The 2014 International Power Electronics Conference
Current Source Inverter Based Cascaded Solid
State Transformer for AC to DC Power
Conversion
Sudhin Ro/, Ankan De2
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering,
North Carolina State University, USA
lsudhin.roy@gmail.com; 2ade@ncsu.edu
Abstract- There are applications like railway traction
system where power converters for HVAC to MVDC or
MDAC to LVDC are required with a high power/weight
ratio. The conventional way is to use heavy line frequency
or medium frequency transformers followed by a controlled
rectifier. The availability of high voltage SiC devices has
made it possible to raise the switching frequency to higher
value and hence the size and weight of the transformer can
be reduced. This paper proposes a cascaded current source
converter based topology with high frequency isolation as a
replacement of the huge line frequency transformer. The
paper also presents experimental results as a validation of
the functionality of the converter.
Keywords- Cascaded converter, Solid state transformer,
and current source converter.
I. INTRODUCTION
The conventional power converters for MVAC to LVDC
applications require a line frequency transformer at the
front end. With the invention of solid state transformer,
the bulky and heavy line frequency transformer can be
replaced with the compact high frequency one. The
problem in selecting high switching frequency for the
transformer is the unavailability of suitable devices (low
switching loss) at that high voltage. For some particular
application like traction system, the heavy and bulky
transformer occupies considerable space of the train. The
initial effort was to use the available devices in medium
frequency range and bring the size of the transformer
down to some extent. In today's world the availability of
high voltage silicon carbide devices has made it possible
to operate at high frequency even for high power
converters. Now research is going on to replace the
medium frequency transformer with the high frequency
one so as to bring down the size and weight of the
transformer further. [1] [2] and [3] have shown a
cascaded converter topology with a medium frequency
transformer. The converter topology with high frequency
transformer is discussed in [4]. Here also cascaded
converters are used to distribute the high voltage among
the individual sections. The front end converters (HY
side) are connected in series and the rear end converters
(LY side) are connected in parallel. These rear end
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Subhashish Bhattacharya
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering,
North Carolina State University, USA
sbhattacharya@ncsu.edu
converters produce the required DC bus voltage for a
particular application. The topology is based on voltage
source converters. [5, 6] discuss about basic power
electronic based high frequency transformer concept
which can be used to replace the bulky line frequency
transformer.
In this paper, a cascaded converter based topology with
high frequency transformer is proposed where current
source converters are used. [t is well known that in
medium and high voltage applications current source
converters are preferred compared to the voltage source
converters. It is because of the fact that current source
converters have better control on the short circuit current
during fault conditions. [7] (Chapter 10) has shown a
current source converter topology with high frequency
fly-back transformer in the middle. A new topology for
solid state transformer and its cascaded form for MY
application is discussed in [8].
This paper proposes the cascaded CSI based
converter for MVAC to LVDC application. A laboratory
prototype of this converter has been build and
experimental results are presented here to validate the
operation of the converter.
II. CONVERTER TOPOLOGY
Fig.1 shows the proposed cascaded CSI based converter
topology for the MVAC to LVDC application. Each of
the converter section consists of two cascaded full-bridge
inverters and a high frequency fly-back inductor. The fly­
back inductor with two windings provides electrical
isolation between the sources. It also allows to step-down
the link voltage to the specified level. The input side full
bridges are connected in series to distribute the source
voltage among the sections. This allows the use of low
voltage devices for the converters. The output sections of
each cascaded converters are connected in parallel as
shown in Fig.l. This allows the low voltage and low
current devices to be used in the rear end converter of
each cascaded sections. Filter capacitors are connected at
the input as well as the output side. The input side AC
capacitors are connected in series to distribute the source
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 The 2014 International Power Electronics Conference

voltage to each of the cascaded sections. The switching
scheme of the cascaded sections is same. Therefore, the
current in the series connected front end converters may
differ and hence the voltage distribution of the capacitors
can be unequal. This unequal voltage sharing appears as
an extra voltage burden to some of the switches on the
high voltage side. To mitigate this problem, either
external hardware circuits balancing the capacitor
voltages can be implemented, or special control
algorithm for the cascaded converters can be
implemented so as to balance the series connected
capacitor voltages. Moreover, the design and fabrication
of the fly-back inductors should be identical to the extent
it is possible so that the unequal voltage sharing issue is
minimized at the root.
The output sections of the cascaded converters
are connected in parallel to the DC bus capacitor.
Therefore, any mismatch in the secondary side of the fly­
back inductors current should not lead to any problem.
As shown in Fig.l, suitable resistances are connected
across each series connected capacitor at the input side to
have proper distribution of the input voltage.
the fly-back inductor. During this charging time, the rear
end converter remains in sleeping mode. The rear end
converter switches are turned ON and the front end pairs
are turned OFF when the inductor current reaches a
specified value. The switches are so selected that the
energy stored in the air gap is dumped into the output
capacitor. During this mode the front end converter goes
to sleeping mode like the rear end converter in inductor
charging mode. Fig. 3(a) and (b) show the possible
inductor charging and discharging current paths
respectively. In practice, there should be an overlapping
time between the two converters to avoid voltage spike
due to high Ldi/dt. This charging and discharging of the
inductor is performed within a short period compared to
the fundamental period of the source voltage. The fly­
back transformer size and weight depends on the selected
frequency of this charging and discharging cycle.
The switching sequence of the cascaded
converters remains same. This equalizes the voltage
sharing of the series connected capacitors at the input
side. However, there may be differences in the switching
characteristics of the switches and the fly-back inductors
may not be identical. This will lead to unequal voltage
distribution in the input capacitors. The control oc
converters should be able to take care of this unequal

----
Flyback voltage distribution at steady state.
Converter 1 Transformer
.....

