Electrostatic Machine Drive Using Complex Vector Voltage Regulation with a Current Source Inverter Platform

Advancements in the torque capability of macroscale electrostatic machines prompts the development of controls and power electronics that are suitable to their radically different terminal characteristics and demonstrate performance in the context of canonical variable speed drives. Analysis of the separately excited electrostatic machine model indicates that a complex vector voltage regulator (CVVR) paired with a current sourced inverter (CSI) provides an intuitive solution to terminal voltage regulation and is a dual to magnetic drive systems utilizing voltage sourced inverters. Here, ampere-seconds (charge) is sourced by the CSI to the machine to modulate torque. Analysis of the voltage regulator for achieving high performance torque modulation is presented including transfer functions, command tracking and frequency response function plots. A kilowatt-scale medium-voltage (MV) CSI power electronic platform was developed as no off-the-shelf unit existed and the high pole count of electrostatic machines inherently requires high fundamental frequencies. A custom MV CSI unit was built by series stacking 3.6kV IGBTs with parallel snubbers (for static and dynamic balancing). The resulting drive is capable of synthesizing 5kV peak line-line with 5.5kHz PWM and may transition to six-step operation as the fundamental encroaches within an order of magnitude of the switching frequency.

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