Survey on Reliability of Power Electronic Systems

With wide-spread application of power electronic systems across many different industries, their reliability is being studied extensively. This paper presents a comprehensive review of reliability assessment and improvement of power electronic systems from three levels: 1) metrics and methodologies of reliability assessment of existing system; 2) reliability improvement of existing system by means of algorithmic solutions without change of the hardware; and 3) reliability-oriented design solutions that are based on fault-tolerant operation of the overall systems. The intent of this review is to provide a clear picture of the landscape of reliability research in power electronics. The limitations of the current research have been identified and the direction for future research is suggested.