FPGA usage for power inverters diagnostics

This article deals with FPGA usage in power inverter diagnostics. This paper proposes inverter control system design with build in diagnostics features. The base of diagnostics functions is new IGBT driver architecture with advanced measurement of transient phenomena during transistor switching on and off. The processing of measured signal is assumed in FPGA directly built in in the driver hardware. The advantage of new inverter controller architecture is continuous monitoring of inverter condition and allows watching parameter degradation during inverter life. The data obtained from diagnostics system can serve for power system failure prediction and maintenance planning. The proposed solution is expensive, but it can be useful in very high power applications such as train drives.