Tree-shaped networked control system for modular power converters with sub-μs latency and ns-scale synchronization accuracy

The article introduces a new distributed control system for modular power converters, suitable to meet the needs of wide band gap devices and modern fast switching applications. The article addresses first the selection of the control network topology and demonstrates the superiority of the so-called 2-tree topology. Following this choice, the implementation of a fully customized protocol is presented, using Xilinx Aurora as the base for FPGA-to-FPGA communication. The provided experimental results show a synchronization performance of ± 1.5 ns, as well as a total data transfer delay of 627 ns for the update of 8 distributed modulators contained within a phase-leg of an MMC prototype.