Carrier phase error detection method and synchronization control of parallel‐connected PWM inverters without signal line

In recent years, parallel operation of inverters is employed to increase reliability and capacity in an uninterruptible power supply (UPS) system. A phase error in PWM carrier‐signals of each inverter causes high‐frequency loop current between inverters. Therefore, the PWM carrier‐signal of each inverter should be adjusted in phase. This paper proposes a detection method of phase error in PWM carrier‐signal and its application to synchronization control for parallel‐connected inverters. A simple definite‐integral circuit achieves detection of the carrier phase error from high‐frequency loop current using no signal line between inverters. The detected carrier phase error is applied to synchronize the PWM carrier‐signal through a PI compensator, and then the high‐frequency loop current can be suppressed. Several experimental test results show the validity of the proposed detection method and synchronization control. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 157(1): 63– 71, 2006; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( http://www.interscience.wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/eej.20143     

Newly proposed hybrid resonant commutation bridge‐leg link snubber‐assisted three‐phase ZVZCS‐PWM soft‐switching inverter

This paper presents the newly proposed hybrid resonant commutation bridge‐leg link (HRCB) snubber circuit which can achieve zero voltage and zero current soft‐switching commutation for single‐phase and three‐phase voltage source‐type inverter, along with its unique features and operation principle. The circuit parameter design approach for the HRCB snubber circuit and the determination estimating scheme of the gate pulse timing processing which is more suitable and acceptable for single‐phase and space voltage vector modulated three‐phase voltage source inverter using the HRCB snubber circuit are described in this paper. In particular, the three‐phase voltage source soft‐switching inverter associated with the proposed HRCB circuits are evaluated and discussed from simulation and experimental viewpoints. The practical effectiveness of the HRCB snubber‐assisted three‐phase voltage source soft‐switching inverter using IGBT power modules which is based on the instantaneous space voltage vector modulation is clarified on the output voltage waveform, actual efficiency of electromagnetic noise in comparison with three‐phase voltage source‐type conventional hard‐switching inverter. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 157(4): 75–84, 2006; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www.interscience.wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/eej.20111     

Development of time comparison equipment for ETS‐VIII satellite

Engineering Test Satellite VIII (ETS‐VIII) is planning to be launched in 2005 for fundamental studies on satellite positioning technologies and is the one first to have installed a highly precise cesium clock in Japan. To measure the clock offset between the satellite and the TCE earth station, Time Comparison Equipment (TCE) has been developed by NICT. The TCE will be used to measure both code and carrier phases and this system will improve two‐way time and frequency transfer. This equipment makes it possible to compare two clocks with high precision. Moreover, TCE and TCE earth stations have abilities to remove the delay caused by terrestrial ionosphere and that between the receivers and transmitters. We estimated measurement precision in code and carrier phases. Furthermore, from the examinations using TCE‐EM (Engineering Model), we confirmed that TCE is able to measure the clock phases with a subnanosecond precision by code phase observation and a precision of a few picoseconds by carrier phase observation. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 158(3): 61–71, 2007; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www.interscience.wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/eej.20385     

Ultrafast all‐optical switching using pulse trapping by ultrashort soliton pulse in birefringent optical fiber

Ultrafast all‐optical switching by use of pulse trapping in birefringent optical fiber is demonstrated both experimentally and numerically. The wavelengths of the control soliton pulse and the trapped soliton pulse are shifted to satisfy the condition of group velocity matching. Furthermore, the energy of the trapped pulse is increased through Raman gain of the control pulse. Only a signal pulse in the pulse train with temporal separation of about 1.2 ps is successfully picked off. The repetition frequency corresponds to 0.83 THz. The spectrogram of the optical switching is directly observed using the X‐FROG technique. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 158(3): 38–44, 2007; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www.interscience.wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/eej.20470     

Design of multi‐input multi‐output minimum‐phase state control system with decoupling and feedforward compensation

