A three-dimensional active zero state PWM for common-mode voltage reduction of a three-phase four-leg voltage-source inverter

Purpose This paper aims to investigate the common-mode voltage (CMV) issue of a three-phase four-leg voltage-source inverter. A new space vector modulation method, named as three-dimensional active zero state Pulse-width modulation (PWM) (3-D AZSPWM), is proposed to reduce the CMV level. Design/methodology/approach PWM is a general method to generate the switching signals of the power converters in order to obtain high-quality output voltages. However, the CMV produced by PWM methods has become a serious problem. 3-D AZSPWM is proposed to solve this issue. In 3-D AZSPWM, instead of using zero voltage vectors with high CMV level, appropriate complementary non-zero vectors are introduced to synthesize reference vector. The proposed method is classified into four types of AZSPWM1(a), AZSPWM1(b), AZSPWM2(a) and AZSPWM2(b) based on different complementary vectors chosen for each type. An extend software simulation using MATLAB/Simulink is performed to verify the superior performance of the proposed methods. Findings Compared to other reduced CMV methods, the proposed method not only reduces the CMV but also retains the positive characteristics of the three-dimensional classical space vector PWM (3-D CSVPWM). Originality/value The proposed method does not suffer from linear modulation region limitation and also does not impose additional switching loss. Furthermore, calculated output voltage harmonic distortion factor illuminates acceptable quality of output voltage produced by the proposed method.