51 8 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS, VOL. IA-17, NO. 5.

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 1981

A New Neutral-Point-Clamped PWM Inverter

AKIRA NABAE, MEMBER, IEEE, ISAO TAKAHASHI, MEMBER, IEEE, AND HIROFUMI AKAGI, MEMBER, IFEE

Abstract-A new neutral-point-clamped pulsewidth modulation

(PWM) inverter composed of main switching devices which operate as
switches for PWM and auxiliary switching devices to clamp the output
terminal potential to the neutral point potential has been developed.
This inverter output contains less harmonic content as compared with
that of a conventional type. Two inverters are compared analytically
and experimentally. In addition, a new PWM technique suitable for
an ac drive system is applied to this inverter. The neutral-point-
clamped PWM inverter adopting the new PWM technique shows an
excellent drive system efficiency, including motor efficiency, and is
appropriate for a wide-range variable-speed drive system.

INTRODUCTION
UTHEN AN INVERTER is applied to an ac motor drive
*Ysystem, harmonics cause losses and pulsating torques Fig. 1. The NPC-PWM inverter.
in the motor. From the energy saving viewpoint, it is neces-
sary to develop a high efficiency motor drive system.
Pulsewidth modulation (PWM) techniques have been de-
veloped for inverter circuits to reduce the magnitude of the ib(SI I)
harmonics and to allow control of the fundamental com-
ponent of output voltage. Many papers have been issued on
this problem (for example, [1] , [2]), but these treat mainly 'b(S' 1

the PWM techniques themselves.

In this paper, the authors propose a new neutral-point-
clamped PWM inverter (NPC-PWM inverter), which is suitable ib (S34)
for a high efficiency motor drive system. Its output voltage
contains less harmonics than that of a conventional inverter.
The principles of the NPC-PWM inverter, harmonic analysis ib(' S ,
of the output voltage, experimental results, and some con- Fig. 2. Base-drive input for NPC-PWM inverter.
siderations on the ac motor drive system are described.
PRINCIPLES OF THE NPC-PWM INVERTER 51 2) are driven complementary to the main transistors (S1 ,
S14), respectively. With such control, each output terminal
Fig. 1 shows the main circuit of the NPC-PWM inverter. potential is clamped to the neutral potential in the off-periods
In Fig. 1 (0) indicates the neutral point with respect to the of the PWM control, as shown in Fig. 3(a). Fig. 3(b) shows
dc source; (SII, S14), (S21, S24), (S31 S34) are main tran- the voltage waveform between output terminals U and V. The
sistors operating as switches for PWM; and (S1 2, S1 3), (S22, corresponding waveforms for a conventional inverter are
S23), (S32, S33) are auxiliary transistors to clamp the output shown in Fig. 4. Comparing Fig. 3 with Fig. 4, we can easily
terminal potentials to the neutral point potential, together recognize the following.
with (D1 1-D32). To this inverter, all conventional PWM
techniques can be applied. However, the authors will only 1) Output terminal potentials of the conventional PWM
consider one example in the following, in which the PWM inverter vary between (±EdI2) and (-Edl2), but those
technique to eliminate the fifth and seventh harmonics is of the NPC-PWM inverter vary between (+Ed12) and (0)
applied to the NPC-PWM inverter. Fig. 2 shows the base- or (-EdI2) and (0).
drive inputs for (S 1 -S4). Auxiliary transistors (S1 3, 2) The terminal voltage waveform of the NPC-PWM inverter
shows less harmonic content than that of the conven-
tional inverter.
Paper IPCSD 81-17, approved by the Static Power Converter Com-
mittee of the IEEE Industry Applications Society for presentation at HARMONIC ANALYSIS
the 1980 Industry Applications Society Annual Meeting, Cincinnati,
OH, September 28-October 3. Manuscript released for publication May Fig. 5 shows the output voltage waveform between the
20, 1981. output terminal and the neutral point of the NPC-PWM in-
The authors are with the Faculty of Engineering, Technological
University of Nagaoka, Nagaoka 949-54, Japan. verter, where the fifth and seventh harmonics are eliminated.