Traction Motor

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AC

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, - l-�- �-�-,-----1--l�
_____ __ .r-i _____

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1 1
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I Figure 2: A section of the cascaded converter
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Figure I: Proposed cascaded converter topology for the railway traction

drive system

III. PRINCIPLE OF OPERATION

Fig.2 shows a section of the cascaded converter discussed

above. It consists of three parts as (i) front end converter,
(ii) fly-back inductor and (iii) rear end converter. The
front end converter is used to store energy in the fly-back
inductor depending on the front and rear end capacitor
voltages. The direction of the current flow in the fly-back
inductor remains always same. The converter switches to (a) During charging period of the fly-back inductor
be turned ON are selected so as to make the inductor
current always positive. Therefore, switches (IGBT in
series with diode) which can carry unidirectional current
are chosen for this application. For a particular instant
switches corresponding to the positive current in the
primary winding of the fly-back inductor are turned ON.
This allows some energy to get stored in the air gap of

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 The 2014 International Power Electronics Conference
(b) During charging period of the fly-back inductor
Figure 3: Fly-back inductor charging and discharging of the
cascaded converter
IV. CONTROL STRUCTURE
The cascaded converter sections have two-winding fly­
back inductors which isolated the two electrical sides as
well as works similar to a step-down transformer. If the
inductors are fabricated identically, the converter
switches can be gated in a synchronized manner.
However, little bit of mismatch between the inductors is
unavoidable practically. Therefore, synchronized gating
of the semiconductor switches will lead to unbalance in
the capacitor voltages. In order to mitigate this issue, the
converters need to be controlled separately. The
following paragraph discusses the control topology
followed in this paper.
In this control topology, one of the converters is
set as master which takes care of the output voltage
regulation and the rest are controlled as slave. The
reference to the slave converters is liN times the
RMS/peak value of the main grid voltage where N is the
number of cascaded sections. Fig. 4 shows the structure
of the control system used to control the cascaded
converter. Normal PI (proportional integral) controllers
are used to track the references for the individual
converters.
v. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
The functionality of the proposed cascaded converter
has been experimentally verified on a laboratory
prototype. The prototype is built with three series
connected converter sections at the input side. The output
sides are connected in parallel as mentioned in the above
paragraphs. In practice, the number of cascaded sections
can be decided based on the level of input voltage and the
available IGBT voltage rating. The rear end converter
devices are selected on the basis of available device
current ratings and number of cascaded sections. The
input of the prototype is fed from normal single phase
utility supply (l20V; 60Hz). A resistive load (400) is
connected at the output side.
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V � L HpWM �D] Pulses to master
V
f-1 L HPWM f- liB
dCreed back
Vac Pulses to slave 1
V
�PWM f- liB
C 1 reed back
Vac Pulses to slave 2
L
TI V c2reed back •
f-1 L HPWM f- liB
•
Vac Pulses to slave N
V CUreed back
Figure 4: Control topology of the cascaded converter for AC to
DC application.
It is discussed in the earlier sections that the use
of similar fly-back inductors for the cascaded sections is
needed in order to keep the voltages of the input side
capacitors balanced under steady state. This ensures
similar voltage stress on the devices of the front end
converter. However, there can be some sort of mismatch
in the fly-back inductors. This results in unequal voltage
distribution on the input side capacitors and hence
unequal voltage stress on the devices. In order to avoid
this, the cascaded front-end converters are controlled
separately so as to make the capacitor voltages balanced.
In the following paragraphs the experimental results are
shown to justify the functionality of the converter.
The inductances of the fly-back inductors
referred to their primary windings are 2561lH (top one),
3241lH (middle one) and 280llH (bottom one). Therefore,
the middle converter draws less current compared to the
other two converters. Consequently, the middle capacitor
voltage will be more compared to the other two voltages.
Thus, the middle converter switches are stressed more
electrically. This is true if the same PWM scheme is used
for all the converters. During the experimentation, the
converters are run for same PWM scheme as well as with
the voltage balancing PWM topology. These waveforms
will show the difference between the converter operations
with the two control topology.
Fig.5 shows the fly-back transformer primary
winding voltages (top and middle converter) with and
without the input capacitor voltage balancing algorithm
working respectively. The primary winding voltages of
the top and bottom converter are shown in Fig.6. As per
expectation, the middle inductor voltage is more
 The 2014 International Power Electronics Conference

compared to the other two with the simple PWM scheme. 'II '
This voltage gets distributed equally between the
converter sections with the modified control scheme
working.
Fig. 7 shows the input side capacitor voltages
(top and middle) with and without the voltage balancing
algorithm working. Without the voltage balancing
algorithm, the capacitor peak voltages are 51.1V and
67.3V respectively. These voltages become 58.6V and
58.1V respectively when the algorithm is working.
Similarly, the top and bottom capacitor voltages are
shown in Fig. 8. Figure 6(b): With the voltage balancing algorithm of the input
capacitors working.

