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Selective Harmonic Eliminated Pulse-Width Modulation Technique

(SHE PWM) applied to Three-level Inverter / Converter


Y. SAHALI', M. K. FELLAH^
Intelligent Control & Electrical Power System Laboratory, University Djillali Liabes , Sidi-Bel-Abbes, Algeria
' email : ya-sahali@yahoo.fr

Abstract-The main interest of this study has been granted form inverter of a succession of variable width crenels, i.e.
to the selective harmonic eliminated pulse width modulation chopping the output waveform C times per quarter-cycle
technique, SHE PWM, for the control of single- phase and [2,5].
three-phase full-bridge three-level inverters. This study will be Generally, one uses a periodic waveform with quarter-
makes for any angle number (even or odd) of switches com-
wave symmetry, whose amplitude equals U (unit ampli-
posed the inverter, for purpose of comparison with the results
found for only odd number. We explain the resolution method tude).
procedure of the nonlinear equation systems in order to This wave is characterized by the number of pulses
achieve the appropriate switching angles. The method of ob- (chops or crenels by altemation), C .
taining the best starting point is also described to overcome Whether C is odd or even, C angles are necessary to
the problem of the choice of these points which is one of most determine the width of the whole pulses. C represent also
difficult tasks associated with the SHE PWM. Finally we will the number of switching angles per quarter-cycle. These
validate the obtained results through some simulations by us-
switching angles are given in such way to eliminate specific
ing MATLAB package.
harmonics and to improve the output voltage THD . In the
Index Term- Multilevel inverter (VSIs), three-level in- present study we were interested to eliminate the low-order
verter, full-bridge inverter, PWM, selective harmonic elimina- harmonics (3, 5, 7, 9, 11,... for the single-phase system and
tion technique. 5, 7, 11, 13, 17.... for the three-phase system) which are
most undesirable for the loads such as the electric motors.
I. INTRODUCTION Fig. 1 illustrates an example of a generalized three- level
SHE PWM waveform generated either by full bridge sin-
Since several years, we attend a renewed interest for the gle- phase inverter (Fig. 2) or by three-phase inverter (used
multilevel techniques study and especially (( multilevel in- three full bridge single-phase inverters. Fig. 3).
verters )) [1, 2, 31. Because of the odd quarter-wave symmetry property of
These techniques which constitutes a relatively recent this waveform, the Fourier series will be simplified and the
research area, still demand and require more developments study will be limited only to the quarter-cycle.
and optimization in point of view command. The Fourier series decomposition. that show only the
Several controls are used in order to improve the output existence of odd harmonic components [6, 7, 81. is given
signals of these converters. by:
Among these controls, one notes those so-called "Selec-
tive harmonic eliminated pulse width modulation SHE
PWM or Programmed-PWM method" and whose one
makes the object of the present paper. These controls con-
sist to calculate the switching instants of the devices in or-
der to satisfy certain criteria carrying on the spectrum fre-
quency of the wave delivered by the inverter [4]. These se-
where sin(nwr) dwr (2)
quences of operation are then memorized and are restored
0
cyclically to assure the control of switches [4].
The criteria ordinarily retained:
Eliminating harmonics of specified order ;
Eliminating harmonics in a band of specified fre- After integration and some calculations, an algebraic
non linear equations system is obtained. This system sug-
quencies.
gests and admits a possibility of multiple solutions.
The Newton-Raphson iteration method is usually em-
II. PRINCIPLE OF THE MEHOD
ployed to solve such system, which becomes by let
This pulse width modulation technique is very important (a=wt) :
and efficient method, which is widely used in control of the
conventional VSIs, in order to improve much more their
output voltages quality, will be applied to control a three-
level inverter. It consists in forming the output wave

0-7803-7912-8/03/$17.00 0 2003 IEEE


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I Fig. 1 Generalized three-level SHE PWM waveform.

This system, which comprises an additional degree of


Fig 2 Single-Phasefull-bridge freedom in order to control the amplitude of the fundamen-
inverter
tal-frequency component, permits to eliminate C - 1 har-
monics from the output voltage. It thus becomes:
I ! I ,

cos (a1) - cos (a2) +. . . cos ( a c ) = L M


4
(4)
Cos(nal)-Cos(i7a2)+ ...f C o s ( n a c ) = 0

h
where M = 1is the modulation index.
U

N The required solution must satisfy the following condi-


tion:
where Sp FB is a Single-phase full bridge inverter

Fig. 3 Schematic diagram of three-phase three-level inverter


connected in Wye configuration

III.ALGORITHM OF NEWTON'S METHOD [ 5 ]


cos ( a l)-cos (a2 ) + ...+cos ( a c ) = z~ q
4u The resolution of our nonlinear equations system in or-
(3) der to find the appropriated switching angles is done by
nrt implementation of algorithm of the Newton-Raphson
...+ Cos(nac)=-I?,,
Cos(nal)-Cos(na~)+ method. This algorithm is characterized by following steps:
4u
1) Propose a set of initial values for a :
where
n is the odd harmonic order (single-phase system)
and odd different from three and from its mul- ...,j ,a c j p
a.i= [ a I ~ , a 2 (6)
tiples (three-phase system).
a i is switching angles. with j = O
hi is the amplitudes of the odd harmonic compo-
nents of the output voltage U' ( i = 3,5,.. . ). 2) Calculate the value of:
hl is the amplitude of the fundamental component
F ( a j )= F J (7)
of this output voltage U'
U is the amplitude of the dc source (dc voltage where
F is the condensed vector format of the non linear
supply).
equations system (4).

