Chinese Journal of Electrical Engineering ›› 2021, Vol. 7 ›› Issue (4): 78-92.doi: 10.23919/CJEE.2021.000039

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Modulation and Voltage Balancing Control of Dual Five-level ANPC Inverter for Ship Electric Propulsion Systems

Xiaohui Xu1, Xingchi Song1, Kui Wang2,*, Nianzhou Liu1, Wenfeng Long1, Zedong Zheng2, Yongdong Li2   

  1. 1. Science and Technology on Ship Integrated Power System Technology Laboratory, Wuhan Institute of Marine Electric Propulsion, Wuhan 430070, China;
    2. China State Key Laboratory of Power System, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
  • Received:2020-11-19 Revised:2021-01-22 Accepted:2021-08-26 Online:2021-12-25 Published:2022-01-07
  • Contact: *E-mail: wangkui@tsinghua.edu.cn
  • About author:Xiaohui Xu received his B.S. degree and M.S. degree in Mechatronics from Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China, in 2004 and 2007 respectively. He has been working in Wuhan Electric Propulsion Research Institute since 2007. His research interests include multiphase permanent magnet motor control and high power inverter design.
    Xingchi Song received his B.S. degree and M.S. degree in Mechatronics from Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan, China, in 2015 and 2018 respectively. He has been working in Wuhan Electric Propulsion Research Institute since 2018. His research interests include structure design of marine propulsion inverters and high power density inverters.
    Kui Wang (M'11-SM'19) received his B.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from the Department of Electrical Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, in 2006 and 2011, respectively. From 2018 to 2019, he was a Visiting Scholar at the Center for Ultra-wide-area Resilient Electric Energy Transmission Networks (CURENT), University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN. He is currently an Assistant Researcher with the Department of Electrical Engineering, Tsinghua University. His research interests include topology and control of multilevel converters, renewable energy generation and wide band-gap semiconductor applications.
    Nianzhou Liu received his B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from Wuhan University, Wuhan, China, in 2001 and M.S. degree from Wuhan Institute of Marin Electric Propulsion, Wuhan, China, in 2004. He is current a Senior Engineer with Wuhan Institute of Marin Electric Propulsion. His research interests include topology and control of multilevel converters, and high-performance motor control systems.
    Wenfeng Long received his B.S. degree and M.S. degree in Mechatronics from Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan, China, in 1996 and 2005 respectively. He is current a Research Fellow with Wuhan Electric Propulsion Research Institute. His research interests include the design of marine high-power permanent magnet propulsion system, frequency converter control, vibration and noise reduction technology, etc.
    Zedong Zheng (M'09-SM'19) received his B.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from the Department of Electrical Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, in 2003 and 2008, respectively. He is currently an Associate Professor with the Department of Electrical Engineering, Tsinghua University. His research interests include power electronics transformers and high-performance motor control systems.
    Yongdong Li (M'08-SM'19) received the B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from Harbin Institute of Technology, China, in 1982 and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from the Department of Electrical Engineering, Institut National Polytechnique de Toulouse, Toulouse, France, in 1984 and 1987, respectively. Since 1996, he has been a Professor with the Department of Electrical Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China. His research interests include power electronics, machine control, and transportation electrification.

Abstract: Open-end winding motors are used extensively in ship electric propulsion systems, in which medium-voltage high-power inverters are a critical component. To increase the system voltage and power density, a dual five-level active neutral-point clamped (ANPC) inverter is proposed herein to drive medium-voltage open-end winding motors for ship electric propulsion. Each phase of this inverter comprises two five-level ANPC bridges and all the phases are powered by a common direct-current link. A hybrid modulation method is proposed to control this inverter. The series-connected switches in all the five-level ANPC bridges are operated at the fundamental frequency, and the other switches are controlled with a phase-shifted pulse-width modulation (PWM), which can achieve a natural balance between the neutral-point voltage and flying capacitor voltages in a carrier period. A closed-loop capacitor voltage balancing method based on adjusting the duty ratios of the PWM signals is proposed. The neutral-point voltage and flying capacitor voltages can be controlled independently and balanced without affecting the output phase voltage. Simulation and experimental results are presented to demonstrate the validity of this method.

Key words: Multilevel inverter, active neutral-point clamped (ANPC), capacitor voltage balance, open-end winding motor drive