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Design of a Switching Mode Three Phase Inverter

Conference Paper · July 2016

DOI: 10.1109/ICCCE.2016.43

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 2016 International Conference on Computer & Communication Engineering
Design of a Switching Mode Three Phase Inverter
Tawfikur Rahman, S. M. A. Motakabber and M. I. Ibrahimy
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering,
International Islamic University Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
e-mail: tawfikurr@gmail.com
Abstract—The inverter is an electrical switching control device
that can be converted from one source to another source like as
DC to AC or AC to DC. An efficient three leg IGBT inverter
has been designed for microgrid systems which are simulated
by MATLAB2014a /Simulink. The inverter switches are
controlled by a pulse controller, which mainly generates the
switching gate pulse. The switching pulse controller consists of
two level pulse width modulation (PWM), phase lock loop
(PLL), DC voltage and current regulator and Uref generator.
The inverter gate pulse has designed using the input reference
voltage and current, output reference signal and a reference
phase angle. The pulse signal precisely synchronized with the
microgrid line frequency of zero crossing sampling and
reduces the total losses in the inverter which is almost 50W.
Two lowpass LC filters have been used in this inverter that
reduces the switching loss. The design of the three-phase
inverter has better performance compared to single phase; the
overall conversion efficiency of the inverter is 97.62%.
Keywords-three phase inverter; synchronous inverter
control; LC filter; micro-grid
I. INTRODUCTION
Nowadays, Green energy systems such as solar cell, wind
turbine, tidal energy converter, etc. are connected with the
micro-grid system. Micro-grid source, then again gradually
substitutes itself and is normally available throughout an
unremitting source [1]. A renewable energy source, sunlight
can be directly converted into DC electrical power by using a
solar panel or somehow collect the solar energy to convert it
into heat and generate steam to operate an electrical
generator [2]. In the case of renewable wind energy, the wind
passes through a tunnel or directly rotted a big propeller
bleeds to move the generator to produce the AC/DC
electrical power [3]. Similarly, the other renewable energy
sources are converted into electrical power to supply the
micro-grid systems with the respective suitable techniques.
The microgrid system is an essential for power supply
system because it is free, available and a small region power-
sharing system between normal power sources. The
microgrid is a localized grouping power system consists two
types of radial feeders such as sensitive-load feeders and
non-sensitive-load feeders. The domestic loads are connected
to the sensitive load feeder’s side and the non-sensitive-load
feeders are used any error fault occurred due to the main
grid. However, a micro-grid is confined to an open system
which interconnects between transmission and distribution
electrical energy systems, such as wind power, fuel-
generator and solar energy with storage strategies like
flywheels, batteries and electric capacitors rely on both high
and low voltages [4]. An electrical energy distribution
978-1-5090-2427-8/16 $31.00 © 2016 IEEE
DOI 10.1109/ICCCE.2016.43
system consists of energy storage systems, local loads and
distributed generators that can work on building or main
grid-connected modes.
Inversion is a process that changes the input DC to output
AC using the desired output current, voltage and frequency.
An electrical power inverter circuit can perform this type of
alteration. The terms voltage-bolstered and current-sustained
are used as a part of a reference to power electrical inverter
circuits. A voltage sustained electrical power inverter is one
within that the DC input voltage or current is fundamentally
consistent and free of the load current strained. However, the
inverter brings up the load voltage through the current
strained structure is fixed by the load. An electrical power
inverter is a voltage feed inverter also called as voltage
source inverter, where the output AC waveform is a sine
wave or others types of the voltage waveform. The output
voltage waveform is staying unaffected with the inverter load
[5]. The three phases, the multi-level inverter is turning out
to be exceptionally appealing for commercial enterprise
application systems because of their high current rating, high
voltage rating, and high efficiency. In this inverter, the
overall performance is very efficient because of the system
produces less harmonic, switching loss and low cost. As the
quantitative measure of level increases, the output voltage
waveform is additionally increasing. The SPWM control
method is used to the control the semiconductor switches and
synchronizes phase between inverter with the utility grid [6].
The consistently developing power utilization, overload
the supply micro-grid by making issues likes micro-grid
insecurity, power, security blackouts, the breakdown of
power quality, and so on. The single-phase voltage source
inverter is applied to the neural network controller, LC filter
and voltage sensor. A multiple feedback controller for PWM
inverter is developed by root-locus method. As a result, in
this method can reduce switching loss with linear loading
condition, dynamic, efficient response to any disturbance,
change in load and very few steady state errors [7].
II. DESIGN OF AN INVERTER SWITCHING TOPOLOGY
Three different switching topologies have been used for
designing inverter switching topology such as half-phase,
full-phase and three-phase. The half- phase is used to input
DC voltage supply and two switches to convert the DC to
AC voltage. The full-phase is also used same input DC
voltage supply and four switches to convert the DC to AC
voltage. The three-phase is required same input DC supply,
but six switching topologies do the same conversion. In the
micro-grid system uses three-phase inverter topology. It is
more advantageous to generate the two PWM signal to
operate the half-phase to generate the four PWM signal to
155
operate the full-phase also to generate the six PWM signal to
operate the three-phase. Also, the three-phase is needed
fewer snubber circuit and switching device. Providing two
input DC voltage supply for three-phase is not complex in
practice.
Figure 2 shows that the inverter switching logic circuit
has three output terminals as Vao, Vbo and Vco, because this
system has three switches and it is working at eight different
combinations. In the case of eight switching states, which are
called 000, that means top switches are OFF and bottom
switches are ON. On the other hand, the switch is ON and
OFF when the switching state is 001 and so on. There is
different voltage at these terminals with mutual point (at this
point is 0) which are given in Table 1.
Similarly, the other conditions can easily be explained and
overall eight scenarios. After eight states of the circuits and
corresponding terminal voltages will be repeated ON and
OFF.
There are eight switching condition modes of process in a
cycle to make a 3-phase output voltage from the inverter a
group of switches is triggered at 1200 phase apart, that is, 00,
1200 and 2400 respectively. The input reference/sample
signal from the micro-grid is used for phase synchronization.
When the input sample signal amplitude is greater than the
carrier voltage amplitude, the switches S1 = S4 = S5 = 1 or
ON condition, consequently the other switches are S2 = S3 =
S6 = 0 or OFF state. The switching signal of the inverter is
shown in Figure 2.