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3) Linearize equation (7) about ctJ : where
E, is the angular gap, and

Fj +[%]"&.j =H (8)

where
C is the number of switching angles.
H is the amplitude of the harmonic components.
For the three-phase system (Fig. 5):
f is the functions connecting harmonics with
switching angles.
and

Fig. 5 Switching angle


trajectories as a function
of modulation index

Modulation index
4) Solve dcl' from equation (8) by :

where Eo,lg = -
L7L
for (C = 3, 5. 7;..)
3 (C+l)
(9)
where IV.SIMULATION

l"[ E].' is the inverse matrix of [e- To verify our study, MATLAB is used as a program-
ming and simulation tool. Firstly and after execution of the
programs some results giving the variations of the switch-
5) Change the initial values of each step by : ing angles as function of modulation index are shown in
Fig. 6 for the single-phase system and in Fig. 7, Fig. 8 for
the three-phase system.
For simulation three-level inverters fed by a 156V
6) Repeat the process, equation (7) to equation (10) source are employed to generate 110Vrms-5OHz output
phase voltage. The simulated waveforms are the SHE
until da.' satisfied the desired degree of accuracy. Pwhl three-level waveforms with different switching an-
gles.
Since the major problem of Newton's method is the The example of a 9-switching angle SHE PWM wave-
knowledge of starting points of switching angles, we will form generated by the three-phase three-level inverter is
give here and as an example a guide of choice of these val- shown in Fig. 9
ues (Fig. 4 and Fig. 5). After several simulations and an analysis of the found
results we make the following observations:
For the single-phase system (Fig. 4):
0 Generally and moving off the 2-switching angles
waveform, the output voltage THD is inversely
d2+
proportional to the modulation index (Fig. 10) ;
0 Increasing the number of switching angles does
h
e
not necessarily decrease the voltage THD of the
three-level inverter, since the total harmonic dis-
Fig. 4 Switching angle
trajectories as a function tortion THD of the three-level inverter using
.- of modulation index SHE PWh4 varies in an arbitrary manner as func-
b
CA tion of the number of switching angles per quar-
ter-cycle (Fig. 10).
5
0 These results confirms very well those found in [5] for
Modulation index only odd number of switching angles.

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'Ob 012 0:4 0.6 08 1!2 20b 0:2 0'4 0:6 0:8 i 112

90 --

3ok==--y ,-j
2o0 0.2 04 0.6 0.8 1 0
'
1
0'2 04 0.6 0'8 i
Fig. 6 Range of switching angles as a function of modulation index : single-phase system
c
( is even or odd number).

- 1
-200 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1

-
loo/ 70w
60

50E
40

30

0' 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1


0.2 0.4 0.6
20

10

OO
L
0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8
i
Fig. 7 Range of switching angles as a function of modulation index: three-phase system
c
( is even number)
g.=:
B z
''
ca
Modulation
index

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90 90 I 90

80 80 80
70 70 70

60 60 60

50 50 50
40 40 40

30 30 30

20 20 20

"0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 "0 02 04 06 08 1 12

90 90
80 80
70 70
60 60
50 50
40 40
30 30
20 20
10 io
I I I
Oo 0.2 04 0.6 0.8 i i2 '0 02 04 06 08 i 12 Oo 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.a 1 1.2

Fig. 8 Range of switching angles as a function of modulation index : three-phase system


c
( is odd number).

1-004

200

-200

-400
0 10 20 30 40
Fig. 9 The 9-switching angles SHE PWM wavefonn and his fre-
quency spectrum, THD = 36.69 % Modulation mdev

Fig 10 Mammum value of modulation index as function of the num-


ber of switching angles
Other founded remarks are counted by the following
points:

A . Maximum Value of the niodzilation index


Odd
1.2
%Case of three-phase system : Concerning the maxi- I Jnzber
mum modulation index value as function of the number of
switching angles, we notes, from the founded solutions (in
addition to that of 16- switching angle) and from Fig. 11,
that this parameter changes in an arbitrary manner if the
number angles is even. On the other hand, it tends to be
constant and stable in the contrary case (odd case, Fig. 11).
Thus it is better to choose the solutions with an odd num-
ber. 0 5 . io 5 15 1

%Case of single-phase system: for this case the problem Number of switching angles
does not arise any more because the maximum modulation
index remains generally constant whatever the parity of the Fig. 11 Maximum value of modulation index as function of the num-
ber of switching angles
number angles (odd or even).

