Machine learning based fault detection technique for hybrid multi level inverter topology

Abstract Multilevel inverters (MLIs) have a significant contribution in many industrial sectors due to their improved power quality and lesser voltage stress, over the conventional three‐level inverters. However, the implementation of MLIs with an increased device count creates the scope of development in MLIs topologies. In this regard, a hybrid MLI topology is studied in this paper whose architecture is based on conventional two‐level inverters. This topology has lesser device count characteristics when compared to conventional and most of the recently presented configurations for nine‐level output voltage generation. The major issue of capacitor voltage balancing is resolved by employing an appropriate switching strategy. However, the semiconductor switches are the most vulnerable components and causes the open circuit faults frequently that creates issues in real time operation. Hence, it is important to detect the open circuit fault in switches in the least possible time. A new approach to open circuit fault detection technique based on the analysis of load voltage waveform is proposed in this paper. The wavelet transform technique has been implemented for feature extraction of load voltage. Later, the classification of the fault has been achieved by training an artificial neural network (ANN). The proposed work has been studied in MATLAB/simulation and the obtained results are verified experimentally.