Predictive Torque Control and Capacitor Balancing of a SiC-Based Dual T-Type Drive System

This paper proposes a new approach for the capacitor balancing of a dual three-level T-type converter based on silicon carbide discrete semiconductors. This study is performed while the converter feeds an open-end induction motor. The model predictive control (MPC) scheme is developed to balance the dc-link capacitors and to control the machine torque simultaneously. The proposed technique for MPC reduces the number of redundant switching states that are used in computations without affecting the operating voltage vectors. This reduces the computational time substantially. In addition, the proposed control strategy mitigates the weighting factor tuning problem of capacitor balancing in addition to the conventional MPC cost function. MATLAB simulation results for the proposed drive system under different case studies are presented. Hardware experimental setup for the proposed converter is built, tested, and verified. A comparison between experimental and simulation results is presented. It is observed that the theoretical as well as the experimental results are in full agreement.