Figure 6: Primary winding voltages of the top (chI) and bottom

(ch2) fly-back transformers

• PreVu oise Filter 01f

II

Fig. 5(a): With the voltage balancing algorithm of the input

capacitors working.

Figure 7(a): With the voltage balancing algorithm of the input

i i capacitors working.

Figure 5(b): Without the voltage balancing algorithm of the

input capacitors working.
Figure 7(b): Without the voltage balancing algorithm of the
Figure 5: Primary winding voltages of the top (ch 1) and middle input capacitors working.
(ch2) fly-back transformers.
Figure 7: Input side capacitor voltages of the top (chI) and
middle (ch2) converter

. Pre u oise Filter 011

'II'

10,3370ms 0 f-110V

Figure 6(a): With the voltage balancing algorithm of the input o 50,OV .. SO,OV '" -47,500 ? 0+

capacitors working.
Figure 8(a): With the voltage balancing algorithm of the input
capacitors working.

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Stop
•
I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I
.. 50,OV .. 50,OV
Figure 8(b): Without the voltage balancing algorithm of the
input capacitors working.
Figure 8: Input side capacitor voltages of the top (chi) and
bottom (ch2) converter
The DC output voltage and the top fly-back transformer
primary voltage is shown in Fig. 9.
Figure 9: Top fly-back transformer primary voltage (ch I) and
the DC output voltage (ch 2) of the converter
Looking at the waveforms it is clear that without
the voltage balancing algorithm working, the input
capacitor voltages are unbalanced. This is because of the
fact that the inductance of the top fly-back transformer is
less than the other transformers. Therefore, converter 1
draws more current than the other two. In this situation,
the voltage balancing algorithm comes into picture and it
maintains the converter 1 average current same as the
other converters. Thus the voltage profile of the input
capacitors remains similar with this algorithm. The RMS
value of the input capacitor voltages are (i) 42V (top
capacitor), (ii) 41V (middle capacitor) and (iii) 40V
(bottom capacitor) while the voltage balancing algorithm
is working. These voltages become (i) 3SV (top
capacitor), (ii) 46V (middle capacitor) and (iii) 39V
(bottom capacitor) without the voltage balancing
algorithm added with the control system. Therefore, the
voltage balancing control is a must for this converter.
[t allows us to use switches with the same
voltage rating. However, the peak currents become
different for the switches. This voltage balancing control
works fine under steady state condition. Special care has
to be taken for transient voltage spike and unbalanced
voltage of the series connected capacitors.
VI.
The topology for replacing the line frequency transformer
with the high frequency one in MVAC to LVDC
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The 2014 International Power Electronics Conference
oise Filter 011
applications can be implemented easily with the available
6.SkV [GBTs. There are reverse blocking [GBTS
available in the market which can be used in place of the
series connected IGBT and diode. This will reduce the
I I I I I I I I � I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I device count further compared to the conventional
voltage source converter based topologies. In this paper
the converter topology is implemented on a laboratory
prototype with three cascaded sections. This can easily be
extended for real application with more number of
4,OOm, -33,7600w" f-2,00V 60,0054 H113:28:25 cascaded sections. The report also discusses about the
voltage balancing of the input side series connected
capacitors with non-identical inductors connected to the
system. This method of achieving a balanced capacitor
voltage works only at steady state. Extra measures are
needed to consider for the transient condition.
V[1. ApPENDIX
The following are the design specifications of the
laboratory prototype built in FREEDM system center.
• Input supply- 120V, 60Hz single phase supply.
• Fly-back inductance- 2S61lH (top one), 324flH
(middle one) and 280flH (bottom one).
• Input side (ac side) capacitors: 101lF, 370 Volt
AC capacitors.
• Output side capacitors: 470IlF, SOOV DC
capacitors.
• Load resistance- 40n
• AC side filter inductor- SmH
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This work made use of FREEDM ERC shared facilities
supported by National Science Foundation under Award
Number EEC-08 12 12 1.
REFERENCES
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[2] B. Engel, "15kv/16.7 hz energy supply system with medium
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[3] H. Reinold and M. Steiner, "Medium frequency topology in
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[4] L. Heinemann, "An actively cooled high power high frequency
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[5] J. van der Merwe and H. du T. Mouton, "The solid-state
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CONCLUSIONS Institute of Technology, May 1984.
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dynamic current converters ", by Deepakraj M. Divan, Anish Prasai,
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