrier subharmonic pulse width modulation. In multilevel inverters, the amplitude modulation index ma and the frequency ratio mf are defined as

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ma = Am / (m-1)Ac (1) mf = fc / fm (2) Using MC-SH PWM THD value can be reduced with reduction in output voltage. In this Paper, When input voltage Vdc = 10V the THD value 6.68% and its output voltage Vac = 9 volts. Multi carrier switching frequency optimal PWM (MC-SFO PWM) Fig.5 shows the MultiCarrier Switching Frequency Optimal PWM modulating signal generation. Fig.6 shows the MC-SFO PWM signal generation. Fig.7 shows the MCSFO PWM is a triplen harmonic voltage is added to each of the carrier waveforms. The method takes the instantaneous average of the maximum and minimum of the three reference voltages(Va, Vb, Vc ) and subtracts the value from each of the individual reference voltages to obtain the modulation waveforms.

Figure 5: Multicarrier switching frequency optimal PWM modulating signal generation.

Figure 6: Multicarrier swiching frequency optimal PWM signal generation.

Voffset = {max (Va,Vb,Vc ) + min (Va,Vb,Vc )} / 2 (3) VaSFO = Va Voffset (4) VbSFO = Vb Voffset (5) VcSFO = Vc Voffset (6) The zero sequence modification made by the SFO PWM technique restricts its use to three phase three wire system; however it enables the modulation index to be increased by 15% before over modulation or pulse dropping occurs.

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Figure 7: Multicarrier switching carrier optimal pulse width modulation.

In this Paper, to increase output voltage, MC-SFO PWM technique is used and by Third harmonic injection. The output voltage Vac will be 10V with THD value 21.40%.

Results
The table.1 shows THD and output voltage value for various Modulation Index. When MC-SH PWM and MC-SFO PWM are implemented. When Modulation Index is more than 1, it is called as Over Modulation and if its below or equal to 0.5 than Low Modulation Indices.

Table 1: Various Modulation Index Output Voltage and THD for MC-SH PWM and MC-SFO PWM. Modulation Index 0.9 1.1 (Over Modulation) 0.5 (Low Modulation) MC-SH PWM THD% Vac 6.69 8.35 15.78 8.999 10.32 5.0 MC-SFO PWM THD% Vac 21.39 22.13 22.84 10.0 11.84 5.001

Simulation results To verify the proposed schemes, a simulation model for a three phase five level cascaded H-Bridge inverter is implemented. Diagrams of the phase leg voltages for several modulation indexes in lower modulation indices and over modulation ranges i.e. discontinuous PWM pulses have been calculated and drawn for MC-SH PWM Method Fig.9,13,16 and MC-SFO PWM Method for Fig.20,23,26. The voltage quality can be evaluated through the following diagrams of harmonic spectrum and Fre-

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quency spectrum as MC-SH PWM shown in fig.11,12,14,15,17,18 and MC-SFO PWM shown in fig. 21,22,24,25,27,28. A. Multicarrier subharmonic pulse width modulation (MC-SH PWM)

Figure 8: Multicarrier subharmonic PWM modulating signal.

Figure 9: Multicarrier subharmonic PWM signal generation (Modulation index 0.9).

Figure 10: Modulation index 0.9 Phase voltage.

Figure 11: Modulation index 0.9 Harmonic spectrum.

Figure 12: Modulation index 0.9 Frequency spectrum.

Figure 13: Modulation index 1.1 over modulation- Discontinuous PWM generation.

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Figure 14: Modulation index 1.1 over modulation-Harmonic spectrum

Figure 15: Modulation index 1.1 over modulation-Frequency spectrum.

Figure 16: Modulation index 0.5 low modulation.

Figure 17: Modulation index 0.5 low modulation- Harmonic spectrum.

Figure 18: Modulation index 0.5 low modulation- Frequency spectrum.

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B Multicarrier Switching Frequency Optimal Pulse Width Modulation (MC-SFO PWM).

Figure 19: Multicarrier switching frequency optimal PWM modulating signal.

Figure 20: Multicarrier switching frequency optimal PWM signal generation (Modulation index 0.9).

Figure 21: Modulation index 0.9 Phase voltage.

