Variable Slope Trapezoidal Circulating Current Injection to Attenuate Capacitor Voltage Ripple in Modular Multilevel Converter Based Variable Speed Motor Drives Application

Abstract: The main challenge in using the Modular Multilevel Converter-based constant-torque variable-speed motor drives is increased sub-module capacitor voltage ripples (SM-CVR) at lowfundamental frequency operation, due to the inverse relationship between SM-CVR and operating frequency. To address this issue, a variable slope trapezoidal circulating current (CC) is injected along with square wave common-mode voltage (CMV). Compared to sinusoidal CC and sinusoidal CMV injection, the proposed injection technique can reduce the peak of the CC in the range of 0% to 50%, resulting in lesser device stress and improved efficiency. Simulation results of the proposed technique are presented, and they are further compared with the existing injection techniques to show the superiority