On interaction between internal converter dynamics and current control of high-performance high-power AC motor drives with modular multilevel converters

Abstract

The modular multilevel converter (M2C) is a promising converter technology for various high-voltage high-power applications. The reason to this is that low-distortion output quantities can be achieved with low average switching frequencies per switch and without output filters. With the M2C the output voltage has such a low harmonic content that high-power motors can be operated without any derating. However, the apparent large number of devices, requires more complex converter control techniques than a two-level counterpart. Even though there have been several ways suggested to control the converter itself, it is still a challenge to investigate the interaction of these controllers with an external motor current controller. It is shown in the paper that the anticipated interaction will not result in any problems neither for the converter nor for the motor control itself.