Technical Report No.1111

No. 1111

Trend and Applications of Matrix Converters

Investigating R&D Committee on Improvement of Practical and Applied Technology of Direct AC to AC Conversion Circuit

Keyword :

direct matrix converter, indirect matrix converter, reverse block IGBT,harmonics reduction

In recent years, research and development of matrix converters are performed intensively. And some matrix converters have been produced commercially. The reason is that the matrix converters have no energy storage in DC link as compared with the conventional voltage stiff inverters, so they have a possibility of improvement in a miniaturization, reliability and efficiency. However, since they produce their output voltage waveform directly from the waveform of an AC power supply, their properties, such as an utilization of supply voltage, an input current waveform, output current and voltage waveforms, the tolerance for unbalanced supply voltages, protection countermeasures against mains momentary power failure, handling of load power for gate blocking operation and needed input electromagnetic interference filter, are essentially different from those for the conventional voltage stiff inverters.
This technical report mentions the technology trends, which were investigated for the effects of their properties on applications. Chapter 2 explains main circuits, power devices and their drive circuits for matrix converters. Chapter 3 summarizes control strategies and analysis method. Chapter 4 demonstrates reduction techniques of harmonics and electromagnetic interferences for matrix converters. Furthermore, Chapter 5 illustrates application and practical techniques.
Now, the applications of matrix converters are extended increasingly. In spite of the delay of commercialization of reverse blocking IGBTs, matrix converters with antiseries connected conventional IGBTs are also produced. In the near future, the further functional development will be expected by expansion of a field of application.