Research on topology of a novel three-phase four-leg fault-tolerant NPC inverter

Diode neutral point clamped (NPC) three-level converters have been widely used in recent years. Aiming at the problems of the high device failure rate and unstable neutral point potential of NPC three-level converters, an NPC three-level circuit with fourth bridge arm redundancy is proposed based on the traditional NPC three-level converter. The redundant fourth bridge arm is used to realize the function of stabilizing voltage when there is no fault and replacing the fault half-bridge arm to maintain the continuous operation of the converter when there is a fault. By analyzing the working principle of space vector pulse width modulation (SVPWM) and the power loss of the switch, it is of particular significance to the design and control of NPC three-level converters in the future. Matlab/Simulink verifies the feasibility of the fault-tolerant circuit structure.