Fast Online Diagnosis of Open-circuit Switching Faults in Flying Capacitor Multilevel Inverters

doi:10.23919/CJEE.2020.000030

Chinese Journal of Electrical Engineering ›› 2020, Vol. 6 ›› Issue (4): 53-62.doi: 10.23919/CJEE.2020.000030

Special Issue: Special Issue on Switched-Capacitor Circuits and Partial Processing Techniques

• Special Issue Papers • Previous Articles Next Articles

扫码分享

Fast Online Diagnosis of Open-circuit Switching Faults in Flying Capacitor Multilevel Inverters

Majid T. Fard¹, Waqar A. Khan², Jiangbiao He^1,*, Nathan Weise², Mostafa Abarzadeh²

1. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY 40506, USA;
2. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI 53233, USA

Received:2020-08-12 Revised:2020-09-24 Accepted:2020-10-23 Online:2020-12-25 Published:2021-01-15
Contact: *E-mail: jiangbiao@ieee.org
About author:Majid T. Fard (S'19) received the B.S. and M.S. degrees in electrical engineering with an emphasis on power energy conversion and renewable energies from the University of Tabriz, Iran in 2013 and 2016, respectively. He is currently working toward the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering at the University of Kentucky, KY, USA. He previously worked in industry, as an R&D engineer and project manager at the IKCO (EKS) automotive company in Iran. His research interests include high-power high-frequency propulsion drives for more-electric aircraft systems, fault-tolerant operation of power converters for safety-critical applications, and renewable energy power conversion.
Waqar A. Khan (S'18) received the B.S. degree in electrical engineering from University of Engineering and Technology, Taxila, Pakistan and an M.S. degree (with Hons.) in electrical engineering from Aalto University, Finland in 2016. He began pursuing his Ph.D. at Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI in 2018. His research interests include wide band gap devices, design/modulation techniques of multilevel power converters and digital control of grid-connected power converters and motor drives.
Jiangbiao He (S'08-M'15-SM'16) is an assistant professor in electric power area with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Kentucky, USA. He previously worked in industry, most recently as a lead engineer with GE Global Research, Niskayuna, New York. He also worked at Eaton Corporation and Rockwell Automation before he joined GE in 2015. He received the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from Marquette University, WI, USA. His research interests include high-performance propulsion drives for electric transportation, renewable energies and energy storage, and fault-tolerant power conversion systems for safety-critical applications. He has authored more than 90 technical papers and 10 U.S. patents in electric power area. Dr. He has served as an editor or Associate Editor for several IEEE Transactions journals. He also served in the organizing committees for various IEEE international conferences (IEMDC-2017, ECCE-2018, ITEC-2019, etc.), and has been an active member of multiple IEEE standards working groups. He is a recipient of the 2019 AWS Outstanding Young Member Achievement Award from IEEE Industry Applications Society.
Nathan Weise (M'08-SM'18) received the B.S. degree in computer engineering, the M.S. degree in electrical engineering with an emphasis on wireless, and the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering with an emphasis on power from the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA, in 2005, 2007, and 2011, respectively. He was an electrical engineer with Cummins Power Generation, Minneapolis, MN, USA, and General Electric Global Research, Niskayuna, NY, USA. He joined Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI, USA, as an assistant professor in 2014. His current research interests include power electronics, power converters, wave energy conversion, electrification of transportation, all-electric aircraft, fault tolerance, control of renewable energy sources, digital control of power electronics, and wide bandgap devices.
Mostafa Abarzadeh (S'15-M'16-SM'19) received the B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. (All with Hons.) degrees in electrical engineering from Sahand University of Technology (SUT), Tabriz, Iran, in 2008, 2011, and 2016, respectively.He was a visiting Ph.D. researcher with Aalborg University, Denmark, in 2015. From 2016 to 2017, he was an assistant professor with the Electrical Engineering Faculty of SUT. From 2017 to 2019, he was a postdoctoral research fellow with the Canada Research Chair in Electric Energy Conversion and Power Electronics, École de Technologie Supérieure (ÉTS), University of Quebec, Canada. Currently, he is a postdoctoral research associate with the EMPOWER Lab., Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI, US. He has authored or co-authored over 40 journal and conference papers and book chapters and holds 6 patents. He has been a principle investigator (PI) of industrial and research grants in the field of the industrial electronics. He has implemented more than 25 industrial and research projects in the field of the industrial electronics and he has transferred know-how technologies to industry for more than 10 industrial and research projects. Since 2006, he has been a member of the Iran's National Elites Foundation. He was a recipient of the Best Poster Presentation Award from the IEEE Energy Conversion Congress and Exposition (ECCE) in 2015. His current research interests include high performance high power density power electronic converters based on wide band gap (WBG) devices, as well as topology, modeling, control and modulation of power electronic converters, hybrid multilevel inverters, and applications of power electronics in renewable energy conversion, transportation electrification, power grid, and variable-speed motor drives.

