Repetitive control with specific harmonic gain compensation for cascaded inverters under rectifier loads

The further improvement of submarine propulsion is associated with the modularity of accumulator-fed inverters, such as cascaded inverters (CIs). CI technology guarantees smooth output voltages with reduced switch frequencies under linear loads. However, the output voltages of CIs are distorted under rectifier loads. This distortion requires harmonic suppression technology. One such technology is the repetitive controller (RC), which is commonly applied but suffers from poor performance in propulsion systems. In this study, the FFT spectrum of a CI under rectifier load is analyzed, and the harmonic contents are uneven in magnitude. For the purpose of harmonic suppression, the control gains at each harmonic frequency should be seriously considered. A RC with a specific harmonic gain compensation (SHGC) for CIs is proposed. This method provides additional control gains at low-order harmonic frequencies, which are difficult to achieve with conventional RCs. This SHGC consists of a band-pass filter (BPF) and proportional element and is easy to implement. These features make the proposed method suitable for submarine propulsion. Experimental results verify the feasibility of the improved RC.