Performance investigation of selected prediction vectors based FS-PTC for 3L-NPC inverter fed motor drive

Computational burden is a major hurdle for practical implementation of finite-state predictive torque control (FS-PTC) of motor drive fed by a multi-level inverter. One of the reasons of computational complexity is that all voltage vectors are evaluated for prediction and actuation. This paper proposes selected number of voltage vectors for the prediction and actuation, which are called prediction vectors in FS-PTC, and the performance is investigated for a three-level neutral-point clamped (3L-NPC) inverter fed motor drive. The number of prediction vectors is reduced based on the position of stator flux and the deviation in stator flux from its reference. Experimental results confirm that the computational burden is reduced significantly, while the dynamic performance in terms of torque and flux ripple, stator current total harmonic distortion (THD), neutral-point voltage, torque rise time, and average switching frequency is comparable to the all voltage vectors based FS-PTC.