This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been

fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/TEC.2017.2786299, IEEE
Transactions on Energy Conversion

An Intelligent Based Fault Tolerant System for

Solar Fed Cascaded Multilevel Inverters
Albert Alexander Stonier and Brad Lehman, Senior Member, IEEE

unattended operation. Hence, it is difficult to monitor and

Abstract-- The paper presents an intelligent based fault
tolerant system for a solar Photovoltaic (PV) inverter. Artificial
Neural Network (ANN) based controller is used to monitor,
detect and diagnose the faults in solar PV panels, battery,
semiconductor switches and inverters. The Cascaded Multilevel
Inverter (CMI) is connected across the combination of solar PV
panel and battery for DC-AC conversion. The major advantage
of the proposed topology is that it can deliver power from source
to the load even under fault and partial shaded conditions. The
paper also reviews on various faults in the solar PV energy
conversion process and provides suitable solutions for each
circumstance. Simulations are undertaken in MATLAB
2016a/Simulink and experimental investigation is carried out for
a 3kWp solar PV system. The results have proven that the system
is capable to deliver power in spite of faulty environments. The
comparison and discussion of the results were made to show the
effectiveness of the proposed system.
Index Terms-- Artificial Neural Network, Cascaded Multilevel
Inverter, Fault diagnosis, Maximum Power Point Tracking, Solar
Photovoltaic, Pulse Width Modulation
I. INTRODUCTION
N order to meet the growing demand for electrical energy,
I renewable energy sources, especially solar and wind have
become widely accepted alternatives to conventional energy
generation systems. It has been forecasted that the energy
produced by the non-conventional energy sources will satisfy
50% of the total power needs in 2050 [1].
A common problem with the solar Photovoltaic (PV) is the
reduction of its delivered power, which can be caused by
certain abnormal conditions like faults, partial shading, MPPT
failure and inappropriate choice of converters. In addition, PV
system for commercial and industrial applications must have
availability, reliability [2], power quality [3] and fault
tolerance. Among these, fault tolerant capability plays a
predominant role in providing high quality of power to the
load without any interruption. Fault tolerant capability is the
ability to continue service even under faulty conditions.
Fault is a serious problem which causes production loss
[4]. Faults may subsequently lead to unexpected safety
hazards, reduced system efficiency and deteriorate reliability.
A fault which remains even for a few seconds can cause
undesirable effects to the loads connected to the solar PV
conversion system. Normally the solar PV system runs under
This work was supported in part by the University Grants Commission
(Government of India) under Grant 5-179/2016 (IC).
Albert Alexander Stonier is with the Electrical and Electronics
Engineering Department, Kongu Engineering College, Perundurai, India
638060 (e-mail: ootyalex@gmail.com).
Brad Lehman is with the Electrical and Computer Engineering
Department, Northeastern University, Boston, MA 02120 USA (e-mail:
lehman@ece.neu.edu)
maintain the overall system which has a wide distribution [5].
The various faults in solar PV array are surveyed in [6,7], but
the research does not consider the impact of other faults in
solar PV energy conversion system, such as battery damage,
inverter failure, or fault due to AC isolation.
To overcome the faults in the entire solar PV system
(PV array, battery and inverter), this research proposes an
efficient power electronic interface whose switching action is
stimulated by the intelligent controller. Unlike a conventional
inverter, an improved Cascaded Multilevel Inverter (CMI) is
proposed to act as an interface whose operation is manifested
by the intelligent controller to shift the conduction of switches
based on fault and normal conditions. On considering the
various advantages and applications of CMI in [8], it is found
that CMI can significantly increase reliability and are able to
operate even with some faulty components. CMI comprises of
many stages. Hence, we will demonstrate that the fault in any
one of the solar PV modules, batteries, or inverter stages can
be compensated by the other auxiliary switches whose action
is controlled by an intelligent system.
In the literature a great deal of work is reported under the
areas of multilevel inverters with various control topologies,
but only fewer works deal with fault tolerant capability for the
entire solar PV system. There is a need to develop methods for
PV systems to provide the continuous power to the load
without any interruption during the unique types of faults PV
systems experience.
A single phase five level inverter configuration is proposed
in [9] that works as a three level inverter during fault and
requires output end transformer to maintain the actual output
for balancing the reduced power. It also requires separate truth
table for normal, severe fault and high fault conditions. Only
the open switch fault is considered using T type three level
inverter in [10] and used Schmitt trigger for diagnosis. In [11],
inductors are replaced with open end transformers to limit the
circulating current.
It has been concluded that multilevel inverters can operate
in a balanced condition at reduced power while the fault
occurs [12]. Although the multilevel inverters can
continuously operate in a balanced condition, it will not be
able to operate at its rated power. The fault diagnostic system
proposed in [13] requires about six cycles to clear an open
circuit or short circuit fault. The desired output voltage is
achieved by varying the modulation index to maintain the
operation under balanced load condition. The fault detection
given in [14] requires monitoring devices for the individual
panels, which makes the system more complex and expensive.
It is postulated that the fault diagnosis and fault localization
require data on array behavior under each fault conditions.

