Resonant snubber-based soft-switching inverters for electricpropulsion drives

This paper summarizes recently developed soft-switching inverters and proposes two possible options for electric propulsion motor drive applications. The newly developed soft-switching inverter employs an auxiliary switch and a resonant inductor per phase to produce a zero voltage across the main switch, so that the main switch can turn-on at the zero-voltage condition. Both the auxiliary switch and the resonant inductor are operating at a fractional duty and, thus, are small in size as compared to the main inverter circuit components. Operation modes in a complete zero-voltage switching cycle for the single-phase soft-switching inverter are described in detail, with graphical explanations. The circuit operation was first verified by a computer simulation, and then further tested with a 1 kW single-phase and a 100 kW three-phase inverter. Both simulation and experimental results are presented to show the superior performance in efficiency improvement, EMI reduction and dv/dt reduction of the proposed soft-switching inverters     

An ant algorithm for balanced job scheduling in grids

Grid computing utilizes the distributed heterogeneous resources in order to support complicated computing problems. Grid can be classified into two types: computing grid and data grid. Job scheduling in computing grid is a very important problem. To utilize grids efficiently, we need a good job scheduling algorithm to assign jobs to resources in grids.In the natural environment, the ants have a tremendous ability to team up to find an optimal path to food resources. An ant algorithm simulates the behavior of ants. In this paper, we propose a Balanced Ant Colony Optimization (BACO) algorithm for job scheduling in the Grid environment. The main contributions of our work are to balance the entire system load while trying to minimize the makespan of a given set of jobs. Compared with the other job scheduling algorithms, BACO can outperform them according to the experimental results.     

High-efficiency grid-connected photovoltaic module integrated converter system with high-speed communication interfaces for small-scale distribution power generation

This paper presents a high-efficiency grid-connected photovoltaic (PV) module integrated converter (MIC) system with reduced PV current variation. The proposed PV MIC system consists of a high-efficiency step-up DC-DC converter and a single-phase full-bridge DC-AC inverter. An active-clamping flyback converter with a voltage-doubler rectifier is proposed for the step-up DC-DC converter. The proposed step-up DC-DC converter reduces the switching losses by eliminating the reverse-recovery current of the output rectifying diodes. To reduce the PV current variation introduced by the grid-connected inverter, a PV current variation reduction method is also suggested. The suggested PV current variation reduction method reduces the PV current variation without any additional components. Moreover, for centralized power control of distributed PV MIC systems, a PV power control scheme with both a central control level and a local control level is presented. The central PV power control level controls the whole power production by sending out reference power signals to each individual PV MIC system. The proposed step-up DC-DC converter achieves a high-efficiency of 97.5% at 260 W output power to generate the DC-link voltage of 350 V from the PV voltage of 36.1 V. The PV MIC system including the DC-DC converter and the DC-AC inverter achieves a high-efficiency of 95% with the PV current ripple less than 3% variation of the rated PV current.     

Characteristics and utilization of a new class of low on-resistanceMOS-gated power device

A new class of MOS-gated power semiconductor devices Cool MOS (Cool MOS is a trademark of Infineon Technologies, Germany) has been introduced with a supreme conducting characteristic that overcomes the high on-state resistance limitations of high-voltage power MOSFETs. From the application point of view, a very frequently asked question immediately arises: does this device behave like a MOSFET or an insulated gate bipolar transistor (IGBT)? The goal of this paper is to compare and contrast the major similarities and differences between this device and the traditional MOSFET and IGBT. In this paper, the new device is fully characterized for its: (1) conduction characteristics; (2) switching voltage, current, and energy characteristics; (3) gate drive resistance effects; (4) output capacitance; and (5) reverse-bias safe operating areas. Experimental results indicate that the conduction characteristics of the new device are similar to the MOSFET but with much smaller on-resistance for the same chip and package size. The switching characteristics of the Cool MOS are also similar to the MOSFET in that they have fast switching speeds and do not have a current tail at turn-off. However, the effect of the gate drive resistance on the turn-off voltage rate of rise (dv/dt) is more like an IGBT. In other words, a very large gate drive resistance is required to have a significant change on dv/dt, resulting in a large turn-off delay. Overall, the device was found to behave more like a power MOSFET than like an IGBT     

Effective product quantization-based indexing for nearest neighbor search

Multimedia Tools and Applications - Product quantization is a widely used lossy compression technique that can generate high quantization levels by a compact codebook set. It has been conducted in...     

