Patent ID: 11923783
Assignee: GENERAL ELECTRIC RENOVABLES ESPANA, S.L.
Field: Electrical machinery, apparatus, energy (Electrical engineering)
Classification: CPC H | IPC H

Claim 10:
11. A multi-level bridge power converter, comprising:
a plurality of phase legs each comprising a plurality of switching devices, the plurality of switching devices comprising at least four inner switching devices and at least two outer switching devices arranged in an active neutral point clamped topology, wherein the plurality of switching devices comprises, at least, a plurality of insulated gate bipolar transistors (IGBTs), the plurality of IGBTs comprising a first IGBT, a second IGBT, a third IGBT, a fourth IGBT, a fifth IGBT, and a sixth IGBT, and wherein the second IGBT, the third IGBT, the fifth IGBT, and the sixth IGBT are the four inner switching devices, and the first IGBT and the fourth IGBT are the two outer switching devices; and
a switching device failure detection circuit, comprising:
a logic module for each of the plurality of switching devices to generate a blocking state logic signal by comparing a switching device voltage of each of the plurality of switching devices and a threshold reference voltage;
a voltage calculation module to determine an expected voltage blocking state for each of the plurality of switching devices based on gate drive signals of the plurality of switching devices and an output current direction; and
a failure detection algorithm to detect a failure condition in any of the plurality of switching devices based on the blocking state logic signals and the expected voltage blocking states of the plurality of switching devices,
wherein the failure detection algorithm detects the failure condition in the first IGBT when an expected output voltage is not positive and the blocking state logic signal for the first IGBT is low.