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This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/TEC.2017.2786299, IEEE
Transactions on Energy Conversion
A fault switching device is detected without using
additional sensors but by monitoring the distorted shape of the
output current waveform in [15]. A seven level inverter which
produces a symmetrical six level waveform during unbalanced
condition and the reconfiguration of gating signals according
to the failure modes on occurrence of failure in power devices
is discussed in [16]. Utilization of bidirectional switches,
transformers with different turns ratio, PWM of high
switching frequency makes the fault tolerant system much
more complex [17].
It is observed that there remain a few short-comings in the
research on performance of the fault tolerant capability for the
entire solar PV system, i.e. it cannot meet the need of real
world applications. Much of the works are reported on inverter
without PV array [9-15].The little work that includes PV only
reports fault in switches [3]. None of the works have dealt
with fault detection on PV with respect to batteries or inverter
and also not addressed fault tolerant operation for the entire
solar PV system. Thus, the investigation of the fault detection
and tolerant systems is an important issue.
The major contribution of the proposed research work is
summarized as below:
• Analyzed the causes and effects of faults in solar PV,
battery and inverter
• Performed extensive simulation and extensive experimental
studies for various fault conditions in PV systems
• Implemented an intelligent controller to ensure the power
flow even during fault and partial shaded conditions
• The salient results obtained thus proved that the proposed
inverter topology performs well in various fault conditions
The paper is organized as follows: Section II presents the
problem statement and methodology and Section III exhibits
the problem formulation with ANN. Section IV illustrates the
experiemntal results, discussions and final conclusions.
II. PROBLEM STATEMENT AND METHODOLOGY
A. General Problem Statement
The major objective of the proposed work is divided into
fault identification and fault mitigation in the entire solar PV
energy conversion system. The fault identification process
comprises of the following steps:
Step 1: Model and simulate 20 types of different faults (8 solar
PV faults: ground fault, line to line fault, open circuit fault,
floating PV systems, double ground fault, blind spot,
undervoltage and hot spot heating, 9 inverter faults:
overcurrent, overheating, switch not driven, switch open, both
diode and switch open, only diode open, short circuit, gate
drive failure and blackout, and 3 battery faults: overvoltage,
undervoltage and abnornal charging-discharging cycles).
Step 2: Experimentally create the 20 types of faults in a 3kWp
solar PV test bed
Step 3: Measure and record H Bridge output voltage for fault
to create N datasets. In this research we have collected 1500
data sets (685 simulation and 815 experimental data sets).
Step 4: Use 70% of data to train Artificial Neural Networks
(ANN) using advanced Back Propagation (BPN) algorithm to
identify faults.
In continuation, the fault mitigation process comprises of
the following steps:
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Step 5: Develop an intelligent control algorithm to connect
auxiliary inverter during the fault.
Step 6: Implement ANN and auxiliary inverter control in
3kWp solar PV system.
Step 7: Test the experimental PV system for 20 different types
of faults to verify the fault detection and mitigation.
Often the faults are associated with reduction/increase in
the voltage/current. This can result in either lower voltage or
asymmetry in any individual H bridge or CMI. The novelty of
the paper resides in overcoming these issues using an
intelligent based controller.
B. Design Layout
Fig.1 shows the proposed circuit topology for fault tolerant
capability system. Although we explain our results for our
specific simulation and experimental test bed the methods and
steps are applicable to other size PV arrays with different
levels of CMI. The figure comprises of seven PV arrays (each
array is a series connection of 4 modules) coupled with seven
inverters connected in series which depicts the 15 level
configuration. An additional inverter is connected in series
with this configuration termed as ‘auxiliary inverter’ whose
action (ON/OFF) is manifested by the control of two switches
SA1 and SA2. The auxiliary inverter is also powered by the
solar PV array. Hence the circuit has the capability to generate
17 level output voltage as it illustrates an 8 stage CMI. The
control action for the inverter switches is performed with
PDPWM (Phase Disposition Pulse Width Modulation) by
making the corresponding analysis on other PWM approaches
in [18].
The switching pulses are given to all the eight inverter
stages without any variations to avoid the high switching
frequency patterns, which are found as a drawback in most of
the literature. The switching frequency is fixed at 1 kHz and
the inverter output frequency is 50Hz which is determined by
the carrier and reference signals respectively.
The individual solar PV module has the specification of
open circuit voltage, Voc=21.2V, short circuit current,
Isc=7.4A, maximum peak voltage, Vmp=16.5V, maximum peak
current, Imp=6.95A and maximum peak power, Pmp=115Wp.
Four such modules are connected in series to form a solar PV
array. Hence the overall solar PV rating of the system is
3220Wp. The solar PV output is connected to the battery of
rating 48V, 100Ah (4 batteries in series with individual rating
of 12V, 100Ah) which is depicted in Fig.1 as B1 to B8. With
the State of Charge (SoC) of 50% and greater, the battery
provides 48V. The reason behind the 48Vp input to the
inverter stage is to provide the 230Vrms across the load
terminals. In the proposed design, Vdc=336V which is greater
than the square root of the grid voltage (325.26V), makes the
system suitable for both standalone and grid connected PV
configurations [19].
Hence, the faults developed in the battery such as
overvoltage, under voltage, abnormal charging and discharge
cycles also been considered. The individual battery (12V,
100Ah) discharges to 10.8V at 270C. When the SoC >50%, the
battery attains the maximum voltage leading to overcharging
condition. Similarly the voltage reduces while the SoC is less
than 50%. The cut off voltage of the battery is found to be
36V and the fully charged voltage is 55.8714V.
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Transactions on Energy Conversion
Fig. 1. Power circuit of the proposed topology
C. Simulation analysis
Simulations are carried out in MATLAB 2016a/Simulink.
The output voltage of a CMI while making all the eight stages
of the inverter including auxiliary inverter to operate produces
17 levels. The normal operation of CMI with 15 levels is
given in Fig.2. Here the auxiliary inverter is turned OFF by the
switching condition SA1=1 and SA2=0.
If any one of the inverter stages is completely turned OFF
due to the occurrence of solar PV or battery fault, then the
overall output voltage of the system will be the summation of
output voltages in the other inverter stages. Suppose inverter 1
whose input voltage of 48V is under fault. Then, the overall
output voltage is 48Vx7stages-48V=288V as shown in Fig.3.
The output voltage of CMI during the occurrence of fault in
two inverter stages is 48Vx7stages-48V-48V= 240V. When
any one of the inverters provides the output voltage of 0V, due
the cascaded connection at the output end, the other inverter
stages tends to operate in providing the reduced output voltage
without any interruption.
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Fig. 2. Fifteen level output voltage waveform
Fig. 3. Output voltage waveform during fault in inverter 1 (Vbattery drop= 48V)
In general, a fault may cause a change of output voltage by
∆Vo across the output terminals of a fifteen level inverter. The
reduction ∆Vo may become equal to either ∆VPVi or ∆Vbatteryi
or an inverter failure, where i represent the ith stage of the
multi-level inverter. The reduction in PV voltage is expressed
as,
∆VPVi = VPV reference - VPV peak measured (1)
Similarly, the reduction in battery voltage is expressed as,
∆Vbatteryi = Vbattery reference - Vbattery peak measured (2)
The change in the output voltage is given as,
∆Voi = Vo reference – Vo peak measured (3)
where ∆VPVi , ∆Vbatteryi and ∆Voi represent the change in PV,
battery and output voltages of a particular stage in Fig.1,
i=1,2,…7. The variations given as ∆VPVi , ∆Vbatteryi and ∆Voi
are used to monitor the deviations incurred in the source and
load voltages. The reference value is fixed at 48V (±2V
tolerance) at all the three quantities.
When one of the inverter stages is in OFF, short or open
circuit, then Vo peak becomes less than the desired/reference
voltage by ∆Vo. The peak value of the output voltage is
decreased when the inverter is under fault. This low input
voltage supply is due to the fault in the solar PV or battery,
which is unable to provide the voltage required for the
individual inverter stages. The low peak value of CMI causes
the adverse effects to the loads connected in the system which
is to be avoided. The purpose of this section is to provide the
effects of faults in the source or converter. It shows that when
there is a fault in solar PV cell or module it exhibits a reduced
voltage required to charge the battery.
In addition, if there is a fault in the battery, it provides the
reduced voltage required for the converter (CMI). Also, the
semiconductor devices failure provides the reduced and
asymmetrical voltage waveform. On considering the faults
from the source to the load, the effect is reduced or achieves
low voltage at the output end.
Hence in the proposed work, the reference value of the
output voltage in an individual inverter stage is fixed. Any
change in the output voltage is considered as the uncertainity
and imprecision (even the condition is not primarly due to
fault). With a small variation over the tolerance limit in the
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Transactions on Energy Conversion

