(4)
(5)
(a)
TABLE II
DESIRABLE DRIVE APPLICATIONS FOR AC–AC CONVERTERS
Fig. 7. Optimal PWM control increases the voltage transfer ratio at high
frequencies (f =
90 Hz, f = 8 kHz).
Fig. 8. Voltage and current of ac–ac converter fed induction motor drive at 460
V output (f = 40 Hz, f = 8 kHz).
Fig. 10. Motor current and control signal under an emergency stop.
put voltage spectrum analysis is illustrated in Fig. 9. A pre- Fig. 12. Input current and voltage of an ac–ac converter operating a 10-hp
induction motor at 60 Hz (light load).
cise fundamental component is obtained at the commanded fre-
quency, while high-order PWM harmonics are centered at an
8-kHz switching frequency, which is placed far away from the By further applying a pulse-drop technique, the voltage
fundamental frequency. The ac–ac converter operates from 0 to transfer ratio of 95.5% can be achieved. The ratio of 95.5% is
240 Hz with a satisfactory inherent regeneration. chosen to match the voltage transfer ratio of today’s industrial
An instantaneous stopping of the ac–ac converter is a con- inverter-fed ac drive products. In this case, the corresponding
cern for safe operation due to a rapid cessation of the in- fifth and seventh harmonics introduced by the overmodulation
ductive load current. Fig. 10 illustrates the motor current and can be partially compensated by adjusting the converter system
control signal under an emergency stop situation. The power parameters, such as the input filter, depending on the applica-
circuit and control design of this system ensure safe opera- tion requirement.
tion under an emergency stop without inducing overvoltage An initial test and evaluation of the input power quality of the
or overcurrent that could stress the power switching devices. ac–ac converter has been performed at light load conditions. The
Due to space constraints, further analysis will be detailed in a voltage transfer ratio of 95.5% can be achieved with a relatively
future report. good quality of input current control at light-load test condi-
tions. Input current and voltage of the ac–ac converter with an
VII. INITIAL EVALUATION OF INPUT POWER QUALITIES induction motor load at 30% of the rated slip frequency are il-
An example waveform of the ac–ac converter input-side mod- lustrated in Fig. 12.
ulation is illustrated in Fig. 11. In Fig. 12, Trace 1 shows the input voltage waveform at
This modulation pattern requires low switching frequency at 60 Hz with no voltage glitches and spikes during the de-
the input side and contains no fifth and seventh harmonics. To- vice commutation. As illustrated in Trace 2 of Fig. 12, the
gether with the triplen harmonic injection technique highlighted continuous and approximated sine-wave input line current at
in Fig. 7, this modulation method shown in Fig. 11 can obtain a 60 Hz is achievable. This type of continuous and approxi-
voltage transfer ratio of 91%. mated sine waveform would improve the total power factor
CHANG et al.: HIGHLY COMPACT AC–AC CONVERTER ACHIEVING HIGH VOLTAGE TRANSFER RATIO 351
VIII. CONCLUSION
This paper reports a novel, highly integrated modular design
approach for ac–ac converters based on a modular phase-bank
structure. Novel high-power 3-in-1 integrated IBPMs rated at
1200 V and 150 A and the 3-to-1 phase-bank circuits have been
successfully developed, fabricated, and tested. This enables
the modularity design of the multiphase converter systems and
reduces the critical parasitic inductance. A theoretical analysis
of the IBPM’s silicon utilization for this new breed of direct
power converters has been outlined. A lab prototype at medium
power level has been successfully designed, implemented, and
(a) tested, yielding a good performance. A 458-Vrms out voltage
at an 1 : 0.955 voltage transfer ratio, which, perhaps, is the
highest performance reported so far in the literature, has been
achieved by the novel two-side modulation control system. The
converter-fed ac motor system is able to operate over 0–240 Hz
with the inherent regenerative capability and the four-quadrant
operation.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors gratefully acknowledge the valuable con-
tributions and support from their colleagues at Rockwell,
(b)
especially Dr. J. Hu, D. Braun, Dr. D. Cheung, Dr. T. Nondahl,
Dr. G. Skibinski, Dr. R. Kerkman, W. Weber, L. Penkowski,
Fig. 13. Illustration of the current spectrum of the conventional inverter with and K. Hall. Special thanks are due to D. Harvey,
a diode-rectifier front-end bridge. (a) Input current waveform of the diode Dr. R. Bayerer, Dr. T. Schutze, J. Thurau, and N. Perkins of
rectifier. (b) Spectrum of the input current.
Eupec, Inc., for their support of a device fabrication. Special
thanks are extended to S. Field and G. Campisi at the U.S.
on the input side and further improve the energy conversion Office of Naval Research. Thanks are also due to J. Zhang for
efficiency as compared with the conventional inverter with a his documentation support.
rectifier front end. Trace 3 illustrates the output motor current
operating at 60 Hz in an open loop volt/hertz control mode
with a high-quality sinusoidal modulation. It is expected the REFERENCES
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352 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 49, NO. 2, APRIL 2002
Jie (Jay) Chang (S’86–M’88–SM’92) received the Tom Sun received the B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in
M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering electrical engineering, specializing in high-perfor-
from the University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, mance DSP circuit and digital systems, and real-time
Canada. control system. He is currently working toward the
Since 1996, he has been with Rockwell Science Ph.D. degree at the University of California, Los
Center (RSC), Thousand Oaks, CA, as a Principal Angeles.
Scientist, Manager of Control and Power Tech- He has more than ten years of working experience
nology. He is a founder of the power electronics in industry electronics circuit design.
system laboratory and power and control programs
at RSC and a Member of the Rockwell Technical
Panel on Power Electronics. He has been responsible
for establishing strategically critical power control
programs at RSC and responsible for the program resources, successful
execution, and technical deliverables of the multiple-million-dollar programs
per year. From 1988 to 1995, he assumed key industrial positions, including
Principal Engineer and Senior Principal Engineer at Reliance Electric Research
Center; Senior R&D Engineer at Westinghouse Electric and V.P. of Engineering
at TASC Drives and Electrical South, Inc. He was a key technical contributor Anhua Wang received the B.Sc. degree in electrical
to several brand-name IGBT ac drive products of Reliance Electric and engineering.
Westinghouse, including SA3000, SB3000, and ACUTRAL700 made in the She is a Member of Technical Staff at Rockwell
U.S., from fractional to 1000 hp, as well as three-level PWM inverters and Scientific Company, Thousand Oaks, CA. She has
control systems. He has more than 18 years of experience in advanced power more than ten years working experience in power
converters and systems, high-performance and high-power ac motor drives, converters and electronics design, prototyping,
real-time control, and electrical motor diagnostics. At RSC, he served as and fabrication. She also has high-level skills of
Program Manager (PM) and Principal Investigator (PI) for several contractual fabrication and miniaturization of various electronics
programs of the U.S. Government, Boeing, and Rockwell in advanced power sensors and circuits. She has authored more than
conversion, control, and embedded diagnostics systems. He has authored more ten technical publications in the areas of advanced
than 45 published technical papers and is the holeder of several patents. power converters and control and sensors.