IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER ELECTRONICS, VOL. 24, NO.

10, OCTOBER 2009 2347

Letters
Harmonic Analysis of Advanced Bus-Clamping PWM Techniques
Tushar Bhavsar and G. Narayanan, Member, IEEE

Abstract—Special switching sequences can be employed in

space-vector-based generation of pulsewidth-modulated (PWM)
waveforms for voltage-source inverters. These sequences involve
switching a phase twice, switching the second phase once, and
clamping the third phase in a subcycle. Advanced bus-clamping
PWM (ABCPWM) techniques have been proposed recently that
employ such switching sequences. This letter studies the spectral
properties of the waveforms produced by these PWM techniques.
Further, analytical closed-form expressions are derived for the to-
tal rms harmonic distortion due to these techniques. It is shown
that the ABCPWM techniques lead to lower distortion than con-
ventional space vector PWM and discontinuous PWM at higher
modulation indexes. The findings are validated on a 2.2-kW con-
stant V /f induction motor drive and also on a 100-kW motor
drive.
Index Terms—Harmonic analysis, harmonic distortion, induc-
tion motor drive, pulsewidth modulation (PWM), space vector
PWM, voltage-source inverter (VSI).

I. INTRODUCTION
ULSEWIDTH modulation (PWM) techniques for a two-
P level voltage-source inverter (VSI) have been researched
extensively [1]–[14]. Continuous PWM methods such as sine-
triangle PWM and conventional space vector PWM (CSVPWM)
are popular PWM techniques. Discontinuous PWM or bus-
clamping PWM (BCPWM) methods have been shown to re-
sult in lower total harmonic distortion (THD) in line currents
than the continuous PWM methods at higher line-side volt-
ages for a given average switching frequency [1]–[6], [14]. Ad-
vanced BCPWM (ABCPWM) techniques have been recently
proposed [8], which employ a special switching sequence, as
explained in Section II. This letter studies the harmonic com-
ponents in the inverter output voltage corresponding to these
techniques over a wide range of modulation indexes. Ana-
lytical closed-form expressions have earlier been derived for
the total rms harmonic distortion due to sine-triangle PWM,
CSVPWM, and BCPWM techniques [2]–[6]. This letter derives
such expressions for ABCPWM techniques and validates these
experimentally.
II. ADVANCED BUS-CLAMPING PWM TECHNIQUES
The voltage vectors produced by a two-level VSI are as shown
in Fig. 1. The vectors are normalized with respect to the dc bus
Manuscript received July 6, 2007; revised December 12, 2007. Current
version published September 11, 2009. Recommended for publication by
Associate Editor J. Sun.
The authors are with the Department of Electrical Engineering, Indian Insti-
tute of Science, Bengaluru 560012, India (e-mail: tusharvbhavsar@gmail.com;
gnar@ee.iisc.ernet.in).
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TPEL.2009.2013492
Fig. 1. Voltage vectors produced by a two-level VSI. I, II, III, IV, V, and VI
are sectors formed by these vectors.
voltage Vdc . Since the six sectors are symmetric, the discussion
is limited to sector I here. The commanded reference vector
Vref in sector I is synthesized by applying active vector V1 ,
active vector V2 , and the zero vector for durations T1 , T2 ,
and Tz , respectively, as given by (1), (2), and (3), where Ts is
the sampling period or subcycle duration [1], [2]. The voltage
vectors can be applied in different sequences, as illustrated in
Fig. 2 [7]–[10]
sin(60◦ − α)
T1 = Vref Ts (1)
sin(60◦ )
sin(α)
T2 = Vref Ts (2)
sin(60◦ )
Tz = Ts − T 1 − T 2 . (3)
CSVPWM applies the two zero states 0 (− − −) and
7 (+ + +) for an equal duration of 0.5Tz , as illustrated in
Fig. 2(a). BCPWM methods employ the same zero state for the
entire duration Tz , as shown in Fig. 2(b) and (c). ABCPWM
techniques also apply only one zero state over the entire dura-
tion Tz , but these divide the dwell time T1 or T2 into two halves,
as illustrated in Fig. 2(d) and (e), respectively [7]–[10].
With ABCPWM, sequences 7212, 2127, . . . can be employed
in the region 0◦ ≤ α < γ, and sequences 0121, 1210, . . . in the