output voltage may cause a unstable event. Hence the

mechanism is adopted in the work to compensate this loss and
also to assure the continuous and constant voltage output even
in the fault environment.
The possible detection and identification of fault at either
solar PV or battery or inverter is carried out based on the
analysis made on the reduction in the output voltage.
Common faults result in the reduction in the output voltage or
current or both. Some may also results in the phenomenal
increase in voltage or current due to overheating. Hence the
rate of change of these quantities is taken into consideration
for the fault identification and diagnosition. Fig. 4. Switching sequences for the eight stage inverter
It is noticed that during open circuit fault the waveform solar PV array, overcharging and discharging modes of a
obtained is asymmetrical and peak voltage reduction in battery, complete inverter stage shutdown, semiconductor
positive half cycle, whereas the normal peak voltage appears switches failure, solar cell damage, connection cable fault and
in the negative half cycle. When considering the open-circuit so on. During the abnormal conditions it is found that the
faults in more than a switch in an inverter, noise signals are inverter output voltage seems to be either 0V or at reduced
produced. The noise signals are produced due to the adverse voltage.
aymmetrical nature of the output voltage waveform. The open It is therefore required to set the switching patterns for the
circuit analysis is made by including and excluding the control switches SA1 and SA2. Setting the switching patterns
intervention of a diode incorporated in the switch which acts results in the operation of auxiliary inverter and makes the
as a current path while the switch is open. output voltage compensated in lieu of the loss incurred due to
The output voltage of CMI during short circuit fault is a the fault.Nearly 1500 datasets (by both simulation and
vice-versa situation as for open circuit condition in terms of experiment) are collected in which 1050 are used for training
reduction of output voltage in negative half cycle. It is clear and remaining 450 is used for testing. The testing data is very
that the multilevel inverter continues to operate even under the important to analyse whether the network is properly trained
fault condition but with reduced voltage. This reduced power and can provide the desired output. As the specification of the
creates a serious drawback to the loads connected in the system is same in both simulation and experiment, the dataset
system. obtained provides the similar values. Out of 1500 data set, 685
Usage of asymmetrical output signal deteriorates the data set are obtained through simulation and the remaining
performance of the entire system. The open circuit and short 815 data set by experimental setup.
circuit condition in a solar PV module or open circuit in The dataset refers to the value of current, voltage,
battery results in the much reduced voltage required for the frequency, temperature, time, switching angle obtained during
CMI. Majority of the faults associated with solar PV or battery both normal and abnormal conditions through simulation and
provides either reduced power or asymmetrical/distorted experiment in the entire solar PV conversion process. For an
waveform in the output end. example, 28 different cases refers to 28 dataset obtained in a
Fig.4 shows the switching signals required for the eight solar PV module. Such 28 datasets are obtained in various
stage CMI. For the switching signal generation, eight carrier conditions (temperature, irradiance, different loading
signals are used and the eighth carrier signal operation will be conditions such as inductive and 1.5HP motor, inducing faults
realized only during the fault and partial shading conditions. and so on). Hence the maximum number of dataset has been
The eight carrier signals above and below the zero reference obtained in both simulation and experiment.
will be referred to as fault mode operating signals. START
The initialization of this signal will be made by the intelligent
controller through auxiliary inverter. When the fault occurs,
Measure Voi
the control signal directed from the intelligent controller (i=1,2,..7)
through pulse generator makes the upper carrier signals to ANN
function which turn ON the auxiliary inverter. Fault
No Calculate the change in output
D. Algorithmic Design Is
V oi = Voi ref?
voltage
(∆Voi =Voi ref -Voi peak)
Fig.5 shows the flowchart of the proposed system. As the Normal Yes
output voltage of CMI is independent of load and figuratively Identify the type of fault in
solar PV conversion system
represents the fault type and location, it is taken as the input
dataset for ANN represented as Voi (where i=1,2,3…7). The Reconstruct the Reconstruct the switching
dataset is collected for both normal (no fault and no partial switching table to
[1,0]
table to [0,1] for the type of
fault identified
shading) and abnormal (faults listed in appendices at various
irradiance and temperature levels etc.).
The data set under abnormal condition is obtained in both STOP Control the auxiliary inverter
as per the fault duration
simulation and experimental setup under various
circumstances such as varying the irradiance from minimum
to maximum based on the geographical area, partial shading of Fig. 5. Flowchart of the proposed system