Figure 1. The inverter switching logic circuit.

The logic state of switch S = 0 means the OFF condition

and S =1 means on condition. There are three pairs of
switches. Each pair of the switch works as equivalent a
single switch; therefore, eight different switching
combinations are possible. As a result, the output terminal
voltages of the circuits are, Vao= +VDC/2, Vbo = -VDC/2 and Vco
= +VDC/2 respectively.

TABLE I. SWITCHING STATE OF THE PROPOSED LOGIC CONTROLLER

S1 S3 S5
Vao Vbo Vco
S2’ S4’ S6’
0 0 0 -VDC/2 -VDC/2 -VDC/2

0 0 1 -VDC/2 -VDC/2 +VDC/2

0 1 0 -VDC/2 +VDC/2 -VDC/2

0 1 1 -VDC/2 +VDC/2 +VDC/2 Figure 2. Output waveform and gate pulses of the logic circuit.
1 0 0 +VDC/2 -VDC/2 -VDC/2

1 0 1 +VDC/2 -VDC/2 VDC/2

III. DESIGN OF A THREE PHASE INVERTER SYSTEMS
The three-phase inverter has been designed and simulated
1 1 0 +VDC/2 +VDC/2 -VDC/2
by using MATLAB2014a. Figure 3 shows the three-phase
1 1 1 +VDC/2 +VDC/2 +VDC/2 block diagram including micro-grid systems. This design
operates by switching logic control which is a combination
of two-level PWM controller, DC current and voltage

156
regulator, PLL regulator, Uref generator and phase
synchronization technique. The inverter power source, VDC /2
has been considered in this design at ±250V which is the
standard output voltage from a solar panel, microgrid
frequency is 50Hz and modulation index is 0.95. An inverter
output is connected to the inductor branch L = 60mH. The
branch inductor is connected transformer primary side and
transformer second side is connected to the output LC filter
to block the higher harmonic frequencies from the inverter (a)
output waveform. The transformer two winding (Y-Y) block
the parameters taken nominal power Pn = 1.0×e3VA,
frequency fn = 50Hz, for winding 1, the parameters are,
phase-to-phase voltage, V1 = 245V (Vrms) , R1 = 100μ and
L1 =0.04μH respectively. For the winding 2, the parameters
are phase-to-phase voltage V2 = 440V (Vrms), R2 = 100μ
and L2 = 0.04μH are considered respectively. The
magnetization resistance and inductance Rm = 500μ and Lm
= 500μH are considered. The three-phase inverter consists of
(b)
three terminals IGBT of internal diode resistance Ron =
1.0m and the snubber resistance RS =100k values are
considered respectively.