Abstract

Abstract: Flying capacitor multilevel (FCML) inverter is an attractive power converter topology which provides high-quality staircase output voltage waveforms by cascading flying capacitor cells. However, the large number of semiconductor devices utilized in the FCML inverters degrades the hardware reliability, which may constrain such converters from being applied in safety-critical applications. Targeting at open-circuit switching faults, a fast online fault diagnostic method for FCML inverters is presented. Conventional phase-shifted PWM (PSPWM), which can naturally balance the voltage across flying capacitors, is used as the modulation method in this work. Hence, to retain the simplicity feature of the PSPWM, the proposed diagnostic method is developed so that it does not require any voltage measurements of flying capacitors. Only the output AC voltage and current data along with the switching PWM signals from the microcontroller are needed to detect an open-circuit switching fault, and all such sensory data is typically available in the inverter, requiring no additional sensors or hardware for the implementation of this diagnostic method. The detection process takes 5% of the fundamental period of the inverter output signals to diagnose the faulty switch. Simulation and experimental results are presented to verify the effectiveness of the proposed diagnostic method.

Key words: Open-circuit, fault diagnosis, flying capacitor, multilevel inverter, wide bandgap devices, PSPWM

Majid T. Fard, Waqar A. Khan, Jiangbiao He, Nathan Weise, Mostafa Abarzadeh. Fast Online Diagnosis of Open-circuit Switching Faults in Flying Capacitor Multilevel Inverters[J]. Chinese Journal of Electrical Engineering, 2020, 6(4): 53-62.

