Implementation of Maximum Constant Boost Control of the Z-Source Inverter for the Induction Motor Drive

Abstract This paper presents an impedance-source (or impedance-fed) power converter (abbreviated as Z-source converter) and its control method for implementing dc-to-ac, acto-dc, ac-to-ac, and dc-to-dc power conversion. The Z-source converter employs a unique impedance network (or circuit) to couple the converter main circuit to the power source, thus providing unique features that cannot be obtained in the traditional voltage-source (or voltage-fed) and current-source (or current-fed) converters where a capacitor and inductor are used, respectively. The Z-source converter overcomes the conceptual and theoretical barriers and limitations of the traditional voltagesource converter (abbreviated as V-source converter) and current-source converter (Abbreviated as I-source converter) and provides a novel power conversion concept. The Z-source concept can be applied to all dc-to-ac, ac-to-dc, ac-to-ac, and dcto-dc power conversion.
To describe the operating principle and control, this paper focuses on two maximum constant boost control methods for the Z-source inverter, which can obtain maximum voltage gain at any given modulation index without producing any lowfrequency ripple that is related to the output frequency. Thus the Z-network requirement will be independent of the output frequency and determined only by the switching frequency. The relationship of voltage gain to modulation index is analyzed in detail and verified by simulation and experiment.

I. INTRODUCTION

antiparallel (or freewheeling) diode to provide bidirectional current flow and unidirectional voltage blocking capability. The V-source converter is widely used. It, however, has the following conceptual and theoretical barriers and limitations. The ac output voltage is limited below and cannot exceed the dc-rail voltage or the dc-rail Voltage has to be greater than the ac input voltage. Therefore, the V-source inverter is a buck (step-down) inverter for dc-toac power conversion and the V-source converter is a boost (step-up) rectifier (or boost converter) for ac-to-dc power conversion. For applications where over drive is desirable and the available dc voltage is limited, an additional dc-dc boost converter is needed to obtain a desired ac output. The additional power converter stage increases system cost and lowers efficiency. The upper and lower devices of each phase leg cannot be gated on simultaneously either by purpose or by EMI noise. Otherwise, a shoot-through would occur and destroy the devices. The shoot-through problem by electromagnetic interference (EMI) noises misgating-on is a major killer to the converters reliability. Dead time to block both upper and lower devices has to be provided in the V-source converter, which causes waveform distortion, etc. An output LC filter is needed for providing a sinusoidal voltage compared with the current-source inverter, which causes additional power loss and control complexity.

HERE EXIST two traditional converters: voltage-source

(or voltage-fed) and current-source (or current-fed) converters (or inverters depending on power flow directions). Fig. 1 shows the traditional three-phase voltage-source converter (abbreviated as V-source converter) structure. A dc voltage source supported by a relatively large capacitor feeds the main converter circuit, a three-phase bridge. The dc voltage source can be a battery, fuel-cell stack, diode rectifier, and/or capacitor. Six switches are used in the main circuit; each is traditionally composed of a power transistor and an
Fig. 1. Traditional V-source converter.

Fig. 2 shows the traditional three-phase current-source

converter (abbreviated as I-source converter) structure. A dc

current source feeds the main converter circuit, a three-phase bridge. The dc current source can be a relatively large dc inductor fed by a voltage source such as a battery, fuel-cell stack, diode rectifier, or thyristor converter. Six switches are used in the main circuit; each is traditionally composed of a semiconductor switching device with reverse block capability such as a gate-turn-off thyristor (GTO) and SCR or a power transistor with a series diode to provide unidirectional current flow and bidirectional voltage blocking. However, the I-source converter has the following conceptual and theoretical barriers and limitations. The ac output voltage has to be greater than the original dc voltage that feeds the dc inductor or the dc voltage produced is always smaller than the ac input voltage. Therefore, the I-source inverter is a boost inverter for dc-to-ac power conversion and the I-source converter is a buck rectifier (or buck converter) for ac-to-dc power conversion. For applications where a wide voltage range is desirable, an additional dcdc buck (or boost) converter is needed. The additional power conversion stage increases system cost and lowers efficiency. At least one of the upper devices and one of the lower devices have to be gated on and maintained on at any time. Otherwise, an open circuit of the dc inductor would occur and destroy the devices. The open-circuit problem by EMI noises misgating-off is a major concern of the converters reliability. Overlap time for safe current commutation is needed in the Isource converter, which also causes waveform distortion, etc. The main switches of the I-source converter have to block reverse voltage that requires a series diode to be used in combination with high-speed and high-performance transistors such as insulated gate bipolar transistors (IGBTs). This prevents the direct use of low-cost and high-performance IGBT modules and intelligent power modules (IPMs).

