PWM control for inverters in Power Electronics - Mini Project: Build & Apply

PWM Control for Inverters

📖 Scenario: You are designing a simple inverter circuit that uses Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) to control the output voltage. PWM is a technique where the width of the voltage pulses is varied to control power delivery.In this project, you will create a step-by-step understanding of how PWM signals are generated and used in inverters.

🎯 Goal: Build a basic conceptual model of PWM control for an inverter by defining the PWM parameters, setting a threshold, generating the PWM signal pattern, and completing the control setup.

📋 What You'll Learn

Define a dictionary with time points and corresponding reference voltages.

Create a threshold variable to compare voltages for PWM.

Generate a PWM signal pattern by comparing voltages to the threshold.

Complete the PWM control setup by adding the final control parameter.

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

PWM control is widely used in power electronics to efficiently manage power delivery in devices like inverters, motor drives, and LED dimmers.

💼 Career

Understanding PWM control is essential for engineers working in renewable energy, electric vehicles, and industrial automation where inverter design and control are critical.

1

DATA SETUP: Define reference voltages over time

Create a dictionary called reference_voltages with these exact entries: 0: 0.0, 1: 0.5, 2: 1.0, 3: 0.5, 4: 0.0 representing voltage levels at time points 0 to 4.

Power Electronics

# Create the reference_voltages dictionary with time keys and voltage values
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use a dictionary with integer keys for time and float values for voltages.

2

CONFIGURATION: Set the PWM threshold voltage

Create a variable called threshold and set it to 0.6 to use as the voltage level for PWM comparison.

Power Electronics

reference_voltages = {0: 0.0, 1: 0.5, 2: 1.0, 3: 0.5, 4: 0.0}
# Define the threshold voltage for PWM
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Set a single float variable named threshold to 0.6.

3

CORE LOGIC: Generate PWM signal pattern

Create a dictionary called pwm_signal that uses a for loop with variables time and voltage to iterate over reference_voltages.items(). Set each time key in pwm_signal to 1 if voltage >= threshold, else 0.

Power Electronics

reference_voltages = {0: 0.0, 1: 0.5, 2: 1.0, 3: 0.5, 4: 0.0}
threshold = 0.6
# Generate pwm_signal dictionary using a for loop
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use a for loop to compare each voltage to the threshold and assign 1 or 0 accordingly.

4

COMPLETION: Add the PWM control mode

Create a variable called control_mode and set it to the string "PWM" to complete the inverter control setup.

Power Electronics

reference_voltages = {0: 0.0, 1: 0.5, 2: 1.0, 3: 0.5, 4: 0.0}
threshold = 0.6
pwm_signal = {}
for time, voltage in reference_voltages.items():
    pwm_signal[time] = 1 if voltage >= threshold else 0
# Set the control_mode variable to "PWM"
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Assign the string "PWM" to the variable control_mode.