978
5, SEPTEMBER 1998
A Three-Phase Multilevel Converter for
High-Power Induction Motors
Nikolaus P. Schibli, Tung Nguyen, and Alfred C. Rufer
Abstract— A new converter topology for drives is presented
in this paper: a three-phase multilevel converter with separately
regulated dc power supplies. The dc voltages are provided by
medium-frequency dc–dc converters. The applications for the
converter are especially high-power traction systems, where the
voltage applied to the induction motor is bigger than 1 kV. The
motor current is of a very high quality, compared to a classical
three-phase converter. This allows keeping the switching fre-
quency low by using phase-shifted pulsewidth modulation (PWM)
carriers. Different modulation methods have been developed
and simulated. Experimental tests have been made on a 12-kW
prototype.
Index Terms— DC–DC converter, high-speed motor drives,
multilevel converter, PWM modulation, three-phase converter.
I. INTRODUCTION
H IGH-POWER induction motor drives using classical
three-phase converters have the disadvantage of poor
voltage and current qualities. To improve these values, the
switching frequency has to be raised which causes additional
switching losses. Another possibility is to put a motor input
filter between the converter and motor, which causes additional
weight. A further inconvenience is the limited voltage that
can be applied to the induction motor determined by the
blocking voltage of the semiconductor switches. For high-
power semiconductors, the switching frequency is limited by
the maximal power loss. In this paper, a three-phase multilevel
converter is described. The aim is to generate motor currents
of high quality by using more semiconducting devices. In
particular, the converter is used for high-voltage motor drives
( 2 kV). The series connection allows reaching much higher
voltages than the blocking voltage of the semiconductors. The
maximal voltage is now limited by the isolation voltage of
the medium-frequency transformer. The resulting switching
frequency is a multiple of the switching frequency applied
to the switches. This allows working with a filter of reduced
size or with no filter at all. This paper describes a multilevel
converter with regulated dc–dc converters for the dc-voltage
supply. The modulation of this kind of converter has been
examined and simulated. The next three figures show an
overview of three different kinds of three-phase converters:
Fig. 1 shows the classical converter, Fig. 2 shows the neutral
point clamped converter (NPC), and, finally, Fig. 3 shows the
new converter topology scheme.
Manuscript received May 7, 1997; revised January 21, 1998. Recommended
by Associate Editor, A. Trzynadlowski.
The authors are with the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, 1015
Lausanne, Switzerland.
Publisher Item Identifier S 0885-8993(98)06490-4.
0885–8993/98$10.00  1998 IEEE
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER ELECTRONICS, VOL. 13, NO.
II. THREE-PHASE MULTILEVEL CONVERTER
The basic element of the converter is the full-bridge con-
verter. The full bridge is supplied with a floating dc voltage,
either a dc voltage from a regulated [1] or unregulated dc–dc
converter, or by a series connection of a transformer output
[3]. The output on the other side of the full bridge can now be
a positive or negative output step. With a series connection of
several full-bridge cells, the positive and negative dc voltages
can be superposed to create a high-voltage output for each
phase on the induction motor. In the example in Fig. 3, two
cells in series per phase were used.
Fig. 4 shows a typical cell for a multilevel converter realized
with insulated gate bipolar transistor (IGBT) switches. Each
switch has its own snubber, consisting of a capacitor and
a resistor in series, with an additional clamping diode [4].
This protects the switches from overvoltages caused by the
stray inductances, but also avoids electromagnetic interference
(EMI) influences on the driver circuits. The current through
the dc sources is not sinusoidal and changes its value in-
stantaneously (see simulation results). So, it is very important
to reduce scatter inductance between dc source and the full-
bridge converter to limit overvoltage across the IGBT’s (
nH). Experience has shown that the EMI protection is an
important point for the realization of a high-power multilevel
converter. This demands special construction precautions for
the multilevel cells. It is obvious that the dc-voltage supply
has to be floating for each cell. This can be made with a
