High Power High Performance Industrial AC Drives - A Technology Status Review

Summary form only given. The rapid developments of power electronic technologies, microprocessor/digital signal processor based control and estimation techniques and introduction of high power semiconductors have resulted in an unprecedented growth in the high power high performance AC drives as demanded by automation industry over the past decade. In this lecture, a brief technology review on the state-of-the-art high power switching devices (like HVIGBTs, IGCTs, ETOs/MTOs/IGETs, etc.), converter topologies (like PWM converters/inverters-VSI, CSI and Multilevel, cycloconverters, matrix converters, etc.) and control technologies (scalar and vector control strategies, direct torque and flux control (DTC), sensor-less control etc.) developed progressively for such high power industrial drives involving induction and synchronous motors is to be presented along with typical examples offered by the world´s leading major manufacturers. Finally, the future trends and challenges on various aspects of such drives and the developing areas of their applications in the industry are also to be addressed.