AC-to-AC converter

Alternatively, an anti-parallel thyristor bridge must be provided in the rectifier section to feed energy back into the AC line.

Furthermore, a constant, AC line independent input quantity exists for the PWM inverter stage, which results in high utilization of the converter’s power capability.

Very large cycloconverters (on the order of 10 MW) are manufactured for compressor and wind-tunnel drives, or for variable-speed applications such as cement kilns.

Matrix converters are often seen as a future concept for variable speed drives technology, but despite intensive research over the decades they have until now only achieved low industrial penetration.

However, citing recent availability of low-cost, high performance semiconductors, one larger drive manufacturer has over past few years been actively promoting matrix converters.

Fig 1: Classification of three-phase AC-AC converter circuits. [ 1 ]
Fig 2: Topology of (regenerative) voltage-source inverter AC/DC-AC converter [ 3 ]
Fig 3: Topology of current-source inverter AC/DC-AC converter [ 4 ] [ 5 ]
Fig 4: Topology of the Conventional Direct Matrix Converter [ 6 ] [ 7 ]
Fig 5: Topology of the indirect matrix converter [ 8 ] [ 9 ] [ 10 ]