transformer with multiple secondary windings and rectifiers
[3].
If a bidirectional energy exchange has to be provided
between the common dc circuit and the multilevel cells,
a dc–dc converter with a medium-frequency transformer is
proposed [1], with a switching frequency of 10 kHz (shown
in Fig. 5).
The dc–dc converter allows reducing the weight by an
important factor compared to the low-frequency (50 Hz) trans-
formers. The additional stray inductance allows generating a
controlled power flow in both directions. The dc voltage on the
converter side can be stabilized and varied for different voltage
output on the motor. If only reactive power is taken from the
capacitors, no dc–dc converters are needed, for example, for
static var generation or active filtering. A modulation algorithm
has to assure the equilibration of the voltages on the capacitors
[7].
An additional advantage of the multilevel converter is the
reduction of voltage stress of the motor caused by high
’s. While classical converters switch on immediately the
SCHIBLI et al.: THREE-PHASE MULTILEVEL CONVERTER FOR HIGH-POWER INDUCTION MOTORS
Fig. 1. Classical three-phase converter for drives.
Fig. 2. Neutral point clamped converter.
Fig. 3. Basic scheme of the three-phase multilevel converter.
Fig. 4. Elementary module of the multilevel converter.
whole voltage to the motor, the multilevel converter allows
approaching the ideal sine wave.
III. MODULATION METHODS
For the multilevel converter, different modulation methods
can be used to drive an induction motor. The following
methods have been developed and tested.
979
Fig. 5. Two-quadrant regulated dc–dc converter.
Fig. 6. PWM signals adaptation.
A. Pulsewidth Modulation (PWM)
The first method described is a PWM modulation. For one
full-bridge converter, two auxiliary triangular functions have
to be generated and compared with a sine-wave signal (one
for the half bridge generating the positive voltage and the
other for the half bridge generating the negative step). So, for
the first phase of the multilevel converter, two steps with two
triangles per step are taken using the phase angles 0 , 90 ,
180 , and 270 . To create shifted pulse patterns for the other
two phases, again, phase-shifted triangular signals have to be
used. For the second phase, signals with the angles 30 , 120 ,
210 , and 300 , and for the third one, 60 , 150 , 240 , and
330 are generated for the modulation.
Furthermore, it has to be assured that there is no half bridge
causing a positive voltage while another half bridge is causing
980 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER ELECTRONICS, VOL. 13, NO. 5, SEPTEMBER 1998
Fig. 7. Typical PWM switching signals.
TABLE I
PWM LOSSES
a negative voltage at the same time. This would not cause an
output voltage. Like this, a power transfer from a positive cell
into a negative without feeding the motor can be avoided. The
schematic for this function for one phase is showed in Fig. 6.
The logic A and logic B blocks count the number of bits for
the switching of positive and negative steps. The combinatorial
logic afterwards assures that there are either only positive or
negative steps which will be turned on. These output signals
can be seen in Fig. 7. The letter represents the number of
half bridges in one phase of the converter.
The disadvantage of the PWM modulation is especially
the high-switching frequency causing additional power losses.
Table I shows different power losses for a four-level single-
phased converter using IGBT switches. The overall power is
4.8 kW for a converter with the galvanically separated dc
voltages at 200 V. The ac voltage amplitude is 800 V. The
current amplitude is 15 A and the power factor is . for each stage. On the other side, the switching losses are not
The following loss energies have been taken for the evaluation:
IGBT turn off 10 mJ, turn on 7 mJ, Diode turn off 3 mJ,
turn on 1 mJ at 600 V/10 A. The on-state values are: diode
forward voltage drop 1.4 V, IGBT saturation voltage 2.2 V.
The switching losses are considered to depend linearly on the
switched current and voltage. Different switching frequencies
have been looked at.
B. Step Modulation
To avoid the high-switching losses, the step modulation
method can be used. The functionality is simple, one phase
of the converter works like a quantizer of the ideal sine-wave
reference voltage. If the current quality has to be improved,
a larger number of steps per phase have to be taken. Three
different methods were developed to commutate the single-
Fig. 8. Step modulation.
TABLE II
STEP MODULATION LOSSES A
