A Petri net approach to multicellular chopper control

In this paper, a new control algorithm for multicellular converters is introduced. The multicellular converters are a class of switched hybrid systems which consist in the association of a number of commutation cells linked with floating voltage sources. The proposed control takes advantage of the hybrid characteristics of the system in order to develop a Petri net model for the converter and design a control method based on this model which ensures a minimum number of commutations. This last aspect of the control is important in order to have a longer life for the components and reduce the harmonic content of the output by reducing the value of dV/dt.