0885-8993/$26.00 © 2009 IEEE

2348
Fig. 2. Possible switching sequences in sector I.
Fig. 3. ABCPWM. (a) ACCPWM. (b) ASCPWM.
region γ ≤ α < 60◦ in sector I, as shown in Fig. 3(a), or vice
versa, as shown in Fig. 3(b), where 0◦ ≤ γ < 60◦ . The for-
mer results in every phase being clamped continually for 60◦
duration in every half-cycle of its fundamental voltage. This
is termed advanced continual clamping PWM (ACCPWM).
In the latter case, the 60◦ clamping duration is split into two
intervals—one interval of span γ in the first quarter and another
of span (60◦ − γ) in the second quarter in every half-cycle.
This is termed advanced split clamping PWM (ASCPWM). In
both cases, every phase switches at twice the average switch-
ing frequency for an interval of 60◦ centered around every zero
crossing of its fundamental voltage [8].
The discontinuous PWM or BCPWM can similarly be
categorized into two schemes, namely continual clamping
PWM (CCPWM) and split clamping PWM (SCPWM). Replac-
ing sequences 0121, 1210, . . . by 012, 210, . . . and sequences
7212, 2127, . . . by 721, 127, . . . in Fig. 3 modifies ACCPWM
and ASCPWM into CCPWM and SCPWM, respectively [8].
III. ANALYSIS OF HARMONIC DISTORTION
In a PWM inverter-fed drive, there is an instantaneous er-
ror between the actual applied voltage vector and the reference
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER ELECTRONICS, VOL. 24, NO. 10, OCTOBER 2009
Fig. 4. Stator flux ripple vector over a subcycle for sequences. (a) 0127. (b)
0121. (c) 7212.
voltage vector (see Fig. 4). For instance, when the applied volt-
age vector is V1 , the corresponding error voltage vector is
Verr1 , as shown in Fig. 4. The time integral of the error voltage
vector, termed here as stator flux ripple vector, is a measure of
the line-current ripple [7]. The magnitude of the stator flux rip-
ple vector is zero at the start as well as at the end of the subcycle
for all the sequences. The magnitude and angle of the flux ripple
vector vary with time over a subcycle, as illustrated in Fig. 4.
The trajectory of the tip of the flux ripple vector is parallel to the
instantaneous error voltage vector. The trajectories for the three
sequences 0127, 0121, and 7212 are illustrated in Fig. 4(a)–(c),
respectively. While the tip of the flux ripple vector has a trian-
gular trajectory for sequence 0127, as shown in Fig. 4(a), the
trajectory is “doubly triangular” for sequences 0121 and 7212.
The d-axis component (ψd ) and the q-axis component (ψq ) of
the flux ripple vector are also shown. With sequences 0121 and
7212, the peak value of ψd reduces to half that for sequence
0127 [7], [8], [10].
The rms stator flux ripple (FSEQ ) over a subcycle corre-
sponding to a sequence (SEQ) can be expressed in terms of the
magnitude (Vref ) and angle (α) of the reference vector and the
sampling time (Ts ). The expressions for the rms ripple due to
0121 and 7212 are of the form shown in (4). The coefficients
C1(SEQ) and C2(SEQ) are functions of α and are tabulated in
Table I [7], [8]
1 2 2
2
FSEQ = T V + C1(SEQ) Ts2 Vref
3
+ C2(SEQ) Ts2 Vref
4
. (4)
3 s ref
The total rms harmonic distortion factor (FD ) is the rms
stator flux ripple over a sector normalized with respect to the
fundamental flux ψ1 , as shown in (5). The fundamental flux is
given by (6), where ω1 is the fundamental angular frequency
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER ELECTRONICS, VOL. 24, NO. 10, OCTOBER 2009 2349

TABLE I
COEFFICIENTS C 1 (S E Q ) AND C 2 (S E Q ) [7]

TABLE II
ANALYTICAL EXPRESSIONS FOR HARMONIC DISTORTION

Fig. 5. Analytically evaluated harmonic distortion factor versus fundamental

frequency. The legends are: thin solid lines—continual clamp (γ = 0◦ ); dashed
and dotted lines—continual clamp (γ = 30◦ ); dashed lines—split clamp (γ =
30 ◦ ); and thick solid line—CSVPWM.