phase multilevel converter with the step modulation: the first
method consist of a normal series turn on and turn off from
one cell after the other. Fig. 8 represents the modulation for
a half period.
In this modulation method, the conduction losses for the
first full bridge are the largest, and the rms current is different
distributed equally. The power losses of each full-bridge cell
are resumed in Table II (the same conditions like Table I).
To avoid unequal power distribution, the second method
uses step modulation with load sharing [6]. With the help of
a sequencer in the digital modulator, a selected turn off is
chosen, in accordance with the sequence of the turn-on stages
(Fig. 9).
For this modulation method, the conduction power losses
for each stage are better distributed, but the switching losses
are still not distributed equally (Table III).
The first full bridge takes the important part of the switching
losses. This causes a superior stress in the recovery diode and
IGBT of the first element. If the frequency of the generated
voltage is raised for high-speed operation of motors, the
commutation losses take an important part of the total power
SCHIBLI et al.: THREE-PHASE MULTILEVEL CONVERTER FOR HIGH-POWER INDUCTION MOTORS
Fig. 9. Load sharing.
TABLE III
STEP MODULATION LOSSES B
Fig. 10. Rotating commutation of steps.
losses, especially in high-power IGBT and gate-turn-off (GTO)
thyristor modules. To distribute the switching losses equally
over all cells, the third and final step modulation method was
implemented with a rotating duty after every period of the
fundamental sine wave. The basic principle for four levels is
shown in Fig. 10.
C. Vector Modulation
The upper two methods can also be used for single-phase
multilevel converters. For the three-phase version, vector
modulation can be used, allowing timing advantages for vector
current control. With high-speed processors like DSP, the
coordinate transformation can be made for fast sampling times
(200 s). The basis for this modulation method can be taken
out of Fig. 11, where all the possible output voltages are
represented on the complex vector plane (1) for the multilevel
converter
(1)
The converter output voltage is generated with a reference
voltage turning in an ideal circle of the complex plane; the
nearest point has to be estimated at each sample period. There
are 61 different output vector points (classical converter: seven
points). With a lookup table programmed on an ROM, the
output pattern for the multilevel converter is generated, and
the load sharing is generated by sequential logic.
981
Fig. 11. Output-voltage vector positions.
IV. THEORETICAL RESULTS AND SIMULATIONS
A. Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) Analysis
The presented results have been done by MATLAB. The
multilevel converter was compared with the classical three-
phase converter and NPC converter. The dc-link voltage for
the NPC converter and the classical converter was chosen at
300 V, while the independent dc voltages of the multilevel
converter were chosen at 75 V. The switching frequency is
500 Hz. FFT analysis of typical PWM voltage waveforms has
been performed. Fig. 12 shows the phase voltages and its FFT
for all converter types. The first graph shows the phase voltage,
and it has five different levels for the classical converter. The
second graph shows the FFT analysis, with the first harmonics
distributed around the 500-Hz switching frequency.
The second simulation shows a typical (graph 3, 4) wave-
form from an NPC three-phase converter. With positive,
negative, and zero voltages for each independent phase, nine
different voltage levels are generated for the phase volt-
age. The FFT shows the low-order harmonics around the
double-switching frequency due to the fact that phase-shifted
triangular carrier signals were used. The last of these analyses
shows the multilevel converter, realized with two full bridges
per phase. Fifteen different voltage levels can be reached for
the phase voltage. The FFT shows very poor harmonic con-
tent, beginning at around four times the switching frequency.
Table IV compares some of the features of the three different
converter types for the same output power.
For numerical analysis of the output waveforms of a mul-
tilevel converter, the mathematical expressions for the line
voltage have been calculated [5]. The following expression
represents the voltage for a converter working with step
modulation:
(2)
982 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER ELECTRONICS, VOL. 13, NO. 5, SEPTEMBER 1998

