FPGA-Based Real-Time Power Converter Failure Diagnosis for Wind Energy Conversion Systems

This paper discusses the design, implementation, experimental validation, and performances of a field-programmable gate array (FPGA)-based real-time power converter failure diagnosis for three-leg fault tolerant converter topologies used in wind energy conversion systems (WECSs). The developed approach minimizes the time interval between the fault occurrence and its diagnosis. We demonstrated the possibility to detect a faulty switch in less than 10 mu s by using a diagnosis simultaneously based on a "time criterion" and a "voltage criterion." To attain such a short detection time, an FPGA fully digital implementation is used. The performances of the proposed FPGA-based fault detection method are evaluated for a new fault tolerant back-to-back converter topology suited for WECS with doubly fed induction generator (DFIG). We examine the failure diagnosis method and the response of the WECS when one of the power switches of the fault tolerant back-to-back converter is faulty. The experimental failure diagnosis implementation based on "FPGA in the loop" hardware prototyping verifies the performances of the fault tolerant WECS with DFIG.