HYBRID CASCADED MULTILEVEL CONVERTER

WITH REDUCED TOTAL HARMONIC DISTORTION

Prepared by
RAJASEKHAR V
13l31D4208
nd year M.Tech, EEE (P&ID)
2nd

UNDER
UNDER THE
THE ESTEEMED
ESTEEMED GUIDANCE
GUIDANCE OF
OF

Adari .G V . CHIRANJEEVI
Asistente .Profesor

Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering

VIGNANS INSTITUTE OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
BLOCK DIAGRAM
MULTY LEVEL INVERTERS TOPOLOGY
CASCADED H-BRIDGE MULTILEVEL INVERTER
SIMULATION RESULTS
CONCLUSION
REFERENCES

INTRODUCTION
In a traditional method, all the battery cells are directly connected in series and are
charged or discharged by the same current.

A voltage equalization circuit is often needed in practical applications to protect the

battery cells from over charging or over discharging.

The equalization circuit is composed of a group of inductances or transformers and

converters, which can realize energy transfer between battery cells.
3

 In EV energy storage systems, a large number of battery cells are usually connected in
series to enhance the output voltage for motor driving.

These vehicles

have battery storage with large capacity and these batteries are

required to be charged continuously.

The ac output of the HCMC is multilevel voltage, while the number of voltage levels is
proportional to the number of cascaded battery cells.

So the HCMC used in the applications of EV with a larger number of battery cells, the
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output ac voltage is approximately ideal sine waves.

Multilevel Voltage Source Inverter

One phase leg n-level inverter

 The voltage balance is realized by energy exchange between cells.

To simplify the circuit, multilevel converters are widely used in medium or high
voltage motor drives.
If their flying capacitors or isolated dc sources are replaced by the battery cells, the
battery cells can be cascaded in series combining with the converters instead of
connection in series directly.

A
+

B+

Va
Vb
A-

B-

V load = VA - VB

BLOCK DIAGRAM
7

MULTY LEVEL INVERTERS TOPOLOGY

The most common multilevel converter topologies are:

Diode clamped (neutral-point clamped)
Flying capacitor (capacitor-clamped)
Cascaded topology.
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H BRIDGE INVERTER
Vdc

A+

B+

+ Vdc

Va

Load

Corresponding values of Vab

A+ closed and B closed, Vab = Vdc
A+ closed and B+ closed, Vab = 0
B+ closed and A closed, Vab = Vdc
B closed and A closed, Vab = 0

Vb
B

The free wheeling diodes permit current

to flow even if all switches are open
These diodes also permit lagging
currents to flow in inductive loads

Vload V A VB V AB

H BRIDGE INVERTER
Vdc

A+

B+

+0

Va

Load

Corresponding values of Vab

A+ closed and B closed, Vab = Vdc
A+ closed and B+ closed, Vab = 0
B+ closed and A closed, Vab = Vdc
B closed and A closed, Vab = 0

Vb
B

The free wheeling diodes permit current

to flow even if all switches are open
These diodes also permit lagging
currents to flow in inductive loads

Vload V A VB V AB

10

10

H BRIDGE INVERTER
Vdc

A+

B+

Vdc +

Va

Load

Corresponding values of Vab

A+ closed and B closed, Vab = Vdc
A+ closed and B+ closed, Vab = 0
B+ closed and A closed, Vab = Vdc
B closed and A closed, Vab = 0

Vb
B

The free wheeling diodes permit current

to flow even if all switches are open
These diodes also permit lagging
currents to flow in inductive loads

Vload V A VB V AB

11

11

H BRIDGE INVERTER
Vdc

A+

B+

+0

Va

Load

Corresponding values of Vab

A+ closed and B closed, Vab = Vdc
A+ closed and B+ closed, Vab = 0
B+ closed and A closed, Vab = Vdc
B closed and A closed, Vab = 0

Vb
B

The free wheeling diodes permit current

to flow even if all switches are open
These diodes also permit lagging
currents to flow in inductive loads

Vload V A VB V AB

12

12

 The cascaded multilevel inverter consists of a series of H-bridge inverter units.

The cascaded H-bridge converters are used for the voltage balance of the battery cells.
The converter can also realize the charge and discharge control of the battery cells.
The ac output of the converter is multilevel voltage, while the number of voltage levels
is proportional to the number of cascaded battery cells.
So in the applications of Electric Vehicles with a larger number of battery cells, the
output ac voltage is approximately ideal sine waves.
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14

Hybrid Cascaded Multilevel Converter

 It includes two parts, the cascaded half-bridges with battery cells shown on the left
and the H-bridge inverters shown on the right.
The output of the cascaded half-bridges is the dc bus which is also connected to the dc
input of the H-bridge.
Each half-bridge can make the battery cell to be involved into the voltage producing
or to be bypassed.

15

 By control of the cascaded half-bridges, the number of battery cells connected in the
circuit will be changed, that leads to a variable voltage to be produced at the dc bus.
The H-bridge is just used to alternate the direction of the dc voltage to produce ac
waveforms.
Hence, the switching frequency of devices in the H-bridge equals to the base
frequency of the desired ac voltage.

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 For the cascade half-bridge converter, define the switching state as follows:

Sx = 1, upper switch is conducted, lower switch is OFF

= 0, lower switch is conducted, upper switch is OFF.

When Sx = 1, the battery is connected in the circuit and is discharged or charged which
is determined by the direction of the external current.