0093-0094/81/0900-05 18$00.75 © 1981 IEEE

NABAE et al.: PWM INVERTER 519

v-
. A_ olr to eliminate the fifth and seventh harmonics it is necessary
to satisfy the following equations:

DD . 4E
(sin t1 -sin ai2 + sin ai3 ) -Em
(a) Vv-o _ IT
IJLI sin 5CI1-sin 5a2 + sin 53 = 0
- Vw-o
710 IIII 0l-0III sin 7a1 - sin 7a2 + sin 7a3 = 0 (3)

From (3), a1, 0P2, and a3 are determined for the corresponding
Em, and the maximum Em which will satisfy (3) is 1.19 E.
When a PWM technique to eliminate the fifth and seventh
t'h)
vJ Vu-v Il 11
1X harmonics is applied to the NPC-PWM inverter, the relations
between the fundamental amplitude and the eleventh and
thirteenth harmonic amplitudes have been calculated, and are
Fig. 3. Output voltage waveform of NPC-PWM inverter.
shown in Fig. 6. When the same PWM technique is applied to
a conventional inverter, the relations corresponding to Fig. 6
are shown in Fig. 7. Comparing Fig. 6 with Fig. 7, the eleventh
-Vuu-o and thirteenth harmonics in the former are far less than
those in the latter.

EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS

11-l 1n n n f
(a)
The authors have carried out some experiments, driving a
34 200-V 2.2-kW 60-Hz squirrel-cage induction motor with the
NPC-PWM inverter. The PWM technique to eliminate the fifth
IIJLLJJIA --*D** fL*sas
VwJUI WJIm - EU and seventh harmonics was adopted. Control circuits were all
digital and were simplified by means of writing the calculated
a patterns into programmable read only memory (PROM).
The output voltage between output terminals U and V was
measured by spectrum analyzer, as shown in Fig. 8. Measured

[
(b) vu- I I IIf 11I
i li 1 110
. s i .
results agree well with the calculated values shown in Fig. 6.
Fig. 9 shows photographs of the output voltage waveform be-
J UL JUL
tween U and V and those of the output current waveform.
Fig. 4. Output voltage waveform of conventional inverter. The output current waveform shows that it contains relatively
small low-order harmonics, which cause harmonic current
losses in the induction motor. Experimental results showed
Xt
'' --' v
I
1 0~~~~~~~
f-
approximately 93 percent inverter system efficiency and a
97 percent ac input power factor at the rated motor output.
Here the inverter system efficiency is defined by the following
expression:
2
Fig. 5. Phase voltage (fifth and seventh harnonics eliminated). inverter output kW
Expanding the waveform into a Fourier series, the sine com-
*linv.sy (ac input kW) + (control circuit input kW)
ponents are zero, and the nth harmonic Fourier coefficient
of the cosine components is expressed as follows: CONSIDERATIONS OF SOME PROBLEMS
4E /Ofal 3
3
Another feature of this inverter will be discussed here.
Cn-- t | cos nO dO + cos nO dO,) The imposed voltages across the main switching devices are
(112)-Ed, i.e., half of those in a conventional inverter. Fig. 10
shows another type of neutral-point-clamped inverter, but here
4E the imposed voltages across the main switching devices are Ed,
=-(sin nal -sin na2+sinna3) (1)
n7r just the same as in the case of a conventional inverter.
where E 1/2-Ed. Expressing the fundamental component
=
While a conventional inverter is composed of six switching
as devices, the NPC-PWM is composed of twelve switching
devices. However, the output kilovoltamperes of the latter
el Em cos ct, is capable of achieving double the kilovoltamperes, com-
 520 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS, VOL. IA-17, NO. 5, SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 1981

0-,
E
O.
O0I .

-z Fundamental

-0.
a

.~ 0.:
13th

c/ ,
° 0. 2 0.4
\,vVV.
,,V 0.6 0.8 1.0
(a)

fundamental amplitude
(max. amplitude 1.19E )
Fig. 6. Relation between fundamental amplitude and eleventh and
thirteenth harmonic amplitudes in constant V/f control (NPC-
PWM inverter).

1.19E

0.8.

