Dead-time compensation of 3-level NPC inverter for medium voltage IGCT drive system

In most cases, it is essential to insert a delay time in the switching signals to avoid the damage of the power electronic devices and prevent the shoot-through of the DC-link. This causes the dead-time effect and it can be minimized to improve the performance of inverters. In this paper, a novel method, which can eliminate the deviation of the output voltage in every PWM period and compensate the dead-time effect, is proposed. This method is designed for the medium voltage IGCT drive system and is implemented in a real drive system. Both simulation and experimental results verified the effectiveness of the proposed method.