Figure 21: Modulation index 0.9 Harmonic spectrum.

Figure 22: Modulation index 0.9 Frequency spectrum.

Figure 23: Modulation index 1.1 over modulation- Discontinuous PWM generation.

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Figure 24: Modulation index 1.1 over modulation- Harmonic spectrum.

Figure 25: Modulation index 1.1 over modulation-Frequency spectrum.

Figure 26: Modulation index 0.5 low modulation.

Figure 27: Modulation index 0.5 low modulation- Harmonic spectrum.

Figure 28: Modulation index 0.5 low modulation- Frequency spectrum. Hardware results A hardware set three phase five level cascaded inverter has been built to validate the theoretical analysis. The hardware parameters are as following FSBB20CH60 Smart Power Module three phase load R = 100 ohms, 20mH, each source Vdc is equal to 10V. The diagrams of leg voltage and its FFT analysis for modulation indexes 0.9, 1.1,0.5 are measured and shown in fig.29,30,31,32,33,34. These diagrams are similar to the simulated waveforms in fig. 8 to 28.

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A. Multicarrier subharmonic pulse width modulation (MC-SH PWM).

Figure 29: Modulation index 0.9 Phase voltage.

Figure 30: Modulation index 1.1 Phase voltage.

Figure 31: Modulation index 0.5 Phase voltage.

B. Multicarrier Switching Frequency Optimal Pulse Width Modulation (MC-SFO PWM).

Figure 32: Modulation index 0.9 Phase voltage.

Figure 33: Modulation index 1.1 Phase voltage.

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Figure 34: Modulation index 0.5 Phase voltage.

Conclusion
In this paper, two new schemes adopting the multi carrier PWM concept are proposed. The MC-SH PWM strategy reduces the THD and MC-SFO PWM strategies enhances the fundamental output voltage. When Modulation Index is equal to 0.9 by adopting MC-SH PWM strategy the THD value is 6.68 and output voltage is reduced to 9V. To increase the output voltage MC-SFO PWM strategy is used where output voltage value is increased to 10V. Those schemes confirmed by simulation results and experimental results.

References
[1] J.Rodriguez, Jih-sheng Lai, and F Zheng peng, Multilevel Inverters; A Survey of Topologies, Controls, and Applications, IEEE Trans.Ind.Electron., vol.49 , no4., pp.724-738. Aug.2002. K.A Corzine, and Y.L Familiant, A New Cascaded Multi-level H-Bridge Drive, IEEE Trans. Power.Electron., vol.17, no.1, pp.125-131. Jan 2002. G.Carrara, S.Gardella, M.Marchesoni, R.salutari,and G.sciutto, A New Multilevel PWM Method; A theoretical analysis, IEEE Trans. Power.Electron., vol.7, no.3, pp.497-505. Jul.1992. L.M.Tolber, T.G.Habetler, Noval Multilevel Inverter Carrier based PWM Method, IEEE Ind.Appli., vol.35. pp.1098-1107. Sep/Oct 1999. B.P.McGrath and Holmes, Multicarrier PWM strategies for multilevel inverter, IEEE Trans.Ind.Electron., vol.49, no.4, pp.858-867. Aug.2002. A.M Hava, R.JKerman , and T.A Lipo, Carrier-based PWM-VSI Overmodulation Strategies: Analysis, Comparison, and Design, IEEE Trans. Power.Electron., vol.13, no.4, pp.674-689. Jul.1998.

[2] [3]

[4] [5] [6]

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Palanivel. P received M.E degree in Electrical Engineering from Anna University, chenni, India in 2004. He is currently pursuing the Ph.D in Electrical Engineering at the SRM University , Chennai ,India. He is presently working as a senior lecturer in MAM college of Engineering Tirchy , India. His research interests are in Power Quality improvements in Inverters, Multilevel inverters & Resonant Inverters. Subhransu Sekhar Dash received the M.E degree in Electrical Engineering from UCE Burla , Orissa, India and Ph.D degree in Electrical Engineering from Anna University in 1996 and 2006 respectively. He is presently working as professor in SRM University Chennai ,India. His area of interest include Power Quality , Inverters, Multilevel Inverters, Power System Operation , Control & Stability and Intelligent controlling Techniques.