Abstract
This research introduces a filtering circuit design integrated with the DC-link of a medium power variable speed drive (VSD) system. The designed filtering circuit employs modern power electronic circuits to improve time response characteristics in both grid and dc-link sides. Depending on the widely used multi-level converters, a conventional three-level H-bridge four-quadrant chopper scheme was developed into a cascade five-level H-bridge four-quadrant chopper scheme. The time response of the proposed system was performed with both choppers, and results showed that voltage drop on cascade chopper transistors was reduced to half in comparison with voltage drop on conventional four-quadrant chopper transistors. Moreover, the sharp fluctuations in system's waves were mitigated; consequently, time response characteristics in both steady and transient states were remarkably improved. The total harmonic distortion factor THD% of the input current and voltage was reduced to 26.2% and 2.43% respectively and the ripple factor RF for DC-link current was reduced to 0.196.