E Fundamental

I-~~~~~~~~~It
(b)
= /
0. 2

0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 l.0

fundamental amplitude
(max. amplitude 1.9E
Fig. 7. Relation between fundamental amplitude and eleventh and
thirteenth harmonic amplitudes in constant V/f control (conven-
tional inverter).

pared with that of the former, by suitable design. Table I lc)

shows a general comparison of the three inverters: the NPC Fig. 8. Harmonic spectra. (a) V = 199 V, f = 60 Hz, 25 V (rms)/div,
250 Hz/div. (b) V = 143 V, f = 40 Hz, 25 V (rms)/div, 100 Hz/div.
type (Fig. 1), the second NPC type (Fig. 10), and a conven- (c) V = 108 V,f= 25 Hz, 25 V (rms)/div, 100 Hz/div.
tional type. Table I shows that the NPC inverter is the best.
sponding Em:
A NEW PWM TECHNIQUE
4E
In the preceding description, only the PWM technique - (sin al -sin a2 + sina3 -sin a4 + sin as)=Em
for eliminating the fifth and seventh harmonics was applied
to the NPC-PWM inverter. However, in order to retain a good sin Sra -sin 5a2 + sin 5a3 -sin 5a4 + sin 5ca5 =0
efficiency in the lower speed range for a wide-range variable-
speed drive system, it is necessary to eliminate higher harmon- sin 7a1 -sin 7a2 + sin 7a - sin 7a4 + sin 7a5 =0
ics than the fifth and seventh, corresponding to the output
frequency ranges. The authors propose a new PWM technique
to solve this problem in a relatively simple way.
sin l
la,-sin 1 la2 + sin l la3-sin 1la4 + sin l la5 =0

To eliminate not only the fifth and seventh but also the sin 13a1 -sin 13a2 +sin 13a3 -sin 13a4 +sin 13as5 =0.
eleventh and thirteenth harmonics, it is necessary to solve the
following equations and determine a1 -a5 for the corre-
NABAE et al.: PWM INVERTER 521

Substituting (5) for (2), five values of ax are obtained from

(4): al, a4, a5, a8, and a9. Next, a2, a3, a6, a7, a,0, and
a1 1, corresponding to (6) are obtained from the following
relations:
7r 7r Tr
a2 = -al, a3 C±+a1 , a6 =- + 4
18 18 18
ir X 7T
a7 -+a5, a10 =- +as8 a11a - +a9.
18 18 18
Two unit PWM waveforms are superposed, as shown in
Fig. 11. The fundamental component el is expressed as fol-
lows:
el =el I+-e12
1r 36
=Em Cos (t- _ cos -
36 36

= 0.996 Em cos (wtt--)

The seventeenth and nineteenth harmonics are expressed

as follows:
Fig. 9. Output voltage and current. (a) f = 50 Hz; upper 200 V/div,
5 ms/div; lower 20 A/div. (b) f = 25 Hz; upper 200 V/div, 10 ms/ cos17 wt+ Cos (17 cot -§if)
div; lower 20 A/div.
-O1s(l h18 )
DCL
= 0.1734 cos (17 Xt-177r )
19
cos 19 cot + cos (19 cot --if 1
18 /
Ed
F X = 07c(t19 \
}
12 2D2 D 32 =-O.1734 cos 19 cot if / (8)
From (8), both harmonic amplitudes are reduced to 17
S 144S s3
percent as compared with those of the unit PWM waveform.
Fig. 12 shows the new PWM pattern, which is applicable to a
Fig. 10. Second type of NPC-PWM inverter. squirrel-cage induction motor drive system with constant V/f
control. In the output frequency range from a few hertz to
The PWM techniques using a, -a5 is able to eliminate 25 Hz, the harmonics lower than the thirteenth are eliminated
the harmonics lower than the thirteenth. In the same way, and the seventeenth and nineteenth harmonics are reduced.
it is possible, theoretically, to eliminate the harmonics lower From 25 Hz to 50 Hz, the harmonics lower than the thirteenth
than the nineteenth, but practically, it is difficult to solve are eliminated, and over 50 Hz the fifth and seventh harmonics
these equations in seven variables (at1 -a7) accurately. are eliminated. The PWM pattern shown in Fig. 12 is written
The authors propose a new PWM technique to reduce the into a 2-kbyte PROM (2716).
seventeenth and nineteenth harmonics and eliminate the CONCLUSION
harmonics lower than the thirteenth. It is founded on the
principle that the lower order harmonics can be eliminated A new neutral-point-clamped PWM inverter was developed
by adequate phase shifting in multiple unit inverters connected and investigated analytically and experimentally. The features
in series. The same principle will be applied to the NPC-PWM of three inverter types are compared, and some problems are
inverter in the following. Let us consider two different funda- discussed. In addition, a new PWM technique suitable for an
mental waves: ac motor drive system is introduced. The neutral-point-
clamped PWM inverter adopting this new PWM technique
e1=iEm cos cot (5) shows excellent drive system efficiency, including motor
efficiency, and is appropriate for a wide-range variable-speed
e2=-2 Em cos (t ) (6) drive system.
522 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS, VOL. IA-17, NO. 5, SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 1981