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This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/TEC.2017.2786299, IEEE
Transactions on Energy Conversion
The red color dotted line marked in the flow chart in
Fig.5 specifies the action performed by ANN (explained in
section III). Initially, the output voltages of the individual
inverter stages are measured. If the voltages are equal to the
desired 48V each, then the controller performs the normal
mode (marked in green color dotted line). If the output
voltages are not equal to the desired reference, then the fault
mode operation will be performed. In this mode, the controller
will calculate the change of output voltage (∆Vo). During this
process, the controller initiates the auxiliary inverter to operate
on compensating the loss ‘x’ and restores the continuity of the
supply without any interruption. Meanwhile, the location and
type of the fault is identified based on the value of voltage
dip//rise, shape of the waveform and measurement of voltage,
current at the input/output terminals of battery.
The output of ANN is set as [1,0] for normal and [0,1] for
abnormal conditions. The [1,0] and [0,1] logic is used to turn
ON/OFF the switches SA1 and SA2 which then operates
auxiliary inverter. During the normal operation, [1,0] logic
will provide the 15 level output voltage waveform. Similarly
the logic [0,1] will provide the 15 level output voltage
waveform if any fault exists in the system on considering the
faulted inverter stage output is equal to 0V. Hence the
proposed topology will provide 15 levels at all time without
reduction in the output voltage inspite of fault and partial
shading conditions. Before the dataset is used for training, it is
normalized. If the normalization is not made, the large
variations in the output voltages would monopoly the learning
phase and would be difficult to react for any small variations.
The input dataset is normalized with the bipolar functions for
initial scaling
III. ARTIFICIAL NEURAL NETWORK
Artificial Neural Network (ANN) symbolically mimics the
human brain and is widely used in various decision making
applications. The success of ANN in any application resides in
the way of its learning and adaptation with reduced
computational complexity. Partially trained systems may not
be able to achieve the desired output. The three basic steps
involved in ANN are dataset collection, learning/training and
execution. The dataset collection can be made by either
fundamental formulas [3] or with simulation and experimental
studies. Once the dataset is collected, it has to be preprocessed
for feature extraction and then proceeded towards learning.
The process of finding weights is called learning.
The learning phase is structurally similar to the tuning of
synapses in the natural neuron structure. The weights are to be
adjusted or tuned to achieve the desired output, which will be
supported by various feedforward and feedback algorithms.
Once the network is trained it should be tested before it moves
for the final execution phase.
In the earlier works on fault diagnosis [12,13], ANN is used
to calculate the switching pattern of CMI, which alters the
carrier signals of PWM resulting in distorted output voltage
waveform. It also makes the system more complex. Only one
fault (either open circuit or short circuit) is considered [12]. In
this proposed work, the control to two switches (SA1, SA2) is
undertaken whose switching action is decided by Artificial
Neural Networks.
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In addition, the proposed system considers the fault in the
entire standalone solar PV conversion process (solar PV,
battery, inverter, accessories) and also maintains the output
voltage due to partial shading conditions. The auxiliary
switches are active not only during the fault, but also during if
any one of the solar PV array (numbered as 1 to 7) is subjected
to partial shading condition.
The architecture of ANN used for the system is given in
Fig.6 which depicts the input layer with seven neurons (Vo1 to
Vo7), output layer with two neurons ([0,1] or [1,0]) and two
hidden layers with 20 and 10 neurons in each layer
respectively. The choice of hidden neurons is based on the
complexity of the problem. The hidden neurons can also be
calculated based on the formula given in the equation (4) [5].
Here K represents the number of neurons in hidden, I is input
neurons, O is output neurons and θ is the positive semi definite
constant between 0 to 10.
K = I +O + θ (4)
The activation functions used are ‘tansig’, ‘purelin’ and
‘purelin’ between input and output through two hidden layers.
Levenberg Marquart algorithm (LMA) is used for the weight
updation and ‘traingdm’ for training. LMA is the combination
of error back propagation (gradient descent) and Gauss
Newton algorithm and blends between these two methods
during training for stability and speed.
LMA is the fastest back propagation algorithm (BPA) and
designed to approach second order training speed without
computing the Hessian matrix. The benefits of LMA include
fast, stable convergence, and it does not require more memory
than other algorithms [3]. The performance of ANN after
training is shown in Fig.14.
If any fault occurs in the system, ANN can detect the
change of output voltage (∆Vo) and provides subsequent
switching patterns to SAI and SA2 for the operation of
auxiliary inverter which in turn provides 15 level output
voltage waveform. It is also considered the condition of short
duration fault which is due to the sudden change in climatic
condition or resuming from any fault operation to normal as
shown in the Fig.7 and Fig.8.
Fig.7 shows that when there is a fault (any one inverter
output voltage is 0V) from 2ms to 6ms (2 cycles) there is a
reduction in peak voltage until the fault resumes at 6ms. If the
fault does not resume, even after few cycles, the reduction of
voltage will be continued.
Fig. 6. ANN architecture
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Transactions on Energy Conversion