This paper discusses the design of decoupling control for a multi‐input multi‐output (MIMO) linear system. A new configuration of the prepositional tandem matrix is presented as a decoupling compensator, and minimum‐phase state control is applied to the resulting decoupled system. In general, non‐minimum‐phase characteristics often accompany decoupled systems. Feedforward compensation makes the non‐minimum‐phase effect of each decoupled scalar system change to the delay time. A numerical example is given for the MIMO linear system, which conventionally results in non‐minimum‐phase systems. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 176(2): 53–61, 2011; Published online in Wiley Online Library ( wileyonlinelibrary.com ). DOI 10.1002/eej.21117     

Development of diode‐pumped solid‐state laser HALNA for fusion reactor driver

The diode‐pumped slab laser for inertial fusion energy driver has been demonstrated, which produces the 1053‐nm output energy of 10 J at 10 Hz. The glass slab laser amplifier has been pumped by quasi‐CW 290‐kW AlGaAs laser‐diode arrays at 803 nm. The optical system can compensate for thermal effects by use of zigzag optical propagation, image‐relayed telescope, and 45^° Faraday rotator. The output energy of 10.6 J at 1 Hz with the optical‐to‐optical conversion efficiency of 19.9% has been successfully obtained. Also, the 10‐Hz operation has been performed with an output energy of 5.1 J. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 155(2): 27–35, 2006; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www.interscience.wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/eej.20288     

Study of phase current measurement by the whole conductors clamping method for three‐phase cable

This paper describes a new measuring method for the phase current in a high‐voltage three‐phase cable. Twenty‐four pieces of independent coils wound around the coreless bobbins are used to make a CT sensor. The primary phase current may be calculated based on the output voltage of each coil. The certain correlation between the output voltage and primary phase current is observed by the experimental data. This new CT sensor enables the measurement of the phase current using the whole conductors clamping method for a three‐phase cable. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 165(2): 9–20, 2008; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www.interscience.wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/eej.20753     

Discrete‐time model following control of inverter with rectifier load

Electronic apparatus, such as a computer, are a capacitor input type rectifier load for the power supply. The rectifier load causes distortions of the power source voltage waveform. Copyright © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. This paper describes the output voltage characteristic of the single phase PWM inverter controlled by a discrete‐time model following method and connected to a rectifier load. First, the rectifier load model of a discrete‐time system is considered. Next, the discrete‐time model following control system used for this load is described. Then, simulation and experimental results are examined. The simulation results show that this method has robustness to the load change. The experimental system consists of an inverter controlled by a digital signal processor (DSP) and a rectifier load. Experimental results confirmed the validity of the simulation result. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 158(2): 72–81, 2007; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www.interscience.wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/eej.20375     

Delayed feedback control of three‐synchronous‐generator infinite‐bus system

A delayed feedback method for controlling a three‐generator infinite‐bus system is investigated by computer simulation. Nothing but the output signal from the system is used for control. The time series of the phase angle of generators with a transmission line fault shows irregular motion and step‐out. It is found that the irregular motion of the electric power system is coerced onto stable equilibrium points with six stable manifolds by the same control law as the delayed feedback method. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 156(1): 7–12, 2006; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www.interscience.wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/eej.20329     

A modified finite‐difference time‐domain method for analysing field‐to‐transmission line coupling of telecommunication system signals

A modified finite‐difference time‐domain (FDTD) code is presented for the line response characterization of a transmission line illuminated by a Gaussian pulse‐modulated electromagnetic signal. The final expressions are transformed according to the complex‐envelope representation in order to omit the high‐frequency carrier contribution and thus provide an accurate solution of the coupling phenomenon by avoiding the computational burden of the conventional FDTD algorithm. Comparison results between the conventional FDTD method and the modified one are presented, showing the advantages of the novel method. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Memristor‐based pseudo‐random pattern generator using relaxation oscillator

This letter presents a new pseudo‐random pattern generator using a memristor and relaxation oscillator based on an operational amplifier. The pulse width of the proposed generator is determined by the resistance storage property of the memristor, and the random pulse sequence depends on the RC time constant of the relaxation oscillator. From the simulation results, we show that the pulse width time is 7.6 μ s, and the random pulse sequence is 2048 bits. © 2017 Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