Fig. 13. Pulse pattern angles for commutation.

Fig. 12. Phase-voltage waveforms and FFT for the different three-phase
converters.

TABLE IV
COMPARISON OF THE CONVERTERS

Fig. 14. Resistive load, step modulation.

With (2), the waveform of the harmonic of the order can

by analyzed by varying the turn-on angles . represents
the voltage of one dc source and is the number of the phase
(one, two, and three). The letter represents the number of half
bridges per phase. Equation (3) shows the same evaluation for
PWM modulation

(3)

The letter corresponds to the switching frequency factor

(4)

where is the fundamental frequency. The commutation

angles of a quarter period are found with Fig. 13. Fig. 15. Induction motor, step modulation.
SCHIBLI et al.: THREE-PHASE MULTILEVEL CONVERTER FOR HIGH-POWER INDUCTION MOTORS
Fig. 16. Current vector, step modulation.
Fig. 17. Induction motor, PWM modulation.
The phase angles were calculated by comparing mathemati-
cally a triangular function with a sine wave. With the software
MATHEMATICA, the angles could be found to evaluate (3).
B. SABER Simulation Results
A four-level three-phase multilevel converter has been im-
plemented on the SABER simulation tool. Nonideal switches
and sources with internal resistance (0.5 ) have been used.
The fundamental frequency is 50 Hz, and the switching fre-
quency was chosen at 500 Hz. Twelve phase-shifted triangular
carrier signals for the PWM were used. The independent dc
voltages were chosen at 150 V. The first results show the
983
Fig. 18. Current vector, PWM modulation.
Fig. 19. The dc current and output voltage.
characteristical waves of the converter on a resistive load
(14 ). The graphs presented in Fig. 14 are showing line
voltage, line–line voltage, motor star-point voltage, and line
current.
The second simulation result represented in Fig. 15
shows the multilevel converter driving an induction motor
( , mH, and internal voltage source
amplitude: 266 V).
In Fig. 16, the current phasor for the simulated motor can
be seen. Already with the step modulation, the current quality
is comparable to the current of a classical converter in PWM
modulation.
The following simulation results were now made with PWM
modulation. A low PWM switching frequency (500 Hz) has
been chosen in order to show the harmonics. Fig. 17 shows
the motor driven by the multilevel converter:
Again, the current phasor is presented in Fig. 18. The high-
current quality at a relative low-switching frequency of 500 Hz
can easily be seen.
An interesting point in the simulations was to look at the
current in each dc–dc converter. The current waveform has to
be taken in consideration for the design of the control circuit
and the construction of the multilevel converter.
The first graph of Fig. 19 shows a typical output voltage of
a full-bridge multilevel cell with PWM modulation, and the
second one shows the current taken from the dc supply. The
984
Fig. 20. 12-kW multilevel converter for experiments and tests.
Fig. 21. Step modulation, driving induction motor.
current has a sinusoidal output including the current ripple
multiplied by the sign of the output voltage of the full bridge
(5)
The converter switching causes high ’s in the supplies.
A multilevel converter with unregulated sources having non-
negligible internal resistance and stray inductance, the ’s
will influence the output voltage of the converter.
V. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
For the verification and test of all the modulation circuits
described above, a reduced-power model has been realized
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER ELECTRONICS, VOL. 13, NO. 5, SEPTEMBER 1998
in the research lab ( kW). IGBT’s from FUJI
(2MBI50L-120 half-bridge modules) were used as switches,
with the highest possible switching frequency per full-bridge
cell of 10 kHz. Tests have been made on resistive load and on
a 4-kW induction motor with nominal values of 120 Hz/9.5
A/390 V. The motor load is a dc-current motor coupled with
the induction motor. A current regulator has been implemented
on a standard PC Intel 486DX4 processor equipped with a
Burr–Brown AD card and a XILINX 4008 gate-array circuit
synchronized with the PC for the digital implementation of
the modulators (see Fig. 20).
In Figs. 21 and 22, an induction motor is driven with a
frequency of 120 Hz. It can be seen that the motor which has
SCHIBLI et al.: THREE-PHASE MULTILEVEL CONVERTER FOR HIGH-POWER INDUCTION MOTORS
Fig. 22. Measured current vectors with step modulation.