[7], [8], [10]

fundamental frequency (f1 ) in Fig. 5. The average switching
 π /3 frequency fsw is 2.5 kHz. The sampling period Ts = 200 µs for
1 3 2
FD = FSEQ dα (5) CSVPWM and ABCPWM, while Ts = 133.3 µs for BCPWM.
ψ1 π 0
Theoretically, as seen from the plots, CSVPWM produces the
Vref lowest distortion for frequencies less than 34 Hz, SCPWM (γ =
ψ1 = . (6)
ω1 30◦ ) results in the lowest distortion between 34 and 47 Hz,
The expressions for the rms harmonic distortion factors cor- while ASCPWM (γ = 30◦ ) is the best at frequencies higher than
responding to ACCPWM and ASCPWM are obtained, as shown 47 Hz. Also, ASCPWM (γ = 30◦ ) is better in terms of THD than
in (7) and (8), respectively. The analytical expressions for AC- ACCPWM (γ = 30◦ ) over the entire frequency range, but the
CPWM with γ = 0◦ , ASCPWM with γ = 30◦ , and ACCPWM difference is not very significant.
with γ = 30◦ are given in Table II. The expressions for the corre-
sponding BCPWM techniques and CSVPWM are also tabulated IV. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
for comparison The various PWM techniques are implemented on a

  TMS320LF2407 DSP-based digital controller. These tech-
1 3 γ 2 3 π /3 2 niques are evaluated on a 2.2-kW, 415-V, 1400-r/min induction
FD (ACCPW M ) = F7212 dα + F0121 dα
ψ1 π 0 π γ motor drive fed from a 10-kVA insulated gate bipolar transistor
(IGBT) inverter and also on a 100-kW, 415-V, 1475-r/min motor
(7)

drive fed from a 250-kVA IGBT inverter. The dc bus voltage is
 γ  π /3 587 V in both cases.
1 3 2 3 2
FD (ASCPW M ) = F0121 dα + F7212 dα.
ψ1 π 0 π γ
A. Harmonic Spectra
(8)
The measured harmonic spectra of line to line voltages (PWM
of R-phase minus PWM of Y-phase) at f1 = 50 Hz corre-
Considering constant volts per hertz control, the distortion sponding to different PWM techniques are shown in Fig. 6.
factors due to the different techniques are plotted against the For an average switching frequency (fsw ) of 2.5 kHz, the
2350 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER ELECTRONICS, VOL. 24, NO. 10, OCTOBER 2009

Fig. 7. Amplitude of the dominant harmonic component in the first sideband

(V d 1 ) versus fundamental frequency. The legends are: (+) CSVPWM; (
)
CCPWM (γ = 30 ◦ ); (×) SCPWM (γ = 30◦ ); (o) ACCPWM (γ = 30 ◦ ); (∗)
ASCPWM (γ = 30 ◦ ).

Fig. 6. Measured harmonic spectra (amplitude in volts versus frequency in

kilohertz) for (a) CSVPWM, (b) CCPWM (γ = 30◦ ), (c) SCPWM (γ = 30 ◦ ),
(d) ACCPWM (γ = 30 ◦ ), and (e) ASCPWM (γ = 30 ◦ ) at f1 = 50 Hz and
fsw = 2.5 kHz. The measured values of V W T H D are (a) 0.0078, (b) 0.0055,
(c) 0.0052, (d) 0.0046, and (e) 0.0044.

spectra of CSVPWM and ABCPWM have sidebands around

2.5 kHz, 5 kHz, . . ., as seen from Fig. 6(a), (d), and (e). For
the same average switching frequency, BCPWM has sidebands
around 3.75 kHz, 7.5 kHz, . . ., as shown in Fig. 6(b) and (c).
The weighted THD of the line voltage (VW THD ) is a mea-
sure of the rms line-current ripple. This is defined in (9), where
V1 and Vn are the rms values of the fundamental and nth har- Fig. 8. Amplitude of the dominant harmonic component in the second side-
band (V d 2 ) versus fundamental frequency. The legends are as in Fig. 7.
monic voltages, respectively. Fig. 6 shows that the ABCPWM
techniques lead to lower VW THD than the other methods at
f1 = 50 Hz. In particular, ASCPWM (γ = 30◦ ) results in the
lowest VW THD