High‐efficiency UV LEDs using quaternary InAlGaN

High‐efficiency ultraviolet (UV) light sources are very attractive for application to the medical field, white lighting, high‐density memories, and so on. We have demonstrated that 300‐ to 370‐nm UV emission is considerably enhanced by the introduction of several percent of In into AlGaN due to an In‐segregation effect. We fabricated 310‐nm‐band UV LEDs with quaternary InAlGaN emitting layers on a sapphire substrate and obtained submilliwatt output power. We also fabricated 350‐nm‐band InAlGaN‐based quantum‐well LEDs on GaN substrates in order to eliminate the effects of threading dislocations. The maximum UV output power obtained was as high as 7.4 mW under room‐temperature CW operation. The maximum external quantum efficiency (EQE) was 1.1% with an injection current of 50 mA, which is the highest EQE ever obtained for 350‐nm‐band UV LEDs with top‐emission geometry. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 157(3): 43–51, 2006; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www.interscience.wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/eej.20287 Copyright © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Calculation of sudden three‐phase short‐circuit current of turbine generators by 3D magnetic field analysis

Sudden three‐phase short‐circuit current of a turbine generator was calculated by a three‐dimensional magnetic field analysis. That analysis takes into account the rotation, magnetic saturation, and eddy current at a rotor part. To compare test results and calculated results, a method was proposed for short‐circuit phase estimation at sudden three‐phase short‐circuit test by line voltage waveform of the test results. The calculated results of short‐circuit current waveform are in good agreement with the test results. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 153(1): 54–62, 2005; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www.interscience.wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/eej.20110     

Chaotic synchronization‐based communications using constant envelope pulse

We propose use of a constant‐envelope pulse for the purpose of improving noise‐rejection property in chaotic synchronization‐based communication systems. In a conventional system where discrete‐time chaotic signals are transmitted through the pulse amplitude modulation, the correlator output variance increases as the spreading factor decreases, while the synchronization error increases as the spreading factor increases. Therefore, it is difficult to control the bit error rate only by adjusting the spreading factor. In the proposed system, use of pulse width modulation keeps the envelope of transmitted signals constant, which leads to the correlator output with zero variance. The synchronization error is kept small because the spreading factor can be set to be one without increasing the correlator output variance. We have a result of computer simulation showing that the proposed system achieves a bit error performance better than the conventional system. In addition, a new blind adaptive algorithm is proposed which suppresses intersymbol interference. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 163(3): 47– 56, 2008; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www. interscience.wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/eej.20318     

A General Analytical Method for a Three‐Phase Line‐Start Permanent‐Magnet Synchronous Motor

A line‐start permanent‐magnet synchronous motor (LSPMM) consists of a stator with symmetrical three‐phase armature windings and a salient pole rotor with a permanent magnet for excitation and a starting winding similar to the squirrel‐cage winding of an induction motor. In this paper, a general analytical method based on tensor analysis is proposed for practical performance calculation of a three‐phase LSPMM. The general equation for the currents of the three‐phase LSPMM is derived from the transient impedance tensor expressed in polyphase symmetry axes, and the general equation for vibratory and nonvibratory torques is derived from the current equation. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 185(4): 60–68, 2013; Published online in Wiley Online Library ( wileyonlinelibrary.com ). DOI 10.1002/eej.21284     

Feasible enhancement of a three‐phase soft‐switching inverter with an auxiliary resonant DC link snubber

