A geometrical simple approach for power silicon devices fault detection and fault-tolerant operation of a voltage source inverter

Fault-tolerant converters have been widely investigated for years and nowadays an extensive technical literature on this field exists. This paper presents a novel fault detection algorithm based on a simple geometrical approach. In the algorithm analysis both the case of faults in single device and the lose of an entire inverter leg have been considered. False positive detections are avoided by considering a proper number of current samples. The proposed fault detection algorithm is characterized by simplicity, low computational and implementation effort with a consequent enough fast execution, easy control integration with the possibility to use it both in hardware in the loop systems and Microprocessor of common industrial usage. The proposed algorithm is verified both with simulation tools and experimental results and reveals a valid and suitable alternative to the actual state of the art in the field of inverter fault detection.