PWM strategy for common-mode voltage reduction in three-phase variable-speed drives with active front end

This paper presents a PWM strategy for the reduction of common-mode (CM) voltage generated by variable-speed motor drives composed of two-level, three-phase active-front-end rectifier and three-phase inverter. This method theoretically provides complete elimination of the CM voltage by synchronizing all inverter commutations with rectifier commutations, so that the resulting CM voltage does not vary. The degrees of freedom of this strategy are studied and an experimental implementation is provided on a 15 kW prototype to validate the method effectiveness. Taking into account dead-time compensation, measurements in time and frequency domains show that the CM voltage is strongly reduced and that more than 15 dB reduction is achieved in a wide frequency range.