A Novel Three-Phase Current Source Rectifier Based on an Asymmetrical Structure to Reduce Stress on Semiconductor Devices

This paper presents a novel three-phase current source rectifier (CSR) for AC/DC step-down voltage conversion to reduce voltage and current stress. The proposed converter features an asymmetrical connection between upper and lower arms compared with conventional CSRs, but has the same number of devices. With the proposed asymmetrical structure and modified space vector pulse width modulation (SVPWM) scheme, half of transistors only need to withstand half of the line-to-line voltage rather than the full line-to-line voltage, and its DC link current can be shared by multiple switches in freewheeling periods. Therefore, it is able to bring about a significant reduction in voltage and current stress, allowing for an improvement in the converter without additional cost. The topological structure, operation principles, and comparative analysis are specifically presented. Finally, an experimental prototype is built up to verify the performance of the proposed converter.