Real-Time Switches Fault Diagnosis Based on Typical Operating Characteristics of Five-Phase Permanent-Magnetic Synchronous Machines

A novel centroid-based diagnostic method of the power switches in five-leg voltage source inverter is proposed in this paper. Using a vectorial multimachine description, a five-phase drive presenting an opened switch or an opened phase faults has typical operating characteristics in comparison to classical three-phase drives. Based on such characteristics, this paper aims to provide a simple and robust diagnostic process for switches fault regardless of the shape of the back electromotive forces (harmonic components) and the transient states due to the load variation. Original theoretical developments are presented. Experimental results are shown to validate the proposed strategy.