Estudo e implementação de inversor multinível modular configurável controlado por FPGA para aplicações de ensino e pesquisa

Abstract

This term paper presents a study about multilevel voltage inverters focusing on Cascaded-H-Bridge multilevel inverters. The research will show its basic concepts as well as the main strategies regarding PWM sinusoidal modulations. This work led to the development of a modular full bridge inverter with power up to 100W and controlled by a reconfigurable logic device (FPGA). This device can be connected to several other modules in a cascaded arrangement, in order to increase the output voltage levels or in parallel to increase the number of phases. The model of this inverter was simulated on Simulink environment, part of MatLab toolsuite, and showed different output waves for some of the possible combinations between the modules. The algorithm that controls the semiconductor switches of each bridge was developed in the Quartus II software and was validated through ModelSim Altera simulator. This study was embedded in a Terasic DE0-Nano development kit containing an Altera Cyclone IV FPGA. The modules validation was done through comparative analysis between the results obtained via simulation and bench tests. All this research done possible the construction of a compact and versatile prototype that is simple to use and presents application examples such as frequency inverter, soft start and modulation level control via potentiometer. Therefore, this study will add knowledge regarding multilevel voltage inverters on an academic level.