High-performance Distributed Power Electronics Communication Network Design with 5 Gbps Data Rate and Sub-nanosecond Synchronization Accuracy

Distributed control system equipped with high communication speed and extreme synchronization accuracy is pursued by multiple power electronics applications. Using modular multilevel converters (MMC) as an instance, with the high-performance distributed control network, advanced control scheme can be implemented and extended into large scales, which can potentially benefit the MMC operation. This paper investigates the approach to establish distributed control networks with sub-nanosecond synchronization accuracy and gigabits per second data rate dedicated for power electronics applications. A distributed communication and control system based on improved White Rabbit (WR) protocol with sub-ns synchronization accuracy is presented. A generic synchronization model enhanced with phase detection is derived to obtain and compensate the accurate synchronization offset. A four-cell 6 kV SiC-based modular converter is established to verify the proposed distributed communication and control system.