TABLE I
GENERAL COMPARISON OF THREE KINDS OF INVERTERS
.~~~~oqe ytmOtu
Number of
Output Voltage Torque Drive System Switching Output
Harmonics Pulsation Efficiency Device (kVA)
NPC-PWM type less less higher 12 unit X 2
(Fig. 1)
Second NPC-PWM type less less higher 12 unit
(Fig. 10)
Conventional PWM type ordinary ordinary ordinary 6 unit

0 U2 06468°O l 0

Fig. 11. Phase voltage (fifth, seventh, eleventh and thirteenth eliminated
and seventeenth and nineteenth reduced).

fundamental amplitude ( max. amplitude 1.19E )

Fig. 12. PWM control pattern.

NABAE et aL: PWM INVERTER
REFERENCES
[1] A. Schdnung and D. Stemmler, "Static frequency changer with
subharmonic control in conjunction with reversible variable
drives,' Brown Boveri Rev., Aug./Sept. 1964.
[2] J. B. Casteel and R. G. Hoft, "Optimum PWM waveforms of a
microprocessor controlled inverter," in Conf. Rec. IEEE 1978
Power Electronics Specialists Conf., Syracuse, NY, 78CH 1337-5
AES.
~~ ~ Akira Nabae (M'79) was born in Ehime Pre-
fecture, Japan, on September 13, 1924. He
received the B.E. degree from Tokyo University,
> ~~Tokyo, Japan, in 1947, and the Ph.D. degree
from Waseda University, Japan.
He joined Toshiba Corporation in 1951. From
.|li 1951 to 1970 he engaged in the research and
development of rectifier and inverter application
techniques at Tsurumi Works Engineering De-
partment. From 1970 to 1978 he was involved in
the research and development of power elec-
tronics, especially ac drive systems, at the Heavy Apparatus Engineering
Laboratory. Also, from 1972 to 1978, he was a non-occupied Lecturer of
Waseda University, Japan. Since 1978, he has been a Professor at the
Technological University of Nagaoka, Nagaoka, Japan. He is now in-
terested in the energy conversion and control systems.
Dr. Nabae is a member of the Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan.
523
Isao Takahashi (M'81) was born in Niigata
_ Prefecture, Japan, in 1942. He received the
8 Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from
Tokyo Institute of Technology, Tokyo, Japan.
He was an Assistant Professor at Tokyo In-
stitute of Technology from 1971 to 1975 and an
Associate Professor at Utsunomiya University,
Japan, from 1975 to 1978. He is currently an
Associate Professor at the Technological Uni-
versity of Nagaoka, Nagaoka, Japan. His re-
search interests are in the application of the
digital control for the energy control system such as frequency changers,
reactive power compensators, and power sources of the nuclear fusion
reactor.
Dr. Takahashi is a member of the Institute of Electrical Engineers of
Japan.
Hirofumi Akagi (M'81) was born in Okayama
Prefecture, Japan, on August 19, 1951. He re-
ceived the B.S. degree in electrical engineering
from Nagoya Institute of Technology, Nagoya,
Japan, in 1974 and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in
electrical engineering from Tokyo Institute of
Technology, Tokyo, Japan, in 1976 and 1979,
respectively.
Since 1979, he has been an Assistant Professor
33t 3tt'::S333333 at the Technological University of Nagaoka,
Nagaoka, Japan. He is engaged in research on
power electronics, especially cycloconverter, inverter, and ac drive
systems.
Dr. Akagi is a member of the Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan.