A Computer Based System for the Teaching of Fault Diagnosis in Power Electronic Inverters

Voltage source inverters are essential systems in many applications. Thus, the diagnosis of the faults that could appear in these systems allows detecting, isolating, and identifying the faults. In this context the teaching of this subject is becoming very important. However, laboratory experience is fundamental in order to provide a real understanding of this subject. This paper presents a computer based system to provide practical experience in diagnosis of voltage source inverters. This system is composed by a computer that is connected to a voltage source inverter. A Matlab program was developed to impose several types of faults in the inverter. Through the analysis of the current and/or voltage waveforms students must identify the different fault types.