stage inverter. The comparison of these carrier signals with

Fig. 7. Fault diagnostic system without the intervention of ANN
Fig. 8. Fault diagnostic system with the intervention of ANN
The intervention of ANN for this condition is shown in
Fig.8 in which the auxiliary inverter operates from 2ms to 6ms
without any interruption for the output voltage. In this
condition, ANN functions appropriately in altering the
switching pattern from [1,0] to [0,1] at 2ms and again to [1,0]
at 6ms.
In certain works reported earlier, the controllers take a few
cycles to diagnose or tolerate the fault without mitigation [12].
The reason is due to the fact that the controller significantly
varies the switching pattern required for the CMI, which
consumes more time and drastic increase in switching
frequency. To avoid this delay and also to perform the control
action at a faster rate, the CMI is coupled to the auxiliary
inverter.
The switching action is intended for only two states
(ON/OFF). Based on the rate of reduction in Vo1 to Vo7, the
location of the fault can also be viewed based on the fixation
of reference value in battery (0 -12V) and inverter (0-48V) for
the individual stages.
sinusoidal reference generate the desired pulses for the
inverter switches. The detailed architectural analysis of POD
based pulse generation using DSP processor is dealt in [19].
The control of two switches SA1, SA2 is made through the
controller equipped with ANN trained program using
DSPACE 1104 as given in Fig.9.
Initially, the dataset collected (both normal and abnormal)
is stored in the workstation. The voltage sensors are provided
in the individual output end of the H bridge. At every instant
the voltage values are given as the input to the controller. The
offline trained neural network receives these voltage values
and compares it with the dataset if there is a rate of change of
voltage.
If it finds any deviation in the rate of change of voltage
then the decision will be arrived on account of either normal
or fault condition. If the condition is normal the modulating
signal arrived from the ANN will direct the pulse generation
by shifting the eighth carrier signal to turn OFF the auxiliary
inverter. If fault exists, the eighth carrier signal is compared
with the control signal from ANN to turn ON the auxiliary
inverter.
The output voltage of each H Bridges are sensed and given
as the input to ANN which in turn provides the switching
pattern for the switches SA1 and SA2. The overall
experimental setup consists of eight DC inputs for the inverter
stages and seven output nodes of output voltages. Due to the
control of SA1 and SA2 instead of entire CMI, the fault
detection and diagnosis is faster and does not consume any
additional cycles for fault diagnostics. If there is a time delay,
the power delivered from the source to load will not cut-off,
rather it produces a reduced voltage until the fault diagnostic
system operates which is not more than 2 cycles.
Fig.10 shows the fault detection system to understand the
location and type of the fault caused in the solar PV energy
conversion process. The detection and diagnostic system are
incorporated in a single hardware arrangement for providing
multiple purposes.

IV. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS

The experimental investigation is carried out in a 3kWp
solar PV system. The rating of the individual solar PV module
and the battery is the same as that of given in the section II. A Fig. 9. Experimental set up of eight stage inverter depicting output voltage
seven stage inverter is powered by a solar PV system through
the series of battery rated 48V, 100Ah. The auxiliary inverter
is additionally coupled at the output end of seventh stage
inverter. Hence, the eight stage inverter (including auxiliary)
is provided with switching pulses through a TMS320F240
Digital Signal Processing (DSP) controller.
The carrier signals are generated and shifted above and
below the zero reference pertaining to the Phase Opposition
Disposition (POD) based switching technique which requires
eight carriers above and below the zero reference for an eight Fig. 10. Fault detection system to detect its type and location

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Transactions on Energy Conversion

The fault detection process is implemented by the
necessary preconditions (in terms of voltage, current and
power) determined for the individual set of faults in binary bit
pattern. Based on the reduction or increase in the output
voltages it can locate the faults in the subsequent inverters. For
an example, for detecting the inverter fault, the output voltage
will be depecited as 1110111 which mean that the H bridge 4
is under fault. Similar criteria hold for other fault conditions.
Fig.11 and Fig.12 depicts the output voltage waveforms
obtained during short circuit and open circuit fault conditions.
The open circuit and short circuit conditions are
experimentally made by rearranging the connections made for
the individual inverter stages. The waveforms obtained are
asymmetrical with the Vbattery drop of 48V at either positive or
negative half cycles respectively. Fig.13 shows output voltage
waveform obtained during the fault operation of individual
inverter stage.
The waveform in Fig.13 is realized by considering the
faults such as: a) battery fault (deep discharge, electrolyte
failure, discontinuation of series connection, combination of
normal and abnormal battery in a series node) and b) solar PV
fault (discontinuation of PV module, complete shading in one
or more modules, cable failure from solar PV to battery, solar
cell damage and abnormal series connection).
In both the cases (a) and (b), the CMI provides the reduced
output voltage until or otherwise the fault is cleared by any
external intervention. Similar faults are also experimentally
tested for the different cases of solar PV and battery which
reduces the CMI output levels to even of three level with 48V.
It is noted that the fault in the system provides the reduced
output voltage or even 0V if and only if the fault is considered
in all the sources which may not be practically feasible.
The power quality analyzer WT3000 is also used to
visualize the output voltages given above as it can monitor the
waveforms for short interval of times under fault conditions.
The output voltage obtained by the intervention of ANN is
given in Fig.14 which shows the fifteen levels during normal
condition on inducing the various faults to the system.
The analysis and discussions on the results was made on
comparison with the other fault detection methods given in the
literature. The comparison given in Table I shows the
advantages of proposed system such as increased levels for
power quality improvement, simple structure, fast detection
for diagnostic process and considering the fault for the entire
solar PV conversion process.
Based on the Table I it is found that majority of the works
reported are for switch faults on considering either open
circuit and/or short circuit faults. This is due to the estimation
that about 38% of all the failures are found in the power
converter [20,21] and the most of faults are occurred in the
power switches [22,23].
Hence the proposed work extended to find a solution of
faults which occur in the entire system using an intelligent
controller. The most important parameters in a fault-tolerant
system design such as component quality, level of
redundancy, redundancy type and implementation,
maintenance, etc. are analyzed and studied which is well
depicted in the results obtained.

