ABSTRACT

A Voltage source inverter (VSI) is commonly used to supply a variable

frequency variable voltage (VFVV) to adjustable speed drives (ASD). Pulse width
modulation (!") is an operation performed on #ra$# voltage and current $aveforms to
s%ape t%eir spectra in a $ay beneficial to t%eir applications. Spectra s%aping involves
creation of #dead band# bet$een $anted and un$anted components. A suitable !"
met%od $ill be c%osen from variety of met%ods available depending upon t%e
application suitability. It is desirable for a !" inverter application to employ !"
s$itc%ing strategy t%at not only address primary issues vi&.' less ()D' effective dc bus
utili&ation etc.' but also ta*e cares of secondary issues li*e +"I reduction' s$itc%ing
loss ' better spreading of %armonic over t%e spectrum etc.
,eal-time met%ods for !" generation can be broadly classified into natural
sampled PWM (.S!")' regular sampled PWM (,S!") and Programmed PWM
(!"). .S!" is triangle comparison based met%od $%ic% relies on analog circuits
and t%e deficiency being t%ermal drift and non-reprogrammable nature' $%ere as
,S!" is digital platform based relying on loo*-up-table (/0() and t%e advantage
being easy reprogrammability. !" is equation based used for specific tas* suc% as
Selective harmonic elimination (S)+) etc.'
(%e main objective of most modern !" met%ods suc% as Third Harmonic
Injection PWM (()I!")' Triplen Harmonic Injection PWM ((,I!") etc.' is
en%ancement of fundamental output voltage. All t%ese met%ods' t%ey do differ $idely in
concept and implementation' $%ile t%eir performance difference remains undiscussed.
Space Vector PWM (SV!") and Discontinuous PWM (D!") met%ods occupy
major portion of ,S!" family. (%e e1tra effort $%ic% is spent in understanding and
implementing t%e modern !" tec%niques may not be gained in t%eir performance
$%ile comparing $it% simple-effortless sc%emes. 2pting SV!" for an application'
$%ic% %as t%e main demand of de1terous utili&ation of dc bus voltage' may suffer due to
implementation difficulties $%ile comparing $it% ot%er competitive met%ods vi&.
()I!" etc. At t%e same time' if t%e application demands t%e en%anced fundamental
at reduced ()D' it is $ort%y opting for t%e SV!" sc%eme. 0nderstanding and
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implementing in a specific processor' t%e basic SV!" tec%nique $ill enable to ma*e
variations very easily.
(%e fundamental contributions of t%is project $or* are first grouping and
c%aracteri&ation of modern modulators. An attempt is made to unify and branc% out t%e
modern modulation met%ods $%ic% successfully group t%em in application
specific3implementation easiness clusters. Simulation study is carried out for all modern
!" met%ods in a common platform so as to establis% simple-accurate performance
indices. First time' an effective attempt %as been made in listing of all t%e available
performance indices for po$er converter and 4D grap%ical illustrations are employed
for comparing modern !" met%ods.
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