Compensation of Switch Faults in a Three-Level Inverter

This paper deals with open switch faults in a three-level inverter feeding a three-phase induction motor. It also investigates the fault compensation via topologies that are able to maintain the system operation for a period of time. With the proposed techniques it is possible to detect and identify the power switch in which the fault has occurred. Such detection requires the measurement of some voltages Differently from other schemes the proposed one allows, in some cases, full utilization of the dc-link. Simulated and experimental results verify the feasibility of proposed strategies. The results obtained so far indicate that it is possible to embed some fault-tolerant properties for the voltage-fed asynchronous machine drive system.