Their main circuits cannot be interchangeable. In other words, neither the V-source converter main circuit can be used for the I-source converter, nor vice versa. They are vulnerable to EMI noise in terms of reliability. To overcome the above problems of the traditional Vsource and I-source converters, this paper presents an impedance-source (or impedance-fed) power converter (abbreviated as Z-source converter) and its control method for implementing dc-to-ac, ac-to-dc, ac-to-ac, and dc-to-dc power conversion. Fig. 3 shows the general Z-source converter structure proposed. II. Z-SOURCE CONVERTER In a traditional voltage source inverter, the two switches of the same phase leg can never be gated on at the same time because doing so would cause a short circuit (shoot-through) to occur that would destroy the inverter. In addition, the maximum output voltage obtainable can never exceed the dc bus voltage. These limitations can be overcome by the new Zsource inverter, shown in Fig. 3, that uses impedance network (Z-network) to replace the traditional dc link. The Z-source inverter advantageously utilizes the shoot-through states to boost the dc bus voltage by gating on both the upper and lower switches of a phase leg. Therefore, the Z-source inverter can buck and boost voltage to a desired output voltage that is greater than the available dc bus voltage. In addition, the reliability of the inverter is greatly improved because the shoot-through can no longer destroy the circuit. Thus it provides a low-cost, reliable, and highly efficient single-stage structure for buck and boost power conversion.

Fig. 3. .Z-source inverter

Fig. 2. Traditional I-source converter.

In addition, both the V-source converter and the I-source converter have the following common problems. They are either a boost or a buck converter and cannot be a buckboost converter. That is, their obtainable output voltage range is limited to either greater or smaller than the input voltage.

In this paper, we will present two control methods to achieve maximum voltage boost/gain while maintaining a constant boost viewed from the Z-source network and producing no low-frequency ripple associated with the output frequency. This maximum constant boost control can greatly reduce the L and C requirements of the Znetwork. The relationship of voltage boost and modulation index, as well as the voltage stress on the devices, will be investigated.

III.VOLTAGE BOOST, STRESS AND CURRENT RIPPLE The voltage gain of the Z-source inverter can be expressed as

To calculate the current ripple through the inductor, the circuit can be modeled as in Fig. 5, where L is the inductor in the Zsource network, Vc is the voltage across the capacitor in the Z-source network, and Vi is the voltage fed to the inverter. Neglecting the switching frequency element, the average value of Vi can be described as

Where Vo is the output peak phase voltage, Vdc is the input dc voltage, M is the modulation index, and B is the boost factor.B is determined by

We have

Where T0 is the shoot-through time interval over a switching cycle T, or

T = is the shoot-through duty ratio. A simple boost control method was used to control the shoot-through duty ratio. The Z-source inverter maintains the six active states unchanged as in traditional carrier-based pulse width modulation (PWM) control. In this case, the shootthrough time per switching cycle is constant, which means the boost factor is a constant. Therefore, under this condition, the dc inductor current and capacitor voltage have no ripples that are associated with the output frequency. For this simple boost control, the obtainable shoot-through duty ratio decreases with the increase of M, and the resulting voltage stress across the devices is fairly high. Maximum boost control method as shown in Fig. 4, which shoots through all zero-voltage vectors entirely. Based on the map in Fig. 3, the shoot-through duty cycle D0 varies at six times the output frequency. The voltage boost is inversely related to the shootthough duty ratio; therefore, the ripple in shoot-through duty ratio will result in ripple in the current through the inductor, as well as in the voltage across the capacitor. When the output frequency is low, the inductor current ripple becomes significant, and a large inductor is required. As can be seen from Eq. (4), D0 has maximum value when

and has minimum value when

If we suppose the voltage across the capacitor is constant, the voltage ripple across the inductor can be approximated as a sinusoid with peak-to-peak value of

If the output frequency is f, the current ripple through the inductor will be

As can be seen from Eq. (7), when the output frequency decreases, in order to maintain the current ripple in a certain
Fig. 4 Maximum boost control sketch map

Fig. 5 Model of the circuit

IV. MAXIMUM CONSTANT BOOST CONTROL In order to reduce the volume and cost, it is important always to keep the shoot-through duty ratio constant. At the same time, a greater voltage boost for any given modulation index is desired to reduce the voltage stress across the
switches. Figure 6 shows the sketch map of the maximum
Fig. 7, Vac/0.5V0 versus M

constant boost control method, which achieves the maximum voltage gain while always keeping the shoot-through duty ratio constant. There are five modulation curves in this control
method: three reference signals, Va, Vb, and Vc, and two

For the first half-period, (0, /3) in Fig. 4, the upper and lower envelope curves can be expressed by Eqs. (8) and (9), respectively.

shoot-through envelope signals, Vp and Vn. When the carrier triangle wave is greater than the upper shoot-through envelope, Vp, or lower than the lower shoot-through envelope,
Vn, the inverter is turned to a shoot-through zero state. In

between, the inverter switches in the same way as in traditional carrier-based PWM control. Because the boost factor is determined by the Shootthough duty cycle, the shoot-through duty cycle must be kept the same in order to maintain a constant boost. The basic point is to get the maximum B while keeping it constant all the time. The upper and lower envelope curves are periodical and are three times the output frequency. There are two half-periods for both curves in a cycle.

