Open Circuit Fault Detection Method for H-Bridge using Transistor Logic Fault Detection Module

This paper presents a fault detection technique that can be implemented in most of the dc-ac converters for the detection of open circuit switch faults. The proposed fault detection method uses a fault detection module (FDM) based on transistor logic which can be connected across individual power electronic switches in the topology. A faulty switch in topology is identified on the basis of charge across the capacitor present in this FDM. A switch is healthy if the voltage across this capacitor is nearly zero and not healthy if the capacitor is fully charged. There is no need for additional fault detecting algorithms for this fault detection method. This fault detection technique is simulated on an H-bridge inverter. The effectiveness of the FDM is validated by hardware implementation on an H-bridge inverter.