Si/SiC Hybrid 5-level Active NPC Inverter for Electric Aircraft Propulsion Drive Applications

doi:10.23919/CJEE.2020.000031

Chinese Journal of Electrical Engineering ›› 2020, Vol. 6 ›› Issue (4): 63-76.doi: 10.23919/CJEE.2020.000031

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

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Si/SiC Hybrid 5-level Active NPC Inverter for Electric Aircraft Propulsion Drive Applications

Majid T. Fard¹, Mostafa Abarzadeh², Kiavash A. Noghani³, Jiangbiao He^1,*, Kamal Al-Haddad³

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;
3. Department of Electrical Engineering, École de Technologie Supérieure (ÉTS), Montreal, H3C 1K3, Canada;

Received:2020-09-20 Revised:2020-11-20 Accepted:2020-12-08 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 theUniversity 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 efficiency and high power-density propulsion drives for more-electric aircraft systems, fault-tolerant operation of power converters for safety-critical applications, and transportation electrification.
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.
Kiavash A. Noghani was born in Mashhad, Iran in 1983. He received the B.S. degree in electrical engineering from the Islamic Azad University, Sabzevar, Iran, in 2009 and the M.S. degree in electrical engineering from the École de Technologie Superieure (ÉTS), University of Quebec, Montreal, QC, Canada, in 2019. Since early 2020, he has been a Research Assistant and Power Electronics Designer with the Groupe de Recherche en Électronique de Puissance et Commande Industrielle (GRÉPCI-ETS) Laboratory. His research interests include modeling, control, and modulation of the power electronics multilevel converter topologies and MMC in grid-connected and stand-alone applications.
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.
Kamal Al-Haddad (S'82-M'88-SM'92- F'07-LF'20) received the B.S. and M.S. degrees from the University of Québec à Trois-Rivières, Canada, in 1982 and 1984, respectively, and the Ph.D. degree from the Institute National Polythechnique, Toulouse, France, in 1988. Since June 1990, he has been a Professor with the Electrical Engineering Department, École de Technologie Supérieure (ETS), Montreal, QC, where he has been the holder of the senior Canada Research Chair in Electric Energy Conversion and Power Electronics since 2002. He has supervised more than 180 Ph.D. and M.S. students working in the field of power electronics. He is a Consultant and has established very solid link with many Canadian industries working in the field of power electronics, electric transportation, aeronautics, and telecommunications. He has coauthored more than 600 transactions and conference papers. His fields of interest are in high efficient static power converters, harmonics and reactive power control using hybrid filters, switch mode, resonant and multilevel converters including the modeling, control, and development of prototypes for various industrial applications in electric traction, renewable energy, power supplies for drives, telecommunication, etc. Prof. Al-Haddad is a fellow member of the Canadian Academy of Engineering. He is IEEE IES President 2016-2017, Associate editor of the Transactions on Industrial Informatics, IES Distinguished Lecturer and recipient of the 2014 IEEE IES Dr.-Ing. Eugene Mittelmann Achievement Award. Prof. Al-Haddad is a member of the Academy of Sciences and fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.

Abstract

Abstract: Medium voltage DC(MVDC) system is considered as a promising technology to improve the efficiency and power density of electric aircraft propulsion(EAP) drives. To adapt to the MVDC voltage level and achieve high drive performance, a five-level active neutral point clamped(5L-ANPC) inverter consisting of three-level ANPC and flying capacitor circuits is investigated, which possesses higher voltage capability, lower output harmonics, as well as mitigated dv/dt and common-mode voltage. To fulfill the requirements of high-speed operation and pursue further enhanced efficiency and power density of the inverter for the next-generation EAP drives, Silicon Carbide(SiC) semiconductor devices are considered for implementing the 5L-ANPC inverter. However, the large commutation loops associated with certain switching states of the inverter lessen the benefits of configuring all the switches as SiC devices. As a result, a hybrid Si/SiC 5L-ANPC inverter is developed with a synchronous optimal pulse(SOP) width modulation strategy for controlling the switches in cell 2 and finite-control-set model predictive controller(FCS-MPC) for those in cell 3 of the inverter. Consequently, in the proposed topology, the SiC devices are merely used for the high-frequency switches in cell 3 and the rest of the low-frequency switches are configured with Si IGBTs. This Si/SiC hybrid ANPC inverter concurrently provides high efficiency and low implementation cost at high-speed operation mode. Simulation and experimental results are provided to verify the effectiveness of the proposed hybrid inverter.

Key words: Five-level ANPC, flying capacitor, SOP, FCS-MPC, carrier-based modulation, high efficiency, MVDC, electric aircraft propulsion

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.

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Si/SiC Hybrid 5-level Active NPC Inverter for Electric Aircraft Propulsion Drive Applications

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