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B. Choice between solutions of the initial values of switching angles. It is the reason for
which this paper comes to contribute to give a choice guide
In the majority of the cases, several adequate solutions of these values of some solutions.
have to be obtained in order to eliminate the same harmon- At the beginning of control development using a pro-
ics from the output voltage inverter (Fig. 12). It is the rea- grammed-PWM method, one worried to determine se-
son for which and until these last years, we needed to cal- quence orders (sequences of control) that eliminate the
culate the total harmonic distortion value, which is chosen lowest harmonic components from the output voltage be-
as criteria of the performance harmonic, for the different cause that facilitates filtering (harmonics to filter will be
solutions for purpose of comparison. The final solution and shifted to higher frequency). Now the application is taken
which must be adopted is that presenting the low value, i.e. into consideration, on seek, for example, to minimize the
presenting the minimum harmonic content. Currently, it is total harmonic distortion, which is an extension to the pre-
necessary to have a compromise between this value and the sent work. It is deserved to be also another axis of research
value of the first remaining harmonic that is not cancelled. in our laboratory to try to complete works on three-level
inverters and whose results indicates that the harmonic dis-
tortion is significantly reduced. These results will be pub-
BO, , , I 1001
lished subsequently.

VI. RERERENCES
[ l ] L. M. Tolbert, F. Z. Peng et T. G. Habetler. (( Multilevel Converters for
Large Electric Drives )) IEEE Transactions on Indirstr?; Applicotions.
T701.3j. No. 1. Jrniiioi?/Febriiai>,IYYY.

[2] G.Seiguier, F.Labrique et R.Baussiere, (( Les convertisseurs de l'elec-


60
tronique de puissance )) T. 4 second edition Tec ond Doc 1995.

50 [3] A. NABAE, I. TAKAHASHI et H. AKAGI, (( A New Neutral-Point-


Clamped PWM Inverter )) IEEE Transactions on fiidiish? Applico-
tions. T701.1A-l7. No.5, Septeniber/October 1981.
2.0;- 02 04 06 ne i 40b 0'2 04 06 08 1
[4] G. Grellet, G. Clearc, G Actionneurs electriques )) Edirion 2000.
Fig 12 Two solutions for eliminating 5"' harmonic of the output voltage
[5] SSirisukprasert, (( Optimized Harmonic Stepped-Waveform for Multi-
Remark- It exist another method called (( Resulting the- level Inverter )) Moster thesis 1999 at Virginia Polj,technic Institiire
ory )) for the determination of switching angles, whose ad-
vantage dwell in the fact that the lowest remaining harmon- [6] H.S.Pate1, R.G.Hofi, (( Generalized Techniques of Harmonic Elimina-
tion and Voltage Control in Thyristor Inverters: Part I1 - Voltage
ics have the reduced amplitudes compared to that cited in Control Techniques )) IEEE Transactions on Indiistq, Applications,
this paper. This method, that made the object of another Vol.IA-IO,No.5, Septeniber/October 1971
study in our research group. will be published subsequently
and compared with the precedent method. [7] H.L.Liu, G.H.Cho et S.S.Park. Optimal PWh4 Design for High Power
Three-Level Inverter Through Comparative Stumes B fEEE Trans-
actions On Power Elechonics, Vol.10,No. 1. Janiioiyl995.
V. CONCLUSION
[SI P.N. Enjeti et R. JaMi, (( Optimal Power Control Strategies for Neutral

This study permitted us to well understand the principle Point Clamped W C j Inverter Topology )) IEEE Transactions on
Indinti?. Applications, VoI.28,No.3, Mqihine 1992.
of an alternative control among several existing alternative
techniques to ensure the control of the three-level inverter
devices. Y. SAHALI was bom in Sidi-bel-Abbes, Algeria. She received the Eng.
Since each pulse-width modulation technique presents degree in Electro technical engineering from the Djillali LIABES Univer-
sity of Sidi-Bel-Abbes, Algeria. She is currently worlung the Master de-
advantages and inconveniences, and the selection depends
gree. She is a member of the Intelligent Control and Electrical Power Sys-
on given performance specifications, one notes that the Se- tems Laboratory at this University.
lective Harmonic Eliminated technique SHE PWM is char-
acterized by the three following advantages: M. K. FELLAH was bom in Oran, Algeria, in 1963. He received the Eng.
- The command instants of the devices that are pre- degree in Electrical Engineering from University of Sciences and Technol-
viously known ; ogy, Oran, Algeria, in 1986, and The Ph.D. degree from National Poly-
- It permits to selecting the undesirable and un- technic Institute of Lorraine (Nancy, France) in 1991.
Since 1992, he is Professor at the University of Sidi-bel-Abbes (Algeria)
wanted harmonics which can be eliminated. and Director of the Intelligent Control and Electrical Power Systems Labo-
- It also permits to control the amplitude of the fun- ratory at this University. His current research interest includes Power Elec-
damental-frequency component. tronics, HVDC links, and Drives.
This improves the efficiency of the inverter-load associa-
tion by reducing the torque ripple, for instance, in the ad-
justable speed drives applications.
The main inconvenience of the applied Newton's tech-
nique for the resolution of non linear equation systems as-
sociated with this technique resides in the choice difficulty

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