Fig. 11. Output voltage waveform during short circuit fault

Fig. 14. Output voltage waveform waveform with the intervention of ANN
Fig. 12. Output voltage waveform during open circuit fault (normal)
TABLE I
COMPARISON AND ANALYSIS
Ref. Method adopted Levels Faults considered
[5] ANN (5-9-8 structure) - Switch faults
[9] Bidirectional switches 5 Switch faults
[10] T type inverter 3 Open switch fault only
[12] ANN (40-2-1 structure) 5 Open and short circuit
[13] ANN (4-4-3 structure) 5 Switch faults
[15] Level shifted PWM 7 Switch faults
[16] Carrier modulation 5 Switch faults
[24] Vector machine approach 5 Open switch fault only
[25] ANN 5 Switch fault only
Fig.13. Output voltage waveform during fault in one inverter stage Proposed work 15 & 17 20 different faults

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This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/TEC.2017.2786299, IEEE
Transactions on Energy Conversion
V. CONCLUSION
The paper presented the fault tolerant system which
performed the three tasks such as detection (to classify normal
or abnormal), identification (to identify the faults as listed in
Appendices) and remedial action (with the aid of intelligent
controller). A detailed study has been undertaken to analyze
the faults which occurs in the entire solar PV energy
conversion process which was never dealt in any literature. It
has been found that the improved features of fault tolerant
system will certainly provide the potential for better reliability,
availability and permits the use of circuit elements with a wide
range of quality.
VI. REFERENCES
[1] Carlo Cecati, Fabrizio Ciancetta and Pierluigi Siano, “A multilevel
inverter for photovoltaic systems with fuzzy logic control”, IEEE
Transactions on Industrial Electronics, Vol. 57, No. 12, pp.4115-4125,
Dec. 2010.
[2] Albert Alexander and Manigandan Thathan, “Modelling and analysis of
modular multilevel converter for solar photovoltaic applications to
improve power quality”, IET Renewable Power Generation, Vol. 9,
Issue. 1, pp. 78–88, Jan. 2015.
[3] Albert Alexander and Manigandan Thathan, “Power quality
improvement in solar photovoltaic system to reduce harmonic
distortions using intelligent techniques”, Journal of Renewable and
Sustainable Energy, Vol.6, Issue. 4, pp. 043127 (1)-(19), June 2014.
[4] J. Rodríguez, S. Bernet, B. Wu, J. O. Pontt, and S. Kouro, “Multilevel
voltage-source-converter topologies for industrial medium-voltage
drives”, IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics, Vol. 54, No. 6,
pp. 2930–2945, Dec. 2007.
[5] Yuchuan Wu, Qinli Lan and Yaqin Sun, “Application of BP neural
network fault diagnosis in solar photovoltaic system”, IEEE
International Conference on Mechatronics and Automation, Changchun,
China, 2009, pp.2581-2585.
[6] Mohammed Khorshed Alam, Faisal Khan, Jay Johnson, and Jack
Flicker, “Comprehensive review of catastrophic faults in PV arrays:
Types, detection, and mitigation techniques”, IEEE Journal of
Photovoltaics, Vol. 5, No. 3, pp.982-997, May 2015.
[7] Ye Zhao, Jean-François de Palma, Jerry Mosesian, Robert Lyons, Jr.,
and Brad Lehman, “Line–Line Fault Analysis and Protection Challenges
in Solar Photovoltaic Arrays”, IEEE Transactions on Industrial
Electronics, Vol. 60, No. 9, pp.3784-3795, Sep. 2013.
[8] Mariusz Malinowski, K. Gopakumar, Jose Rodriguez and Marcelo A.
Pérez, “A survey on cascaded multilevel inverters”, IEEE Transactions
on Industrial Electronics, Vol. 57, No. 7, pp.2197-2206, July 2010.
[9] Madhukar Rao. A, and K. Sivakumar, “A fault-tolerant single phase five
level inverter for grid independent PV systems”, IEEE Transactions on
Industrial Electronics, Vol. 62, No. 12, pp.7569-7577, Dec. 2015.
[10] V. Fernão Pires, D. Foito and Tito G. Amaral, “Fault detection and
diagnosis in a PV grid connected T-type three level inverter”, 4th
International Conference on Renewable Energy Research and
Applications, Palermo, Italy, 2015, pp.933-937.
[11] Hamed Nademi, Anandarup Das, Rolando Burgos, and Lars E. Norum,
“A new circuit performance of modular multilevel inverter suitable for
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Selected Topics in Power Electronics, Vol. 04, No. 2, pp.393-404, June
2016.
[12] Surin Khomfoi, and Leon M. Tolbert, “Fault diagnostic system for a
multilevel inverter using a neural network”, IEEE Transactions on
Power Electronics, Vol. 22, No. 3, pp.1062-1069, May 2007.
[13] Surin Khomfoi, and Leon M. Tolbert, “Fault diagnosis and
reconfiguration for multilevel inverter drive using AI based techniques”,
IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics, Vol. 54, No. 6, pp.2954-
2968, Dec.2007.
[14] Sunil Rao et.al., “An 18 kW solar array research facility for fault
detection experiments”, Proceedings of the 18th Mediterranean Electro
Technical Conference, Limassol, Cyprus, 2016.
[15] Seok-Min Kim, June-Seok Lee and Kyo-Beum Lee, “A modified level-