References

[1] J Rodriguez, J Lai, F Z Peng.Multilevel inverters: A survey of topologies, controls, and applications.IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics, 2002, 49(4): 724-738.
[2] S Qin, Y Lei, Z Ye, et al.A high-power-density power factor correction front end based on seven-level flying capacitor multilevel converter.IEEE Journal of Emerging and Selected Topics in Power Electronics, 2019, 7(3): 1883-1898.
[3] C B Barth, P Assem, T Foulkes, et al.Design and control of a gan-based, 13-level, flying capacitor multilevel inverter.IEEE Journal of Emerging and Selected Topics in Power Electronics, 2020, 8(3): 179-2191.
[4] J Falck, C Felgemacher, A Rojko, et al.Reliability of power electronic systems: An industry perspective.IEEE Industrial Electronics Magazine, 2018, 12(2): 24-35.
[5] Y Cheng, W Dong, F Gao, et al.Open-circuit fault diagnosis of traction inverter based on compressed sensing theory.Chinese Journal of Electrical Engineering, 2020, 6(1): 52-60.
[6] V Smet, F Forest, J Huselstein, et al.Ageing and failure modes of IGBT modules in high-temperature power cycling.IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics, 2011, 58(10): 4931-4941.
[7] J He, L Wei, N A O Demerdash. Power cycling lifetime improvement of three-level NPC inverters with an improved DPWM method. Applied Power Electronics Conference and Exposition (APEC), IEEE, 2016: 2826-2832.
[8] B Lu, S K Sharma.A literature review of IGBT fault diagnostic and protection methods for power inverters.IEEE Transactions on Industry Applications, 2009, 45(5): 1770-1777.
[9] T Krone, C Xu, A Mertens.Fast and easily implementable detection circuits for short circuits of power semiconductors.IEEE Transactions on Industry Applications, 2017, 53(3): 2871-2879.
[10] D Sadik, J Colmenares, G Tolstoy, et al.Short-circuit protection circuits for silicon-carbide power transistors.IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics, 2016, 63(4): 1995-2004.
[11] Z Wang, X Shi, Y Xue, et al.Design and performance evaluation of overcurrent protection schemes for silicon carbide (SiC) power mosfets.IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics, 2014, 61(10): 5570-5581.
[12] J Amini, M Moallem.A fault-diagnosis and fault-tolerant control scheme for flying capacitor multilevel inverters. IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics, 2016, 64(3): 1818-1826.
[13] J Druant, T Vyncke, F De Belie, et al.Adding inverter fault detection to model-based predictive control for flying-capacitor inverters.IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics, 2014, 62(4): 2054-2063.
[14] R P Aguilera, D E Quevedo, T J Summers, et al.Predictive control algorithm robustness for achieving fault tolerance in multicell converters. 34th Annual Conference of IEEE Industrial Electronics, IEEE, 2008: 3302-3308.
[15] X Kou, K A Corzine, Y L Familiant.A unique fault-tolerant design for flying capacitor multilevel inverter.IEEE Transactions on power electronics, 2004, 19(4): 979-987.
[16] A Chen, C Zhang, X He, et al.Fault-tolerant design for flying capacitor multilevel inverters. 6th International Power Electronics and Motion Control Conference, IEEE, 2009: 1460-1464.
[17] J He, N A Demerdash, N Weise, et al.A fast on-line diagnostic method for open-circuit switch faults in SiC-MOSFET-based T-type multilevel inverters.IEEE Transactions on Industry Applications, 2017, 53(3): 2948-2958.
[18] F Bento, A J M Cardoso. A comprehensive survey on fault diagnosis and fault tolerance of DC-DC converters.Chinese Journal of Electrical Engineering, 2018, 4(3): 1-12.
[19] W A Khan, S Vahid, M R U Rahman, et al. An optimized phase shifted PWM for flying capacitor multilevel converter. Energy Conversion Congress and Exposition (ECCE), IEEE, 2019: 5104-5108.
[20] S Thielemans, A Ruderman, B Reznikov, et al.Improved natural balancing with modified phase-shifted PWM for single-leg five level flying-capacitor converters.IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics, 2011, 27(4): 1658-1667.
[21] A Shukla, A Ghosh, A Josh.Flying capacitor multilevel inverter and its applications in series compensation of transmission lines. IEEE Power Engineering Society General Meeting, IEEE, 2004: 1453-1458.
[22] M T Fard, J He, Z Wang.Fault diagnosis and fault-tolerant operation of current source inverter for safety-critical applications. IEEE Transportation Electrification Conference & Expo (ITEC). IEEE, 2020: 925-929.

Fast Online Diagnosis of Open-circuit Switching Faults in Flying Capacitor Multilevel Inverters

