TY - GEN
T1 - Design and control of a GaN-based, 13-level, flying capacitor multilevel inverter
AU - Barth, Christopher B.
AU - Foulkes, Thomas
AU - Chung, Won Ho
AU - Modeer, Tomas
AU - Assem, Pourya
AU - Lei, Yutian
AU - Pilawa-Podgurski, Robert C.N.
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors gratefully acknowledge support for this work in part from the NASA Fixed Wing research program through NASA cooperative agreement NASA NNX14AL79A and from the Power Optimization of Electro-Thermal Systems (POETS) NSF Engineering Research Center. The authors also want to thank TDK for donating the capacitors used for this study as well as PLXIM electrical engineering software for the PLECS simulation license used in this research.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2016 IEEE.
PY - 2016/8/30
Y1 - 2016/8/30
N2 - Multilevel topologies are an appealing method to achieve higher power density inverters for both mobile and stationary systems. This work discusses the design and development of a 13-level, flying capacitor multilevel (FCML) inverter. Operating from an 800 V bus, this inverter requires switches with a voltage blocking capability of less than 80 V. A 120 kHz switching frequency is enabled through the use of GaN FETs and the development of custom integrated switching cells, which reduce commutation loop inductance and allow for a modular design. Additionally, the frequency multiplication effect of FCML inverters allows the output inductor of the inverter to be made exceptionally small (4.7 μH) while maintaining a 0.7 % THD due to the 1.44 MHz effective inductor ripple frequency.
AB - Multilevel topologies are an appealing method to achieve higher power density inverters for both mobile and stationary systems. This work discusses the design and development of a 13-level, flying capacitor multilevel (FCML) inverter. Operating from an 800 V bus, this inverter requires switches with a voltage blocking capability of less than 80 V. A 120 kHz switching frequency is enabled through the use of GaN FETs and the development of custom integrated switching cells, which reduce commutation loop inductance and allow for a modular design. Additionally, the frequency multiplication effect of FCML inverters allows the output inductor of the inverter to be made exceptionally small (4.7 μH) while maintaining a 0.7 % THD due to the 1.44 MHz effective inductor ripple frequency.
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U2 - 10.1109/COMPEL.2016.7556770
DO - 10.1109/COMPEL.2016.7556770
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:84988956896
T3 - 2016 IEEE 17th Workshop on Control and Modeling for Power Electronics, COMPEL 2016
BT - 2016 IEEE 17th Workshop on Control and Modeling for Power Electronics, COMPEL 2016
PB - Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
T2 - 17th IEEE Workshop on Control and Modeling for Power Electronics, COMPEL 2016
Y2 - 27 June 2016 through 30 June 2016
ER -