shifted PWM strategy for fault tolerant cascaded multilevel inverters
with improved power distribution”, IEEE Transactions on Industrial
Electronics, Vol.63, No.11, pp.7264-7274, Mar. 2016.
0885-8969 (c) 2017 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission. See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
[16] Mingyao Ma, Lei Hu, Alian Chen, and Xiangning He, “Reconfiguration
of carrier-based modulation strategy for fault tolerant multilevel
inverters”, IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics, Vol. 22, No. 5,
pp.2050-2060, Sep.2007.
[17] Muhammet Biberoglu, Kayhan Ince and Filiz Karaosmanoglu, “Design
of fault-tolerant cascaded h-bridge multilevel inverter with output-side
transformers using bidirectional switches”, 4th International Conference
on Renewable Energy Research and Applications, Palermo, Italy, 2015,
pp.98-103.
[18] Behrooz Mirafzal, “Survey of fault-tolerance techniques for three-phase
voltage source inverters”, IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics,
Vol. 61, No. 10, pp.5192- 5202, Oct. 2014.
[19] Albert Alexander, “Development of solar photovoltaic inverter with
reduced harmonic distortions suitable for indian subcontinent”, Journal
of Renewable and sustainable Energy Reviews, Vol.56, pp.694-704,
Apr. 2016.
[20] Nasrudin A. Rahim, Krismadinata Chaniago and Jeyraj Selvaraj, “Single
phase seven level grid connected inverter for photovoltaic system”,
IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics, Vol. 58, No. 6, pp. 2435-
2443, June 2011.
[21] Ye Zhao “Fault analysis fo solar photovoltaic arrays”, M.S. Thesis,
Dept. Electrical Eng., Northeastern University, Boston, USA, 2010.
[22] O. V. Thorsen and M. Dalva, “A survey of the reliability with an
analysis of faults on the variable frequency drives in industry”, Proc.
Conf. Rec. 6th Eur. Power Electron. Appl. Conf., Spain, 1995, pp. 1033–
1038.
[23] H. Schwab, A. Klonne, S. Reck, and I. Ramesohl, “Reliability
evaluation of a permanent magnet synchronous motor drive for an
automotive application,” Proc. Conf. Rec. 10th Eur. Power Electron.
Appl. Conf., Toulouse, France, 2003.
[24] Pablo Lezana, Josep Pou, Thierry A. Meynard, Jose Rodriguez, Salvador
Ceballos, and Frédéric Richardeau, “Survey on fault operation on
multilevel inverters”, IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics,
Vol. 57, No. 7, pp.2207-2218, July 2010.
[25] Albert Alexander.S, Manigandan.T & Saranya.E, “Fault Detection and
Diagnosition of Cascaded multilevel inverter using ANN”, Proceedings
of Second International Conference on Science and Technology, VIT
University, 21-22 April 2011
VII. BIOGRAPHIES
Albert Alexander Stonier received the B.E. degree in Electrical and
Electronics Engineering from Bharathiar University,
India, the M.E. degree in Power Electronics and
Drives and Ph.D in Renewable energy from Anna
University, India in 2004, 2007 and 2014,
respectively. He joined the Department of Electrical
and Electronics Engineering, Kongu Engineering
College in 2007, and is currently a Associate
Professor. He served as the Principal Investigator for
research projects sponsored by the Government of
India related to power quality, converter
configuration, controller design and renewable
energy. He also received Raman research fellowship from Government of
India to pursue his post-doctoral studies in Northeastern University, USA.
He has received 15 awards for the excellence in research from various
national and international organizations such as ISTE, IE (I), SPRERI, IET
etc., and his special fields of interest include performance improvement in
solar PV systems, microgrid and smart grid.
Brad Lehman (M’92–SM’08) is presently a Professor in the Department of
Electrical and Computer Engineering at
Northeastern University, Boston, MA. He performs
research in solar energy, fault detection, and high
density power converters with applications in solar
energy, LED lighting, battery chargers, and
telecommunication power supplies. Dr. Lehman
previously chaired the IEEE LED lighting standards
group (PAR1789). He is Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE
Transactions on Power Electronics and was recently
highlighted in the inaugural edition of the book The
300 Best Professors, Princeton Review, 2012. He is
the recipient of the 2015 IEEE Power Electronic Society Modeling and
Control Technical Achievement Award. Prior to his career as a professor,
Professor Lehman served as the head coach of the nationally ranked Georgia
Institute of Technology varsity swimming and diving team.
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Transactions on Energy Conversion

APPENDIX 1
Table A1 provides the list of various solar PV faults along with its causes, effects and mitigation methods. Table A2 shows
the various inverter faults with its causes and consequences.

TABLE A1. SOLAR PV FAULTS AND ITS MITIGATION METHODS ( SPECIFIES THE FAULTS CONSIDERED IN THE WORK)

