POWER ELECTRONICS SIMULATION LAB

Experiment 1
SINGLE PHASE INVERTER-UNIPOLAR AND BIPOLAR PWM ;
THREE PHASE VSI – SPWM

UJJAL CHATTERJEE
EE21115
M.Tech 1st Year
PED GROUP
 PES Lab Exp-1
Abstract:- Inverter is basically an interface between DC source like
photovoltaic cell and AC networks. There are many inverter
topologies
but output current distortion and efficiency are the two main
parameters for the selection of inverters. Two such topologies are
described herein. In this paper, the SPWM (Sinusoidal Pulse Width
Modulation) technique of unipolar and bipolar inverters is
presented and the models are simulated in MATLAB – Simulink. The
H-Bridge inverter topologies (both unipolar and bipolar)
are made up of power electronic switches and are fed with constant
amplitude pulses with varying duty cycle for each period.
The SPWM pulses are generated by comparison of two waves- a
carrier wave, which is triangular in this case and a modulating
reference wave whose frequency is the desired frequency, which is
sinusoidal in this case. This pulse width modulation inverter
is characterized by simple circuitry and rugged control scheme that is
SPWM technique to obtain inverter output voltage control
and to reduce its harmonic content.

Introduction :- The basic inverter circuits performs the task

of converting DC input power to AC output power. Inverter
can be widely classified
based on many parameters but considering one of them
based on the arrangement of the power electronic switches
are –
Half Bridge Inverter and Full bridge inverter. A Full bridge
inverter has two legs consisting of two semiconductor
switches in
each of them with the load connected at the center points of
the two legs.

As seen in Figure1 four semiconductor switches S1, S2, S3, S4 are

arranged with the load connected at the midpoints of
two legs hence forming the letter H, so is the name H-Bridge inverter.
Feedback diodes are provided for all the switches. DC
source Vs is supplied to H-Bridge. The switches s1, S2, S3, S4 can be
switched in three different sequences
When S1 and S4 are turned on +Vs is obtained at the output
When S2nand S3 are turned on –Vs is obtained at the output
When S1 and S2 or S3 and S4 are turned on together zero voltage is
obtained at the output

PULSE WIDTH MODULATION

Variation of duty cycle of the PWM signal provides a voltages
across the load in a specific pattern will appear to the load as
AC
signal. A pure sin wave is obtained after passing the signal
through a low pass filter. The pattern at which the duty cycle
of a
PWM signal varies can be implemented using simple analogue
components or a digital microcontroller. Either of the two
basic
topologies generate sinusoidal PWM that controls the output
of the inverter.
PWM signals find a wide application in modern electronics.
Some of these reasons are:
Reduced Power Loss – switched circuits tend to have lower
power consumption because the switching devices are
almost always off (low current means low power) or hard-on
(low voltage drop means low power).
Easy to Generate – PWM signals are quite easy to generate.
Many modern microcontrollers include PWM
hardware within the chip; using this hardware often takes
very little attention from the microprocessor and it can
run in the background without interfering with executing
code.
Digital to Analogue Conversion – The fact that the duty cycle
of a PWM signal can be accurately controlled by
simple counting procedures is one of the reasons why PWM
signals can be used to accomplish digital-to-analogue
conversion.
The desired PWM technique should have the following
characteristics:
Good utilization of DC supplies voltage possibly a high voltage
gain.
Linearity of voltage control.
Low amplitude of low order harmonic of output voltage to
minimize the harmonic content of output currents.
Low switching losses in inverter switches.
Sufficient time allowance for proper operation of the inverter
switches and control system.
In SPWM (Sinusoidal Pulse Width Modulation) two signals are
compared. The Modulating reference signal is sinusoidal and
the carrier wave is triangular. Gating pulses are produce by
comparing the two signals and the width of each pulse is
varied is
proportion to the amplitude of the sine wave . The frequency
of the reference signal determines the inverter output
frequency
and the reference peak amplitude controls the modulation
index and the RMS value of the output voltage.

The basic H bridge inverter circuit for both the schemes

remains same. Consider the H bridge circuit comprising of
IGBT
switches as shown in Figure2 for both unipolar and bipolar
inverter
 BIPOLAR PWM
The upper and the lower switches in the same inverter leg
work in a complementary manner with one switch turned on
and other
turned off. Thus we need to consider only two independent
gating signals vg1 and vg3 which are generated by comparing
sinusoidal modulating wave Vm and triangular carrier wave
Vcr. The inverter terminal voltages are obtained denoted by
VAN and
VBN and the inverter output voltage VAB = VAN-VBN. Since
the waveform of VAB switches between positive and
negativedc voltages this scheme is called bipolar PWM.
UNIPOLAR PWM INVERTER
The unipolar modulation normally requires two sinusoidal modulating waves vm
and vm- which are of same magnitude and
frequency but 180
0 out of phase. The two modulating wave are compared with a common
triangular carrier wave vcr
generating two gating signals vg1 and vg3 for the upper two switches S1 and S3. It
can be observed that the upper two devices
do not switch simultaneously, which is distinguished from the bipolar PWM where
all the four devices are switched at the
same time. The inverter output voltage switches between either between zero
and +Vd during positive half cycle or between
zero and –Vd during negative half cycle of the fundamental frequency thus this
scheme is called unipolar modulation. The
unipolar switched inverter offers reduced switching losses and generates less
EMI. On efficiency grounds, it appears that the
unipolar switched inverter has an advantage.
Over modulation occurs when amplitude modulation index ma is greater than
unity. It causes a reduction in number of pulses
in the line to line voltage waveform leading to emergence of lower order
harmonics. Moreover the notch and pulse widths near
the center of positive and negative half cycle tend to vanish. To complete the
switching operations of the device, minimum notch
and pulse widths must be maintained. When minimum width notches and pulses
are dropped, there will be some transient jump of load current.
Three-Phase Inverter
The dc to ac converters more commonly known as inverters,
depending on the
type of the supply source and the related topology of the power
circuit, are classified
as voltage source inverters (VSIs) and current source inverters (CSIs).
The single-
phase inverters and the switching patterns were discussed elaborately
in Chapter two
and so the three phase inverters are explained in detail here.
Three-phase counterparts of the single-phase half and full bridge
voltage
source inverters are shown in Figures 4.4 and 4.5. Single-phase VSIs
cover low-range
power applications and three-phase VSIs cover medium to high power
applications.
The main purpose of these topologies is to provide a three-phase
voltage source,
where the amplitude, phase and frequency of the voltages can be
controlled. The
three-phase dc/ac voltage source inverters are extensively being used
in motor drives,
active filters and unified power flow controllers in power systems and
uninterrupted
power supplies to generate controllable frequency and ac voltage
magnitudes using
various pulse width modulation (PWM) strategies. The standard
three-phase inverter
shown in Figure has six switches the switching of which depends on
the
modulation scheme. The input dc is usually obtained from a single-
phase or three
phase utility power supply through a diode-bridge rectifier and LC or C
filter.
CONCLUSION:-
Pure sine wave DC/AC conversion will introduce the least amount of harmonics into an electrical device,
but are also the most

expensive method. Since the AC sine wave must come from a DC source, switching must still take place.
However,

switching takes place with logic so that the energy delivered to a load approaches that of a pure sine
wave. It can be derived

from the waveform that a unipolar inverter with a filter circuit will give better sinusoidal output
waveform compared to bipolar inverter.