Development of a Modular Educational Kit for Research and Teaching on Power Electronics and Multilevel Converters

Abstract

This paper presents the detailed project of a modular educational kit to be used in research and teaching activities in the area of power electronics -with emphasis on applications in medium voltage multilevel converters. The half bridge topology has been chosen for the submodules, as they can be arranged together in a multitude of other topologies. A system composed by a mother board and daughter cards is presented. A DSP control card and a FPGA System-On-Module are inserted in the mother board in order to control the half bridge submodules. The targets of this project are applications in medium voltage -hence, the communication between the submodules and the FPGA/DSP is performed through optical fibers. Also a self power system is presented for the submodules, in order for them to operate at floating potentials. Experimental results have been presented for the most usual topologies of converters, including a Modular Multilevel Converter operating at 2000V.

Online Frequency Response Analysis of Electric Machinery through an Active Coupling System Based on Power Electronics

“…Each SM board receives their gate signals through optical fibers. A detailed project on these SM boards, including the gate drivers, is presented in [ 41 ].…”

“…At each sampling time, the DSP performed the whole algorithm and sent (through SPI) the modulation indexes to the FPGA. The SPI communication between DSP and FPGA was performed physically in a mother board (presented in details in [ 41 ]). Figure 10 b presents the mother board with the following accessory boards: DSP TMS320F28379D ControlCard [ 42 ].…”

“…Each of these boards can interface to six SM boards and are presented in detail in [ 41 ]. Optical fiber interface between the DSP and a relay board (both boards presented in detail in [ 41 ]) that acted as the circuit breaker of Figure 3 . Hall effect sensors for and of Figure 3 .…”

“…These boards isolated and converted the nominal voltages of the machine under testing and DC-AC converter to signals between and , referenced to a common ground. Analog signal conditioning board (presented in detail in [ 41 ]). These boards fit the output of the Hall effect sensors to the range of 0 V to of the analog channels of the DSP.…”

“…Four optical fiber interface boards between the FPGA and the SM boards. Each of these boards can interface to six SM boards and are presented in detail in [ 41 ].…”