Realization of Noise-less Inverter by Flying Capacitor Linear Amplifier with Multiple Series Connection

2019 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 18K13739
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Early-Career Scientists
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Review Section: Basic Section 21010:Power engineering-related
• Research Institution: Yokohama National University
• Principal Investigator: Obara Hidemine 横浜国立大学, 大学院工学研究院, 非常勤教員 (50772787)
• Project Period (FY): 2018-04-01 – 2020-03-31
• Keywords: パワーエレクトロニクス / マルチレベルリニアアンプ / フライングキャパシタリニアアンプ / ノイズフリー / 効率 / 電圧バランス制御 / マルチレベルコンバータ

Outline of Final Research Achievements

The aim of this study is to realize a noise-less inverter by improving the conversion efficiency of a flying capacitor linear amplifier (FCLA) without the switching operation and noise generation. The FCLA can improve its efficiency by increasing the number of series connected devices in principle.
At the beginning, a balancing control method of capacitor voltages was proposed to operate the FCLA with a single input DC power supply. In addition, the scalability of the control implementation with respect to the number of series devices was enhanced for the multiple connection. After that, prototypes of the multiple series FCLA were realized and demonstrated by simulations and experiments. It was verified that the FCLA is possible to improve the efficiency by increasing the number of the devices. From the results, it has been clarified that the FCLA can realize a power converter with high efficiency close to that of the widely used PWM inverters and noise-free simultaneously.

Free Research Field

パワーエレクトロニクス

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

本研究は，これまで効率の低さから電力変換の用途には適用出来なかった線形増幅回路を新しい回路方式とその多直列化によって，PWMインバータに迫る水準まで高効率化することにより，広義のノイズを原理的に発生しない電力変換器の実現可能性を示したことに学術的意義がある。パワー半導体デバイスの高速化や情報通信の高度化に伴い，電力変換装置に関わるノイズの問題がより一層深刻になっており，本研究成果は，パワーエレクトロニクス機器が抱えるノイズの問題を解決する手段の一つになることが期待される。