High Fidelity Real-Time Simulation of Multi-Level Converters

Abstract

Control schemes of multi-level converters are comprehensive and challenging to test on real hardware targets under various operation conditions. Hardware-In-the-Loop (HIL) simulations allow the replacement of the actual plant with an appropriate dynamic model, allowing testing of the control algorithm in a safe environment. The large number of switching elements in multi-level topologies increases the complexity of the corresponding state space model and hence its execution time on a real-time platform. This work presents a method that allows the modeling of converter topologies with an arbitrary number of output voltage levels with only two diodes and controlled current and voltage sources. The models offer high fidelity as they work under various conditions such as discontinuous conduction mode, finite dead time and rectifier mode.