A study of staircase modulation technique for single phase matrix converter

This paper proposes the implementation of staircase modulation technique to a single phase matrix converter for reducing the harmonic distortions in the output. The matrix converter is used as cyclo-inverter as well cyclo-converter. Simulation results are shown for the converter using MATLAB/SIMULINK software. Various parameters including output frequency of the converter, carrier frequency of the converter, number of steps in staircase wave, modulation index, step size, length and breadth of each step etc., are varied and results of each case are obtained. The minimum total harmonic distortion (THD) obtained is 1.003% for cyclo-inverter and 1.209% for cyclo-converter, when only output frequency is varied keeping all other parameters constant at carrier frequency of 3 kHz. The output voltage obtained is more than 90% of the fundamental, which is on higher side.