Artificial neural network applications in power electronics

Artificial neural networks (ANNs) or neural networks are an emerging technology that are advancing rapidly and having an impact on many scientific and engineering applications. The frontier of power electronics and motor drives has recently been advanced considerably by the advent of this technology, and the future indicates a tremendous promise. Neural networks have brought challenges to the expertise of power electronic engineers with traditional background. This paper discusses the principles of neural networks and describes some of their applications in power electronics and motor drives. The specific applications include static feedback signals estimation for a vector drive, space vector PWM for a two-level voltage-fed inverter and voltage model flux vector estimation. Finally, some problems and challenges for practical applications are discussed.