Parasitic ringing and design issues of digitally controlled high power interleaved boost converters

High power boost converter has become the essential part of the distributed power system that enables energy to be fully utilized in fuel cell powered electric vehicles and stationary power systems. This paper presents analysis and design of a high-power multileg interleaved boost converter with a digital signal processor (DSP) based controller. A 20-kW converter was designed with coupled inductors to allow core-loss reduction and designed with high frequency switching to minimize the component size and eliminate the switching losses under discontinuous conducting mode operation. A dual-loop average current mode current control method implemented in DSP is employed to achieve the fast transient response. It was found through circuit analysis, simulation and experiment that the boost inductor interacted with the device parasitic capacitor and created unnecessary oscillating current whenever it reached zero current. Two high-power devices were used in both simulation and experiment to verify the analysis and design for a wide load range. Simulation and experiment results of the 20-kW boost converter under startup condition and load transient condition are also presented. Different anti-windup schemes for a typical PI-controller are evaluated. The results show that this typical controller with proper anti-windup scheme achieves better transient performance than without anti-windup scheme.     

Multilevel inverters: a survey of topologies, controls, and applications

Multilevel inverter technology has emerged recently as a very important alternative in the area of high-power medium-voltage energy control. This paper presents the most important topologies like diode-clamped inverter (neutral-point clamped), capacitor-clamped (flying capacitor), and cascaded multicell with separate DC sources. Emerging topologies like asymmetric hybrid cells and soft-switched multilevel inverters are also discussed. This paper also presents the most relevant control and modulation methods developed for this family of converters: multilevel sinusoidal pulsewidth modulation, multilevel selective harmonic elimination, and space-vector modulation. Special attention is dedicated to the latest and more relevant applications of these converters such as laminators, conveyor belts, and unified power-flow controllers. The need of an active front end at the input side for those inverters supplying regenerative loads is also discussed, and the circuit topology options are also presented. Finally, the peripherally developing areas such as high-voltage high-power devices and optical sensors and other opportunities for future development are addressed.     

Practical Model Reduction Methods

Model reduction is important in control and instrumentation. Numerous papers on model reduction have been published. In this paper model reduction methods are classified into three categories according to their underlying principles. The three categories are continued fraction expansion, dominant mode, and optimum fitting. Given numerical examples, the effectiveness and the merit of simplified models are evaluated on the basis of the simulation of the step response and the least sum of squares of the sample errors.     

Modeling-based examination of conducted EMI emissions from hard and soft-switching PWM inverters

For the study of electromagnetic interference (EMI) mechanisms in pulsewidth-modulated inverters, this paper presents an analysis approach based on empirical models of the inverter components and their associated various parasitics. The power switching devices were modeled with a physics-based device modeling technique. Using time-domain reflectometry, the authors characterized the major parasitics in the device modules, passive components, cables, leads and interconnects. Simulations of a full-bridge insulated gate bipolar transistor inverter were then carried out in the time domain under hard-switching and zero-voltage switching conditions. The simulated EMI spectra were compared with the experimental counterparts with the separation of common-mode and differential-mode EMI. The comparisons verified the validity of the proposed modeling approach over most of the EMI frequency range. Also discussed in the paper are the soft-switching effects on the inverter's EMI     

Multilevel converters-a new breed of power converters

Multilevel voltage source converters are emerging as a new breed of power converter options for high-power applications. The multilevel voltage source converters typically synthesize the staircase voltage wave from several levels of DC capacitor voltages. One of the major limitations of the multilevel converters is the voltage unbalance between different levels. The techniques to balance the voltage between different levels normally involve voltage clamping or capacitor charge control. There are several ways of implementing voltage balance in multilevel converters. Without considering the traditional magnetic coupled converters, this paper presents three recently developed multilevel voltage source converters: (1) diode-clamp, (2) flying-capacitors, and (3) cascaded-inverters with separate DC sources. The operating principle, features, constraints, and potential applications of these converters are discussed