Three-Phase Multilevel PWM Rectifiers Based on Conventional Bidirectional Converters

Almost two decades of research on unidirectional three-phase multilevel boost-type pulsewidth modulation (PWM) rectifiers have shown the benefits of employing this technology to comply with power quality standards while assuring high efficiency and low volume and weight. However, the unidirectional topologies directly derived from the conventional three-level bidirectional converters, such as the neutral point clamped (NPC), the flying capacitor and the cascaded H-bridge converters have not been properly analyzed. This letter introduces some of the unidirectional topologies that arise from the inspection of the widespread conventional bidirectional converters. Special emphasis is put in the analysis of the NPC-based three-phase/-level PWM rectifier operating as power factor corrector.