Decentralized Controller for Modular Multilevel Converter

In this paper a new decentralized control for modular multilevel converteris proposed. Capacitor voltagebalancing is achieved using only the voltage of the preceding and following submodules. Using the proposed method removes the need to sort capacitor voltages, and makes the complexity of the controller independent of the number of submodules. Furthermore, the decentralized control uses self-interleaving carriers, allowing to remove or to replace defective submodules without affecting the main control. Versatility of the proposed method is demonstrated using real-time simulation and experimental setup.