S.No. Fault type Causes Effects Mitigation methods

1 Ground fault
2 Line to line fault
3 Arc fault
4 Open circuit fault
5 Floating PV systems
6 Double ground fault
7 Blind spot
8 Under voltage
9 Hot spot heating
Unexpected or accidental connection Establishes low impedance and Ground fault detection and
between the current carrying conductors to significant current flows to the interruption fuse, residual current
the earth/ground. Also caused by the ground circuit. It results in the monitoring device, insulation
insulation damage in the cables and permanent reduction of output resistance measurement.
misfortunate short circuit in the PV voltage. Fire hazard, if not detected.
combiner box.
Short-circuit between current carrying Establishes low impedance between Usage of blocking diodes and over
conductors with different voltage two points in a solar PV array and current protection devices.
variations. reverses the current through the
faulty strings. Results in fire hazard.
Discontinuity (series) or insulation Results in fire hazard. Arc fault circuit interrupter,
breakdown (parallel) in the current frequency spectrum analysis.
carrying conductors.
Melting of over current protection devices Solar junction failure and cracking Inspection of the affected strings.
caused due to line to line fault under full in solar cells.
illumination.
No connection between current carrying Shock hazard in the form of Resistive grounding, residual
conductors and the ground. discharge of capacitance. current monitoring device,
insulation resistance measurement.
If the conductors are not capable for Allows large amount of current to Fault detection within blind spot
carrying high current. flow through the grounding wire. range.
Undetected fault and hence the fuse does Entire array current flows through Inspection on ground fault
not trip. the grounding wire and causes detection fuse.
severe damage to the array.
Damage of solar cells or poor light. Reduced output power. Replacing the damaged solar cell.
Non uniform irradiance and mismatch of Reduced output power. Bypass diodes can be used.
solar cell characteristics.

TABLE A2. INVERTER FAULTS WITH ITS CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES

S.No. Fault type Causes Consequences

1 Overcurrent in semiconductor switch Damage in internal resistances
2 Semiconductor switch cannot be driven Under-voltage of driving signal
3 Overheating of semiconductor switch Overvoltage or overcurrent
4 Switch open circuit with healthy diode Non availability of gating pulses
5 Both switch and diode open Unavailability of gating pulses and over
reverse recovery voltage
Switch in fault mode and damage
Inspection of control circuit required
Internal rupture of connection
Unbalanced voltage and current with distorted
waveforms and reduced output power along with
increased harmonic content
High voltage spike in the module due to the
interruption of current in one direction

6 Only diode open (uncommon) Discontinuity in the connection between load
and switch or internal rupture of connectors
7 Short circuit fault Continuous gating pulse, internal fault due to
overheating and freewheeling diode failure
8 Gate drive failure Non operation of control circuit, Inappropriate
reference and carrier signals, non-uniform
modulation regions
9 Total black out Defect in inverter or defect in control devices
High voltage spike in the module due to the
interruption of current in one direction
Causes immediate damage to the system and DC
bus will get short circuited
Unbalanced voltage and current with distorted
waveforms and reduced power
Complete shut down

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Transactions on Energy Conversion

APPENDIX II
Table A3 gives the complete analysis of entire system faults and the possibility in achieving the faults to obtain dataset
required for the intelligent controller.

TABLE A3. FAULT ANALYSIS

S.No. Fault Solar PV Battery Inverter
1 Ground fault Any one of the 4 PV panel outputs in Not tested Output of the individual H bridge is
a module is connected to the ground conneected to the ground (7 cases)
(28 cases)
2 Open circuit Any one of the 4 PV modules is kept i) One of the individual cells in a i) The terminals of the semiconductor switch
open (28 cases) battery is kept open (28 cases) excluding the diode is kept open (28 cases)
ii) One of 4 individual battery is kept ii) The terminals of the semiconductor switch
open (28 cases) including the diode is kept open (28 cases)
iii) The terminals of the diode excluding the
semiconductor switch is kept open (28 cases)
3 Short circuit Any one of the 4 PV modules is i) One of the individual cells in a i)The individual terminals of the
shorted with an external current battery is shorted (28 cases) semiconductor switches are shorted
carrying conductor (28 cases) ii) One of 4 individual battery is (28 cases)
shorted (28 cases) ii) The output of the individual H bridges is
shorted with an external current carrying
conductor (7 cases)
4 Line to line fault Connected the conductor acros the Not tested Connected the conductor across the
PV modules within the individual individual H bridge to the other H bridges
stages and also to other stages (21 cases)
(56 cases)
5 Floating PV The terminal connection is removed Not tested Not tested
from the individual PV module
(28 cases)
6 Double ground The conductor of less current (2A) Not tested Not tested
beyond the rated of 7A is used
across the PV modules (28 cases)
7 Blind spot The fuse rating is replaced with 12A Not tested Not tested
with the exiting rating of 10A and
induced a external overcurrent fault
with 10.5A in the individual PV
module (28 cases)
8 Undervoltage Degraded the individual solar cell by The charging phase is bypassed once One of the individual H bridge is left open
removing it from the module the battery discharged completely (7 cases)
(28 cases) (7 cases)
9 Overvoltage Not tested Not tested Connected the two sent of battery ouput
terminals to the individual inverter stage
(7 cases)
10 Partial shading Allowed the individual PV module Not tested Not tested
with complete, medium and partial
shading (28 cases)
11 Overcurrent Not tested Not tested Input resistance of the individual
semiconductor switch is varied (28 cases)
12 Gate terminal fault Not tested Not tested i) Gate pulse loosing: Controlled the PWM
output port to reach the switch gate terminal
(28 cases)
ii) Gate drive failure: The output ports
directed towards PWM pulses is terminated
(28 cases)
13 Overheating Not tested Not tested The heat sink for the individual
semiconductor switch is removed and the
circuit is subjected to an inductive load
(28 cases)
14 Total black out Not tested Not tested The complete inverter power circuit is turned
OFF (7 cases)
15 Overcharging Not tested The battery is allowed to charged Not tested
than its limit (SoC calculated)
16 Overdischarding Not tested The battery is allowed to discharge Not tested
than its limit (DoD calculated)

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Transactions on Energy Conversion

APPENDIX III

Figure A3. Discharge charateristics of 48V, 100Ah battery

Based on the characteristics it is found that when the SoC is greater than 50%, the battery attains the maximum voltage
leading to overcharging condition. Similarly the voltage reduces while the SoC is less than 50%.

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