The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Jun. 25, 2013
Filed:
May. 28, 2010
Paolo Soldi, Munich, DE;
Robert Roesner, Unterfoehring, DE;
Stefan Schroeder, Munich, DE;
General Electric Company, Niskayuna, NY (US);
Abstract
A multilevel converter includes a plurality of phase legs each having at least two inner switching devices, at least two outer switching devices, at least two clamping diodes, a split DC link and a switching device failure detection circuit. The switching device failure detection circuit includes a logic module for each of the switching devices, a voltage calculation module and a failure detection algorithm. The logic module generates a blocking state logic signal by comparing a switching device voltage and a threshold reference voltage and the voltage calculation module determines an expected voltage blocking state for each of the switching devices based on the gate drive signals of the switching devices and an output current direction. The failure detection algorithm detects a failure condition in any of the switching devices based on the blocking state logic signals and the expected voltage blocking states of the switching devices.