Sanjeevikumar Padmanabana,b, Michael Pechtc
a Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, University of South Africa, Auckland Park, Johannesburg, South Africa
b Research and Development, Division of Power Electronics, Ohm Technologies, Chennai, India
c CALCE, Center for Advanced Life Cycle Engineering, Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20740, USA
Abstract:
This article is devoted to the development of a novel isolated/non-isolated multilevel inverter configuration
for a dual three-phase star-winding converter. The proposed topology fits the (low-voltage/highcurrent)
applications of medium-power, AC tractions and More-Electric Aircraft (MEA) propulsion systems.
The power circuit module consists of voltage source inverters (VSIs) with isolated/non-isolated
DC supply. Further, each single phase of the VSI is introduced with one bi-directional switching device
(MOSFET/IGBT) and two capacitors with linked neutral points. Also, an original modified single-carrier
five-level modulation (MSCFM) algorithm is developed in this article that easy to implement in real digital
processors. The proposed modulation algorithm generates 5-level output voltages at each terminal of
the VSI as equivalent to standard multilevel inverters. The observed results are presented by numerical
modeling of the complete AC converter system with (Matlab/PLECS) simulation software. The investigation
confirms that the results are in good agreement with the developed theoretical background and the
proposed multilevel inverter is applicable to asymmetrical and symmetrical dual three-phase starwinding
converter configurations.
This article is available online here and to CALCE Consortium Members for personal review.