PDF

Knowledge

Abstract

Cite this article

share this article

References

Related Articles 15

Recommended Articles

Metrics

Comments

[1]	ZHENG Huailiang, WANG Rixin, YANG Yuantao, YIN Jiancheng, XU Minqiang. An Empirical Analysis about the Generalization Performance of Data-driven Fault Diagnosis Methods [J]. Journal of Mechanical Engineering, 2020, 56(9): 102-117.
[2]	ZHENG Jinde, PAN Haiyang, CHENG Junsheng, BAO Jiahan, LIU Qingyun, DING Keqin. Adaptive Empirical Fourier Decomposition Based Mechanical Fault Diagnosis Method [J]. Journal of Mechanical Engineering, 2020, 56(9): 125-136.
[3]	LI Zhinong, LIU Jie, LU Wenxiu, CHU Fulei. Research on Dynamic Modeling and Simulation of Rotors with Loose Disc [J]. Journal of Mechanical Engineering, 2020, 56(7): 60-71.
[4]	ZHOU Xingkang, YU Jianbo. Gearbox Fault Diagnosis Based on One-dimension Residual Convolutional Auto-encoder [J]. Journal of Mechanical Engineering, 2020, 56(7): 96-108.
[5]	Majid T. Fard, Mostafa Abarzadeh, Kiavash A. Noghani, Jiangbiao He, Kamal Al-Haddad. Si/SiC Hybrid 5-level Active NPC Inverter for Electric Aircraft Propulsion Drive Applications [J]. Chinese Journal of Electrical Engineering, 2020, 6(4): 63-76.
[6]	ZHU Jianxin, CHEN Xuedong, Lü Baolin, WANG Yifang, QIAO Song, CHEN Jiahong. Smart Failure/Fault Diagnosis and Influence Analysis for Mechanical Equipment with Multivariate Gaussian Bayesian Method [J]. Journal of Mechanical Engineering, 2020, 56(4): 35-41.
[7]	ZHAO Dezun, WANG Tianyang, CHU Fulei. Adaptive Generalized Demodulation Transform Based Rolling Bearing Time-varying Nonstationary Fault Feature Extraction [J]. Journal of Mechanical Engineering, 2020, 56(3): 80-87.
[8]	Yuanyuan Xu, Jun Wang, Kun Xiong, Geng Yin. A Novel 5-level Flying Capacitor Bridgeless PFC Converter Based on Cost-effective Low-voltage eGaN FETs^* [J]. Chinese Journal of Electrical Engineering, 2020, 6(3): 56-64.
[9]	Caixia Tao, Xu Wang, Fengyang Gao, Min Wang. Fault Diagnosis of Photovoltaic Array Based on Deep Belief Network Optimized by Genetic Algorithm^* [J]. Chinese Journal of Electrical Engineering, 2020, 6(3): 106-114.
[10]	GAO Guibing, WANG Junshen, YUE Wenhui, PENG Jianhua. Fault Diagnosis and Maintain of Manufacturing Equipment Based on Vulnerability [J]. Journal of Mechanical Engineering, 2020, 56(23): 141-149.
[11]	CHEN Shiqian, PENG Zhike, ZHOU Peng. Review of Signal Decomposition Theory and Its Applications in Machine Fault Diagnosis [J]. Journal of Mechanical Engineering, 2020, 56(17): 91-107.
[12]	LI Yunhua, FAN Rujun, YANG Liman, ZHAO Bin, QUAN Long. Research Status and Development Trend of Intelligent Excavators [J]. Journal of Mechanical Engineering, 2020, 56(13): 165-178.
[13]	WANG Xiufeng, HONG Yincong, QIU Damou. Fault Diagnosis and Mechanism Study of Water-film Whirl in Vertical Reactor Coolant Pumps [J]. Journal of Mechanical Engineering, 2020, 56(11): 89-95.
[14]	CHEN Kun, MAO Zhiwei, ZHANG Jinjie, JIANG Zhinong. Diesel Engine Fault Diagnosis Based on Stack Autoencoder Optimized by Harmony Search [J]. Journal of Mechanical Engineering, 2020, 56(11): 132-140.
[15]	Fujin Deng, Yongqing Lü, Chengkai Liu, Qian Heng, Qiang Yu, Jifeng Zhao. Overview on Submodule Topologies, Modeling, Modulation, Control Schemes, Fault Diagnosis, and Tolerant Control Strategies of Modular Multilevel Converters^* [J]. Chinese Journal of Electrical Engineering, 2020, 6(1): 1-21.