Fig. 23. PWM modulation, motor current.
been used has lower principle and stray inductance than the
simulated motor. The current phasor does not have the same
waveform like in the simulations.
So, the current vector drops to the center at several points.
The dashed line shows the current vector with a classical
converter to compare the current quality improvement with
the new converter topology.
Figs. 23 and 24 represent the motor working with PWM
modulation The switching frequency per half bridge is chosen
at 1.2 kHz (10 ), which provides a resulting frequency
of 4.8 kHz. The measurement in Fig. 24 compares the current
quality of a classical and ML converter. The resulting switch-
ing frequency is four times higher compared to the classical
converter due to the shifted carrier signals.
VI. CONCLUSIONS
A new converter topology has been presented for drive
applications in high-power fields. With a high number of semi-
conducting devices, current quality is improved and weight
reduced by avoiding heavy current filters. With the series con-
985
Fig. 24. Measured current vectors with PWM modulation.
nection of steps, a redundant motor drive can be designed. In
case of a power failure of one step, the other multilevel steps of
the same phase can compensate the missing voltage step. The
proposed solution has many advantages, especially for high-
voltage motor applications. With the new modulation method,
the losses are distributed equally on each full-bridge cell. The
simulations and experimental results show the feasibility of
such a system. The dc–dc converters provide a bidirectional
energy exchange and can be realized in different ways [1], [4].
REFERENCES
[1] A. Rufer, N. Schibli, and C. Briguet, “A direct coupled 4-quadrant
multilevel converter for 16 23 Hz traction systems,” in PEVD96 Power
Electronics and Variable Speed Drives Conf., pp. 448–453.
[2] T. Meynard and H. Foch, “Imbricated cells multi-level voltage-source
inverters for high power applications,” EPE J., vol. 3, no. 2, pp. 99–106,
1993.
[3] A. Rufer, “An aid in the teaching of multilevel inverters for high power
applications,” in Power Electronics Specialists Conf. PESC, Atlanta, GA,
1995, pp. 347–352.
[4] N. Mohan, M. Undeland, and W. Robbins, Power Electronics. New
York: Wiley, 1995, pp. 686–688.
[5] M. Bhagwat and R. Stefanovic, “Generalized structure of a multilevel
PWM inverter,” IEEE Trans. Ind. Applicat., vol. IA-19, no. 6, pp.
1057–1069, 1983.
[6] W. Schminke, “Modulateurs de très grande puissance en technique PSM
pour émetteurs à ondes courtes de 500 kW,” Review Brown Boveri, vol.
5, pp. 225–240, 1985.
[7] F. Z. Peng, J. Lai, J. W. McKeever, and J. VanCoevering, “A mul-
tilevel voltage-source inverter with separate dc sources for static var
generation,” IEEE Trans. Ind. Applicat., vol. 32, no. 5, pp. 1130–1138,
1996.
Nikolaus P. Schibli was born in New York City, NY, on November 14,
1970. He received the Master’s degree in electrical engineering from the
Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich, Switzerland, in 1996. He is currently
working towards the Ph.D. degree in multilevel converters for high-power
systems at the Federal Institute of Technology.
He joined the Industrial Electronics Laboratory at the Swiss Federal Institute
of Technology of Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland. At EPFL, his research
is focused on reversible dc–dc converters and control systems for power
electronics.
986
Tung Nguyen was born in Saigon, Vietnam, in March 1963. He received the
Master’s degree in electrical engineering from the Swiss Federal Institute of
Technology of Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland, in 1997, where he worked on
three-phase multilevel converters.
Since 1997, he has been working on telecommunications at a private
company.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER ELECTRONICS, VOL. 13, NO. 5, SEPTEMBER 1998
Alfred C. Rufer was born in 1951 in Diessbach, Switzerland. He received the
Master’s degree from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne
(EPFL), Switzerland, in 1976.
In 1978, he joined ABB, Turgi, Switzerland, where he worked in the
fields of power electronics and control such as high-power variable-frequency
converters for drives. In 1985, he was a Group Leader for power electronics
development at ABB. Since 1996, he has been a Professor and Head of
the Industrial Electronics Laboratory at EPFL. He has several patents and
is the author of publications on modulation and control methods and power
electronics.