Abstract
A gate driving for power devices is a key technology to further improve switching characteristics. With the help of digital gate driver IC, the switching behavior of power devices can be enhanced even under high-speed switching. In this paper, an evaluation platform for determining the optimal switching pattern of an active gate drive control is proposed for an inverter circuit. A high speed optimization system is built up to search for an advantageous switching pattern that reduces total switching loss of two power devices in an inverter circuit and constrains surge voltage simultaneously. The proposed online optimization demonstrates its feasibility for the full-bridge inverter circuit, which is rated at 500 V with digital active gate drive control. Experimental results show that the proposed optimization system is able to obtain optimal switching pattern from $64^{60}$ possible combinations of switching patterns within 15 min, which is 6 times faster than the previous study. Optimizations can also conducted under different load current conditions. Eventually, the obtained optimal pattern yields up to 42% reduction in the total switching loss when it constrains surge voltage to minimum compared with the conventional driving pattern.
Highlights
P OWER converter circuits are introduced in a wide range of applications including managing energy flow and applying in motor driving
The results show that surge voltage and switching loss were reduced simultaneously
The left leg of Q1 and Q2 is connected to an active gate driver circuit, respectively, while the right leg IGBT Q3 and Q4 are driven with conventional gate drive circuits using a constant gate resistor
Summary
P OWER converter circuits are introduced in a wide range of applications including managing energy flow and applying in motor driving. More variables are involved when it is implemented in a practical inverter system rather than a dedicated testing circuit To apply this technology and make use of its advantages to maximum, a general and high speed optimization system is required [24]. An online optimization platform with high-speed data acquisition and validation of the obtained optimal pattern is proposed for optimizing the switching pattern for a digital active gate drive circuit. This optimization platform is identified to bridge the gap when applying active gate drive IC to an inverter circuit. The results show that surge voltage and switching loss were reduced simultaneously
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