For the second half-period (/3, 2/3), the curves meet Eqs. (10) and (11), respectively.

Obviously, the distance between these two curves is always constant, that is, therefore the shoot-through duty ratio is constant and can be expressed as

The boost factor B and the voltage gain can be calculated:

Fig. 6 Sketch map of constant boost control

The curve of voltage gain versus modulation index is shown in Fig. 7. As can be seen in Fig. 7, the voltage gain approaches infinity when M decreases to 3/3. This maximum constant boost control can be Implemented using third harmonic injection. A sketch map of the third harmonic injection control method, with 1/6 of the third harmonic, is shown in Fig. 8. As can be seen from Fig. 8, V reaches its peak value 3M/2 while V is at its minimum value -3M/2. Therefore, a unique feature can be obtained: only two straight lines, V and V , are needed to control the shoot-through time with 1/6 (16%) of the third harmonic injected.
a b p n

Fig. 9) and then decreasing M to zero without shoot-through states (dotted curve in Fig. 9).

Fig.9. 7 Vac/0.5V0 versus M

V. VOLTAGE STRESS COMPARISON Voltage gain G is

We have
Fig.8 Sketch map of constant boost control with third harmonic injection

The shoot-through duty ratio can be calculated by

The voltage across the devices, Vs, can be expressed as

As we can see, it is identical to the previous maximum constant boost control method. Therefore, the voltage gain can also be calculated by the same equation. The difference is that in this control method, the range of M is increased to 23/3. The voltage gain versus M is shown in Fig.9. The voltage gain can be varied from infinity to zero smoothly by increasing M from 3/3 to 2/3 with shoot-through states (solid curve in

The voltage stresses across the devices with different control methods are shown in Fig. 10. As can be seen from Fig.10, the proposed method will cause a slightly higher voltage stress across the devices than the maximum control method, but a much lower voltage stress than the simple control method. However, since the proposed method eliminates line frequency related ripple, the passive components in the Znetwork will be smaller, which will be advantageous in many applications.

I. SIMULATION RESULTS To verify the validity of the control strategies, simulation conducted. The fig.11 shows the simulated block diagram. The simulation results with the modulation index M
= 0.6, M = 0.8, and M = 1 shown in Figs.12 respectively,

where the input voltage 100v, respectively. Table lists the theoretical voltage stress and output line-to-line rms voltage based on the simulation results. Operating condition M = 0.6, Vdc = 100V M = 0.8,
Vdc = 100V

Voltage stress (V) 2549V

Output voltage VL-L(V) 342.2V

259V

150.2V

M = 1,
Vdc = 100V
Fig. 10 Voltage stress comparison of different control methods

110.4V

72.19V

Table . Theoretical voltage stress and output voltage under different conditions

Z Source Inverter
k a
m

[G1]

From2
km C

[G3]
g km

From4

[G5]

C km a

g m

IGBT
E m a

IGBT6
E m a

IGBT2
E

A +

AC 1
B

AC 2
C k m

From3
C

[G4]
g

From5
C

[G6]
g

From1
C

[G2]
g

km

km

IGBT1
AC 3 a E m a

IGBT3
E m a

IGBT4
E m

3 RL VOLTAGE MEASUREMENT BLOCK

3
RL CURENT MEASUREMENT BLOCK

PUSE 1 ap

[G1] [G2]

PUSE 2 cn

[G3] [G4]

PUSE 3 bp

PUSE 4 an

[G5]
PUSE 5 cp

[G6]
PUSE 6 bn

Goto5

The fig.11 , simulated block diagram

fig 12, voltage wave form for M=0.8

fig 12, voltage wave form for M=1

VII. CONCLUSION The maximum voltage gain with constant boost has been presented that achieve maximum voltage boost without introducing any low-frequency ripple related to the output frequency. The relationship of the voltage gain and the modulation index was analyzed in detail. The proposed method can achieve the minimum passive components requirement and maintain low voltage stress at the same time. The control method has been verified by simulation and experiments. REFERENCES [1] F. Z. Peng and Miaosen Shen, Zhaoming Qian, Maximum Boost Control of the Z-source Inverter, in Proc. of IEEE PESC 2004. [2] D.A. Grant and J. A. Houldsworth: PWM AC Motor Drive Employing Ultrasonic Carrier. IEE Conf. PE-VSD, London, 1984, pp. 234-240.
[3] Bimal K. Bose, Power Electronics and Variable

Frequency Drives, Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall PTR, 2002. [4] P. T. Krein, Elements of Power Electronics, London, UK: Oxford Univ. Press, 1998. [5] W. Leonard, Control of Electric Drives, New York: Springer-Verlag, 1985