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 The other is the higher voltage devices used in the H-bridges which worked just in base
frequency.
So the high voltage large capacity devices such as GTO or IGCT can be used in the
H-bridges.
The number of battery cells in each phase is n, then the devices used in one phase
cascaded half-bridges is 2n.

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19

Proposed 23 level hybrid Cascaded Multi Level converter

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20

Three-phase hybrid cascaded multilevel converter.

 It means that not all the battery cells are needed to supply the load at the same time.
As the output current is the same for all cells connected in the circuit, the charged or
discharged energy of each cell is determined by the period of this cell connected into the
circuit, which can be used for the voltage or energy equalization.
The cell with higher voltage or SOC can be discharged more or to be charged less in
using, then the energy utilization ratio can be improved while the overcharge and over
discharged can be avoided.

21

 The hybrid cascaded modular multilevel converter proposed here is shown.

It includes two parts, the cascaded half-bridges with battery cells shown on the
left and the H-bridge inverters shown on the right.
The output of the cascaded half-bridges(CHB) is dc bus which is connected to
the dc input of the H-bridge.
Each half-bridge can make the battery cell to be involved into the voltage
producing or to be bypassed.

22

 By control of the cascaded half-bridges, the number of battery cells

connected in the circuit will be changed, that leads to a variable voltage to be
produced at the dc bus.
The H-bridge is used to alternate the direction of the dc voltage to produce ac
waveform.
Hence, the switching frequency of devices in the H-bridge equals to the base
frequency of the desired ac voltage.
There are two kinds of power electronics devices in the proposed circuit.
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 One is the low voltage devices used in the cascaded half-bridges these devices
work in higher switching frequency to reduce harmonics.

MOSFETs with low on-resistance are used in these circuits for switching
action.

The Switches used in H-Bridge should withstand high voltages and operate
low frequency usually at grid frequency.

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Devices such as IGBT, GTO or IGCT can be used.

 All the half-bridges are controlled individually, a staircase shape halfsinusoidal-wave voltage is produced on the dc bus of MMC.
As a result multilevel ac voltage can be formed at the output side of HBridge.
The number of ac voltage levels in any phase is equal to 2n1, where n is the
number of cascaded half-bridges in each phase.
The more of the cascaded cells, the more voltage levels at the output side, and
the output voltage is closer to the ideal sinusoidal.

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Magnitudes of Voltages with respect to Switching states of a MMC

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S.No

S1

S2

S3

S10

S11

Vout

V1

2V1

3V1

4V1

5V1

6V1

7V1

8V1

9V1

10

10V1

11

11V1

Modulating and Carrier Signals used to control Half Bridges of MC

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Methodology Adopted for identifying optimum number of Stages

Cascaded HCMC circuit proposed in [1] taken into consideration.
Cascaded Half Bridge modules of required number are taken for
production of different levels in the output voltage across the terminals
of a H-Bridge.
The output levels that are generated are 3,5,7,9,11,13,15,17,19,21 and 23.
Peak amplitudes of Phase voltage, % THD are estimated.

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Results

29

1630

Simulink circuit

Outputs of Voltage Across H-Bridge While Producing 23 Levels

(Phase Voltages)

31

Outputs of Voltage Across H-Bridge While Producing 23 Level MLI

(Line Voltages)

32

Output Load Currents of 23 level MLI ( sinusoidal waveform)

33

Harmonic Spectrum of 23- level Phase Voltage

34

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CONCLUSION
The levels in output voltage increases and the high power switches are switched
at low frequency as a result the switching loss decreases.
The HCMC converter has the ability of producing the required number of levels
in

the

output

voltage;

this

makes

it

suitable

for variable

voltage

applications.
The Converter offers a reasonably good THD in the load voltages as results
the cost of filters will get reduced.
As the number of levels increases beyond 19 there in no considerable change
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in THD values measured for different levels.

 So it is better to restrict the number of levels to a value between 17 or

23 for which the THD value is lies between 2.13 and 2.16.
Depending upon the load power requirements the numbers of levels
required in output are opted.
For example for low power applications 17 levels in output may
chosen for high power applications 23 levels and beyond may be opted.

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References
1. Zedong Zheng, Kui Wang, Lie Xu, Yongdong Li, A Hybrid Cascaded Multilevel
Converter for Battery Energy Management Applied in Electric Vehicles, IEEE
TRANSACTIONS ON POWER ELECTRONICS, vol. 29, no. 7, pp. 3537 3546, july 2014.
2. S. M. Lukic, J. Cao, R. C. Bansal, F. Rodriguez, and A. Emadi, Energy storage
systems for automotive applications, IEEE Trans. Ind. Electron., vol. 55, no. 6, pp.
22582267, Jul. 2008.
3. H. M. Zhang and S. P. Ding, Application of synergic electric power sup- ply in HEV, in
Proc. 8th World Congr. Intelligent Control Autom., 2010, pp. 40974100.
4. A. Emadi, Y. J. Lee, and K. Rajashekara, Power electronics and motor drives in
electric, hybrid electric, and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, IEEE Trans. Ind.
Electron., vol. 55, no. 6, pp. 22372245, Jun. 2008.
5. K. Jonghoon, S. Jongwon, C. Changyoon, and B. H. Cho, Stable configuration of a LiIon series battery pack based on a screening process for improved voltage/SOC
balancing, IEEE Trans. Power Electron., vol. 27, no. 1, pp. 411424, Jan. 2012.

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