The purpose of this paper is to improve power conversion efficiency of a three‐phase voltage source type soft‐switching inverter with a single auxiliary resonant DC link (ARDCL) snubber. First, the operating principle of an ARDCL snubber discussed here is described. Second, this paper proposes an effective pulse pattern generation method of the zero voltage space vector of the three‐phase soft‐switching inverter using IGBTs or power modules that can reduce power losses in the ARDCL snubber treated here. In particular, a zero voltage holding interval in the DC rail busline of this three‐phase soft‐switching inverter is to be regulated according to the generation method of the zero voltage space vector. Third, the maximum modulation depth M_max under the condition of correction of the instantaneous voltage space vector can be improved by using a new zero voltage space vector generation method. Finally, the feasible experimental results of this inverter are obtained confirming the operating characteristics such as power conversion actual efficiency, as well as conventional efficiency THD and RMS value of the balanced three‐phase output voltage for an experimentally built three‐phase voltage source type soft‐switching pulse modulated inverter using the latest IGBT modules and evaluated from the standpoint of practical applications in industry UPS and new energy systems. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 146(1): 89–99, 2004; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www.interscience.wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/eej.10234     

A novel method of suppressing the inrush current of transformers by using a series‐connected voltage‐source PWM converter

This paper proposes a novel method of suppressing the inrush current of transformers. A small‐rated voltage‐source PWM converter is connected in series to the transformers through a matching transformer. As the connected PWM converter serves as a resistor for the source current, no inrush phenomena occurs. The required rating of the PWM converter, which serves as the damping resistor for the inrush phenomena, is 1/400 that of the main transformers in single‐phase circuits. In three‐phase circuits, it is 1/900. The basic principle of the proposed method is discussed. Digital computer simulation is implemented to confirm the validity and excellent practicability of the proposed method using the PSCAD/EMTDC. A prototype experimental model is constructed and tested. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method can perfectly suppress the inrush phenomena. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 157(4): 56–65, 2006; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www.interscience.wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/eej.20174     

A novel induction generator system using bi‐directional PWM converter for small‐scale power applications

This paper presents a deadbeat current control structure for a bidirectional power flow pulse‐width modulation (PWM) converter connected to a stand‐alone induction generator (IG), which works with variable speed and different types of loads. Sensorless control of the IG, meaning stator voltage vector control without a mechanical shaft sensor, is considered to regulate both the IG line‐to‐line voltage and the DC‐bus voltage of the PWM converter. In the proposed system, a newly designed phase locked loop (PLL) circuit is used to determine the stator voltage vector position of the IG. A 2.2 kW laboratory prototype has been built to confirm the feasibility of the proposed method. The proposed cost‐effective IG system with a deadbeat current‐controlled PWM converter and capacitor bank requires only three sensors. Moreover, the required rating of the PWM converter becomes smaller due to the existence of the capacitor bank. © 2006 Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

A three‐phase voltage‐source PWM inverter system characterized by sinusoidal output voltage with neither common‐mode voltage nor normal‐mode voltage

This paper deals with an inverter system integrating a small‐rated passive EMI filter with a three‐phase voltage‐source PWM inverter. The purpose of the EMI filter is to eliminate both common‐mode and normal‐mode voltages from the output voltage of the inverter. The motivation of this research is based on the well‐known fact that the higher the carrier or switching frequency, the smaller and the more effective the EMI filter. An experimental system consisting of a 5‐kVA inverter, a 3.7‐kW induction motor, and a specially designed passive EMI filter was constructed to verify the viability and effectiveness of the EMI filter. As a result, it is shown experimentally that both three‐phase line‐to‐line and line‐to‐neutral output voltages look purely sinusoidal as if the inverter system were an ideal variable‐voltage, variable‐frequency power supply when viewed from the motor terminals. This results in complete solution of serious issues related to common‐mode and normal‐mode voltages produced by the inverter. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 145(4): 88–96, 2003; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www.interscience.wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/eej.10206     

Broadband characteristics analysis of semicircle‐type bow‐tie antenna with hole slots

For electromagnetic compatibility, broadband antennas are important for measurements of fast pulse transient electromagnetic phenomena and broadband characteristics due to noise and high‐frequency interference. We analyzed the characteristics of a semicircle type bow‐tie antenna with various slots using the FDTD method. It was shown from the simulation results that the shape and position of the slot influenced greatly the broadband characteristics of the antenna. We confirmed that a semicircle type bow‐tie antenna with a triangle slot was effective for a broadband antenna. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 159(4): 47–53, 2007; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www.interscience.wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/eej.20252