Performance Evaluation of a Two-terminal Active Inductor in the DC-link Filter of a Three-phase Diode Bridge Rectifier

A two-terminal active inductor implemented by power switches and energy storage elements is proposed recently to breakthrough the limitation of the commonly used passive inductor. It has the same level of convenience in use as passive inductors and could have the same impedance characteristic in the frequency of interest. As a further study of the proposed concept, this paper quantitatively evaluates the performance of the two-terminal active inductor in terms of power loss, inductive energy storage, volume, and weight. Comparative study between an active inductor and a passive inductor with the same rated current and equivalent inductance used for a three-phase diode bridge rectifier is presented. Experimental results are provided to verify the accuracy of the theoretical predictions.