Improvement of a self-powered gate driver power supply

In this work, an improved self-powered gate driver power supply is proposed, analyzed by simulation and experimentally validated. This solution is based on the addition of a voltage regulator and it achieves a floating, constant and robust voltage to supply the gate driver and auxiliary circuits (protections, sensors, local control and communications) in switching cells for multilevel converters implementation. The obtained gate driver supply voltage is stable for a wide range of frequencies and auxiliary circuit current consumptions. Moreover, the main characteristics of the main transistor turn-on and turn-off are preserved while decreasing the power dissipation of the gate driver power supply circuit.