   2
1  Vn
VW THD = . (9)
V1 n
n = 1

The voltage harmonic spectra for the different techniques are

measured over a range of frequencies from 20 to 50 Hz in steps
of 2 Hz. The measurements show that the dominant harmonic
component in the first sideband (Vd1 ) and that in the second
sideband (Vd2 ) vary with the fundamental frequency, as shown
in Figs. 7 and 8, respectively. The measured values of VW THD
at different frequencies are plotted in Fig. 9. As the harmonic
components in the second sideband are filtered more effectively
by the motor leakage inductance than those in the first sideband,
the latter dominate in the weighted THD of the line voltage
(VW THD ). Consequently, there is good correlation between Vd1 Fig. 9. Measured V W T H D versus fundamental frequency. The legends are as
(Fig. 7) and VW THD (Fig. 9). in Fig. 7.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER ELECTRONICS, VOL. 24, NO. 10, OCTOBER 2009
Fig. 10. Measured no-load current (in amperes) on a 2.2-kW motor with
(a) CSVPWM, (b) CCPWM (γ = 30◦ ), (c) SCPWM (γ = 30 ◦ ), (d) ACCPWM
(γ = 30 ◦ ), and (e) ASCPWM (γ = 30◦ ). The measured values of IT H D (in
percentage) are (a) 11.22, (b) 9.43, (c) 8.91, (d) 8.69, and (e) 8.12.
At low modulation indexes, CSVPWM has lower Vd1 , and
hence, lower VW THD than the other techniques. In this range,
BCPWM and ABCPWM have comparable values of Vd1 . How-
ever, since BCPWM has its first sideband at a higher frequency
of 3.75 kHz, the corresponding VW THD is lower than that of the
ABCPWM. In the intermediate range of frequency where Vd1
due to BCPWM and CSVPWM are comparable, the VW THD due
to BCPWM is lower than that of CSVPWM, again due to the
sideband frequency being higher. Close to the rated frequency,
ABCPWM has the lowest Vd1 resulting in the lowest VW THD .
B. No-Load Current THD
The PWM techniques are first tested on a 2.2-kW constant
V /f induction motor drive. The no-load current waveforms at a
fundamental frequency of 50 Hz for different PWM techniques
are shown in Fig. 10. The no-load current THD (ITHD ) is defined
in (10), where Irm s and I1 are the rms values of the no-load cur-
rent and its fundamental component, respectively. The measured
values of ITHD at various frequencies for the different PWM
techniques are plotted in Fig. 11. As seen, ASCPWM (γ = 30◦ )
leads to the lowest ITHD among the different techniques
s − I1
2
Irm 2
ITHD = . (10)
I1
For further confirmation on a larger machine, the PWM tech-
niques are evaluated on a 100-kW induction motor drive. The
experimental ITHD values are plotted in Fig. 12. The measure-
ments in Figs. 11 and 12 are averages of five trials. As seen from
Figs. 5, 9, 11, and 12, there is good agreement among the ana-
2351
Fig. 11. Measured no-load current THD versus fundamental frequency for
2.2-kW induction motor. The legends are as in Fig. 7.
Fig. 12. Measured no-load current THD versus fundamental frequency for
100-kW induction motor. The legends are: (+) CSVPWM; (×) SCPWM (γ =
30 ◦ ); (∗) ASCPWM (γ = 30 ◦ ).
lytically evaluated harmonic distortion, measured VW THD , and
measured no-load ITHD . Thus, for a given sampling frequency
and average switching frequency, ABCPWM techniques result
in less distortion than CSVPWM at higher speeds. Further, at
load power factors greater than 0.5, these techniques also re-
sult in lower switching losses than CSVPWM [8]. Hence, it
is advantageous to employ ABCPWM at higher speeds and
higher loads. ASCPWM (γ = 30◦ ), which is a member of the
ABCPWM family, leads to the lowest current THD.
To obtain the least possible current THD in the entire range of
operation, CSVPWM should be used at frequencies lower than
34 Hz, SCPWM should be used between 34 and 47 Hz, and
ASCPWM for frequencies higher than 47 Hz. In order to im-
plement this, software has to be written for all three PWM tech-
niques. Depending on the fundamental frequency of the drive,
the most appropriate PWM technique should be switched ON.
The implementation can be on a DSP [15] or a field-programable
gate array [16] based digital controller suitable for motor drive
application.
2352
V. CONCLUSION
Analytical closed-form expressions were derived for the total
rms harmonic distortion due to ABCPWM techniques. These are
validated experimentally by measuring the weighted THD of the
line voltage waveforms and also the THD of the no-load motor
current waveforms. The spectral properties of PWM waveforms
generated by these techniques were studied. The spectral anal-
ysis explains the relative performance of CSVPWM, BCPWM,
and ABCPWM techniques.
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