Analysis and Design of Active NPC (ANPC) Inverters for Fault-Tolerant Operation of High-Power Electrical Drives
Abstract
Compared with neutral-point-clamped (NPC) inverters, active NPC (ANPC) inverters enable a substantially increased output power and an improved performance at zero speed for high-power electrical drives. This paper analyzes the operation of three-level (3L) ANPC inverters under device failure conditions, and proposes the fault-tolerant strategies to enable continuous operating of the inverters and drive systems under single and multiple device open- and short-failure conditions. Therefore, the reliability and robustness of the electrical drives are greatly improved. Moreover, the proposed solution adds no additional components to standard 3L-ANPC inverters; thus, the cost for robust operation of drives is lower. Simulation and experiment results are provided for verification. Furthermore, a comprehensive comparison for the reliability function of 3L-ANPC and 3L-NPC inverters is presented. The results show that 3L-ANPC inverters have higher reliability than 3L-NPC inverters when a derating is allowed for the drive system under fault-tolerant operation. If a derated operation is not allowed, the two inverters have similar reliability for device open failure, while 3L-NPC inverters have higher reliability than 3L-ANPC inverters for device short failure.
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- Authors
- Li, J., Huang, A. Q., Liang, Z., & Bhattacharya, S.
- Affiliations
- North Carolina State University (US)
- Venue
- IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics
- Published
- 2012-02
- Volume
- 27
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 519-533
- ISSN
- 0885-8993 (ISSN-L)
- 1941-0107
- OpenAlex
- W2083442383
- Cited by
- 211
- References
- 30
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 8 · 2024: 10 · 2023: 16 · 2022: 14 · 2021: 17 · 2020: 17 · 2019: 20 · 2018: 20 · 2017: 19 · 2016: 20 · 2015: 13 · 2014: 22 · 2013: 6 · 2012: 8
- FWCI
- 8.07
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Electrical and Electronic Engineering › Multilevel Inverters and Converters
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Electrical and Electronic Engineering › Electric Power Systems and Control
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Electrical and Electronic Engineering › Silicon Carbide Semiconductor Technologies
- Keywords
- active neutral point clamped inverter, three-level inverter, fault-tolerant operation, device failure, open circuit failure, short-circuit faults, inverter reliability
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