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SWITCHING DEVICE FAILURE DETECTION SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR MULTILEVEL CONVERTERS

  • US 20110140727A1
  • Filed: 05/28/2010
  • Published: 06/16/2011
  • Est. Priority Date: 05/28/2010
  • Status: Active Grant
First Claim
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1. A multilevel converter comprising:

  • a plurality of phase legs each having at least two inner switching devices, at least two outer switching devices, at least two clamping diodes and a split DC link; and

    a switching device failure detection circuit comprisinga logic module for each of the switching devices to generate a blocking state logic signal by comparing a switching device voltage and a threshold reference voltage;

    a voltage calculation module to determine an expected voltage blocking state for each of the switching devices based on the gate drive signals of the switching devices and an output current direction;

    a failure detection algorithm to detect a failure condition in any of the switching devices based on the blocking state logic signals and the expected voltage blocking states of the switching devices.

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