Control technique for high power factor multilevel rectifier

Three control techniques for a high power factor multilevel pulsewidth modulation (PWM) rectifier are proposed. The proposed rectifier is based on series connection of full-bridge cell to achieve a high power factor, low current distortion, low voltage stress of power semiconductors and two balanced output voltages. The look-up table is used in the proposed control schemes to reduce the hardware circuit. A capacitor voltage compensator is used to balance two dc capacitor voltages in order to obtain high quality PWM voltage pattern. Based on the proposed control schemes, two-level or three-level PWM pattern can be generated on the ac side of the adopted rectifier. The proposed techniques for a high power factor multilevel rectifier illustrate its validity and effectiveness through the respective simulations and experiments. According to the measured results, the current harmonics drawn from the mains meet the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) 1000-3-2 limits.