Design of H-bridge Multilevel Active Rectifier for Traction Systems

This paper is focused on the design of the controller for a high voltage-high power single phase front-end rectifier stage, for a large electric drive designed for, but not limited to, traction field applications. The rectifier should absorb current with low harmonic content to eliminate disturbances on the communication equipments and more generally to reduce environment electromagnetic pollution. Additional specification is the elimination of the heavy and bulky transformer to reduce encumbrances and cost. A multilevel H-bridge single phase configuration has been chosen. In this paper, the design has been fully investigated with the help of theoretical analysis and simulations.