New high-performance thyristor gate control set for line-commutated converters

In this paper, a novel implementation to obtain the triggering pulses for thyristorized AC/DC power converters is presented. The system developed is a variant of the digital ramp-and-threshold strategy employing parallel hardware calculation. In order to reduce the number of components otherwise involved, innovative ideas that make feasible the use of only one low-cost field-programmable gate array as the digital core, have been introduced. Based on the proposed topology, a compact high-resolution optimum-speed thyristor gate control circuit is achieved. The resulting system is very flexible and can be easily configured to drive series- or parallel-connected multiple-pulse controlled rectifiers. Practical results are provided.