Model predictive pulse pattern control for the five-level active neutral point clamped inverter

In this paper, the recently introduced control strategy referred to as model predictive pulse pattern control (MP3C) is adapted to the ACS 2000 five-level power converter of ABB. The drive consists of an induction machine and a five-level active neutral-point clamped (ANPC-5L) inverter. The power inverter is fed with optimized pulse patterns (OPPs) that produce minimum harmonic distortion in the stator winding of the ac machine. An optimal stator flux trajectory is calculated from these OPPs and a trajectory controller tracks it in real-time. In the proposed approach, trajectory tracking is based on model predictive control (MPC): a constrained optimal control problem is formulated and solved in real-time in a time-efficient manner. An event-based prediction horizon is employed in order to ensure fast tracking of the stator flux trajectory. The advantages of the proposed method are optimal steady-state behavior in terms of harmonic distortion and fast torque response. The method was tested on a pilot ACS 2000 power converter coupled to a general-purpose 1.21-MW induction machine. Experimental results were obtained from this industrial setup; they are presented in this paper to demonstrate the high performance of MP3C.