Floating-capacitor based inverter for open-ended winding induction motor drive with fault-tolerance

Floating-capacitor-based nine-level inverter topology for open-ended winding induction motor (OWIM) drive is presented in this paper. The proposed multilevel inverter topology (PMLIT) essentially consists of four three-phase two-level voltage source inverters (VSI), three isolated DC sources and a floating-capacitor (FC). Out of four inverters, three inverters are fed from DC sources, and the fourth inverter is connected with the FC. The advantage of the PMLIT is that the maximum output voltage will be twice the source voltage with nine levels across each phase winding. The PMLIT employs least number of components which makes the inverter cost-effective and has lowered control complexity. The PMLIT can deliver seven, five or three-level output voltage with a decrease in modulation index. Conventional sinusoidal pulse-width modulation (PWM) techniques can be employed to generate switch-gate pulses. The intermediate-voltage levels are realised by proper charging and discharging of the FC. The performance of the PMLIT under possible switch faults is investigated, and modified switching logics are proposed to deliver a balanced supply for the OWIM drive in post-fault operation. Simulations are performed in the MATLAB/Simulink environment, and an experimental setup is designed to validate the simulations, and the results are presented.