(c)

Figure 3. The 3-phase PSI Block diagram.

An inverter control method is considered by the making

of constant pulse amplitude by changing the duty and the
pulse duration. The block diagram shows of inverter control
and gate pulse generation are shown in Figure 4. (d)

(e)
Figure 4. Inverter gate pulse

The controller is normally to take inverter input DC

reference voltage, output reference voltage and current. In
this paper selection combines methods such as PLL, DC
voltage regulation, current regulation, Uref generated and it
provides phase synchronizing between inverter and micro-
grid. The phase to phase voltage is measured by the three
phase current voltage measurement block. In this design,
only the voltage is considering, but not the current. The (f)
output voltage and current are in volts and ampere values.
Figure 5. Switching signal from the inverter for different gates: (a) G1, (b)
G2, (c) G3, (d) G4, (e) G5 and (f) G6

157
 IV. FILTER DESIGN
Figure 6 shows the LC output filter circuits which consist
of inductor and capacitor. The current rating of the inductor
should be equal or greater than the maximum output current
of the inverter. The inductance has a negative influence on
the load response and only required a small value to
accomplish the desired damping of the output ripple.

(a)

Figure 6. LC Filter

Choosing a large inductor will require a similar capacitor

in order to counterbalance the substantial voltage drops
caused by load transients. (b)

Vmax ripple XC
= (1)
VOac XC + X L

X L = 2π f L (2)

The aim here is to utilize a capacitor with a maximum

value as possible within mind the voltage ratings, size and
cost. The added cost of choosing a higher value of the
capacitance than the lowest required is compensated by the
better performance (c)

1
XC = (3)
2π f C

Where,
Vmax ripple = maximum allowed output ripple of the filter
VOac = listed output ripple of the filter of the inverter
f = switching frequency
C = capacitance
L = inductance (d)

Regarding ripple and load response, the filter should be Figure 7. Inverter output wave (a) Va, (b) Vb, (c) Vc and (d) Vab
considered when selecting the components. The subsequent
equation is used to calculate the required values of the filter The red, green and blue colors represent the phase
components to accomplish the required damping ratio: voltage of Va, Vb, and Vc, phase-to-phase Vab and three phase
V. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION voltage Vabc respectively.
Figure 7 shows the three-phase inverter output voltage
waveform without filtering. The design of the three-phase
circuits, a PWM controller has been used to generate the
sinusoidal wave and a sampled phase signal has been used to
synchronize the inverter output phase with the micro-grid
phase.

158

Figure 8. Inverter output current waveform.
From the figure, it is observed that the output voltage of
the inverter is a PWM signal and its output voltage is
approximately ±500V. Figure 8 shows the inverter output
waveform; phase-to-phase current is around ±4A. The
inverter output voltage pulses pass through the output
lowpass LC filter which elements the higher harmonic
frequencies and generates the pure sinusoidal wave as shown
in Figure 9 and Figure 10.
Figure 9. Microgrid inverter output voltage waveform.
Figure 10. Microgrid output current waveform.
In this design, the simulated results of the inverter are
phase-to-phase output voltage Vabc= 622.3V and the load
current Iabc = 2.3A.
159
Figure 11. Inverter total losses waveform.
Figure 12. Three phase inverter temperature waveform.
Figure 11 and Figure 12 shown the results of the inverter
outputs power = 1.28kW and power factor = 0.9 using a
microgrid frequency of 50 Hz. The total inversion losses are
2.7 kW and the highest junction temperature = 41.760C is
observed on inverter IGBT switches.
VI. CONCLUSIONS
In PWM control based micro-grid inverter in interface
circuit, especially in switching controller and output filter are
the major problems in this design. Due to the total inverter
losses of the circuit switching frequency, the reduction of the
overall system efficiency occurred. However, the design
became unable to avoid the reduction of the switching losses
by introducing a PWM controller based switching
phenomenon which increases the overall system efficiency
which is 97.62%. The simulation result shows that the value
of total inverter losses is compared to the single phase
inverter of microgrid system. As indicated by our prediction,
the three-phase inverter is appropriate for applications where
the AC voltage as an output needs to be higher than DC as an
input and economically possible.
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