Simplified Approach for Acquisition of Submodule Capacitor Voltages of the Modular Multilevel Converter Using Low Sampling Rate Sensing and Estimation

The modular multilevel converter (MMC), used in high-voltage dc applications, consists of hundreds of submodules in each arm. The operation and control of the MMC require sensing of the capacitor voltage of each submodule. The transmission of the sensed data from hundreds of submodules over individual channels leads to wiring complexity. This work suggests that time-multiplexing can be used to transmit the sensed data of multiple submodules across a common serial interface bus. Time multiplexing, however, decreases the sampling rate. Since the submodule capacitor voltage has both ac and dc components, an adequate sampling rate must be maintained to avoid the aliasing of ac components. In this article, an estimation scheme is investigated for reconstructing the ac components of the submodule capacitor voltages within the processing platform, leaving just the dc component to be transmitted over the common bus. The mathematical analysis of the data transmission system and proposed estimation scheme is performed, and the influence on the closed-loop performance is studied. The proposed scheme is experimentally verified in the laboratory.