PEC Inverter for Intelligent Electric Spring Applications Using ANN-Based Controller

Aiming at delivering power to sensitive loads with an enhanced level of reliability and quality, a compact multilevel battery-based electric spring (ES2) topology founded on the Packed E-Cell (PEC) inverter and an artificial neural network (ANN) based control strategy are introduced. This multilevel ES2 overcomes the limitations of the two-level ES2s and offers key features in the area of electric spring that have not been considered before. From the reliability point of view, the PEC-based ES2 (PEC-ES2) has the capability of instant nine to five-level operation under its bidirectional switch faulty condition. Regarding the power quality, in comparison with the half or full bridge ES2 topologies, PEC-ES2 has switches with halved voltage rating, lower harmonic content in its output current and voltage, considerably lower switching frequency, higher power applications, etc. The proposed intelligent ANN-based controller can also tune and stabilize both the grid voltage and responsive load setup power factor independently with improved dynamic performance. The operation and viability of the proposed ES2 configuration and controller, have been also tested extensively.