Application of Kalman filter to estimate junction temperature in IGBT power modules

Knowledge of instantaneous junction temperature is essential for effective health management of power converters, enabling safe operation of the power semiconductors under all operating conditions. Methods based on fixed thermal models are typically unable to compensate for degradation of the therma...

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Main Authors: Eleffendi, Mohd. Amir, Johnson, Christopher Mark
Format: Article
Published: IEEE 2015
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Online Access:https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/33376/
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author Eleffendi, Mohd. Amir
Johnson, Christopher Mark
author_facet Eleffendi, Mohd. Amir
Johnson, Christopher Mark
author_sort Eleffendi, Mohd. Amir
building Nottingham Research Data Repository
collection Online Access
description Knowledge of instantaneous junction temperature is essential for effective health management of power converters, enabling safe operation of the power semiconductors under all operating conditions. Methods based on fixed thermal models are typically unable to compensate for degradation of the thermal path resulting from aging and the effect of variable cooling conditions. Thermosensitive electrical parameters (TSEPs), on the other hand, can give an estimate of junction temperature TJ, but measurement inaccuracies and the masking effect of varying operating conditions can corrupt the estimate. This paper presents a robust and noninvasive real-time estimate of junction temperature that can provide enhanced accuracy under all operating and cooling conditions when compared to model-based or TSEP-based methods alone. The proposed method uses a Kalman filter to fuse the advantages of model-based estimates and an online measurement of TSEPs. Junction temperature measurements are obtained from an online measurement of the on-state voltage, VCE(ON) , at high current and processed by a Kalman filter, which implements a predict-correct mechanism to generate an adaptive estimate of TJ. It is shown that the residual signal from the Kalman filter may be used to detect changes in thermal model parameters, thus allowing the assessment of thermal path degradation. The algorithm is implemented on a full-bridge inverter and the results verified with an IR camera
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spelling nottingham-333762020-05-04T17:03:37Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/33376/ Application of Kalman filter to estimate junction temperature in IGBT power modules Eleffendi, Mohd. Amir Johnson, Christopher Mark Knowledge of instantaneous junction temperature is essential for effective health management of power converters, enabling safe operation of the power semiconductors under all operating conditions. Methods based on fixed thermal models are typically unable to compensate for degradation of the thermal path resulting from aging and the effect of variable cooling conditions. Thermosensitive electrical parameters (TSEPs), on the other hand, can give an estimate of junction temperature TJ, but measurement inaccuracies and the masking effect of varying operating conditions can corrupt the estimate. This paper presents a robust and noninvasive real-time estimate of junction temperature that can provide enhanced accuracy under all operating and cooling conditions when compared to model-based or TSEP-based methods alone. The proposed method uses a Kalman filter to fuse the advantages of model-based estimates and an online measurement of TSEPs. Junction temperature measurements are obtained from an online measurement of the on-state voltage, VCE(ON) , at high current and processed by a Kalman filter, which implements a predict-correct mechanism to generate an adaptive estimate of TJ. It is shown that the residual signal from the Kalman filter may be used to detect changes in thermal model parameters, thus allowing the assessment of thermal path degradation. The algorithm is implemented on a full-bridge inverter and the results verified with an IR camera IEEE 2015-03-31 Article PeerReviewed Eleffendi, Mohd. Amir and Johnson, Christopher Mark (2015) Application of Kalman filter to estimate junction temperature in IGBT power modules. IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics, 31 (2). pp. 1576-1587. ISSN 0885-8993 Kalman filters; Semiconductor junctions; Temperature measurement; Thermography (temperature measurement) Electrical parameter; Health management; Junction temperatures; Real time; Solder fatigue Insulated gate bipolar transistors (IGBT) http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/articleDetails.jsp?arnumber=7073633 doi:10.1109/TPEL.2015.2418711 doi:10.1109/TPEL.2015.2418711
spellingShingle Kalman filters; Semiconductor junctions; Temperature measurement; Thermography (temperature measurement) Electrical parameter; Health management; Junction temperatures; Real time; Solder fatigue Insulated gate bipolar transistors (IGBT)
Eleffendi, Mohd. Amir
Johnson, Christopher Mark
Application of Kalman filter to estimate junction temperature in IGBT power modules
title Application of Kalman filter to estimate junction temperature in IGBT power modules
title_full Application of Kalman filter to estimate junction temperature in IGBT power modules
title_fullStr Application of Kalman filter to estimate junction temperature in IGBT power modules
title_full_unstemmed Application of Kalman filter to estimate junction temperature in IGBT power modules
title_short Application of Kalman filter to estimate junction temperature in IGBT power modules
title_sort application of kalman filter to estimate junction temperature in igbt power modules
topic Kalman filters; Semiconductor junctions; Temperature measurement; Thermography (temperature measurement) Electrical parameter; Health management; Junction temperatures; Real time; Solder fatigue Insulated gate bipolar transistors (IGBT)
url https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/33376/
https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/33376/
https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/33376/