Integrated Fault Diagnosis and Recovery in NPC Multi-level Inverters

This paper proposes a generalized logic-based method for fault diagnosis in multilevel inverters that can be integrated with reconfiguration methods. Thus, both effective fault diagnosis and fault tolerance can be accomplished. To validate such integration, the proposed fault diagnosis method is applied to a five-level neutral point clamped inverter with three reconfiguration methods proposed in the technical literature. The effectiveness of the fault diagnosis method is verified with simulation and experimental results, while the integration of this method with the reconfiguration techniques is validated with MATLAB/Simulink simulations. Several simulation and experimental results under healthy and faulty conditions are presented to demonstrate the satisfactory performance of the proposed integrated fault diagnosis and recovery.