Five-phase five-level open-winding/star-winding inverter drive for low-voltage/high-current applications

This paper work proposed a five-phase five-level open-/star-winding multilevel AC converter suitable for low-voltage/high-current applications. Modular converter consists of classical two-level five-phase voltage source inverter (VSI) with slight reconfiguration to serve as a multilevel converter for open-/star-winding loads. Elaborately, per phase of the VSI is built with one additional bi-directional switch (MOSFET/IGBT) and all five legs links to the neutral through two capacitors. The structure allows multilevel generation to five-level output with greater potential for fault tolerability under drive failure (open-winding) and per phase fault (open-/star-winding). Further, original optimal single carrier zero-shifted modulation (SCZSFM) algorithm is proposed and capable to modulate each VSI, which is equivalent to standard 5-level multilevel inverters. Set of results are provided based on numerical modeling with MATLAB/PLECS simulation software's and observed behavior shown good agreement with theoretical expectations.