A Transition Arm Modular Multilevel Universal Pulse-Waveform Generator for Electroporation Applications

Mohamed A. Elgenedy, Ahmed Darwish, Shehab Ahmed, Barry W. Williams

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

59 Scopus citations

Abstract

High-voltage (HV) pulses are used in electroporation to subject pulsed electric field (PEF) onto a sample under treatment. Pulse-waveform shape, voltage magnitude, pulse duration, and pulse repetition rate are the basic controllable variables required for particular PEF application. In practice, a custom-made pulse generator is dedicated for each PEF application with limited flexibility in changing these variables. In this paper, a universal pulse-waveform generator (UPG) is proposed, where the controller software algorithm can manipulate a basic generated multilevel pulse waveform to emulate many different PEF pulse waveforms. The commonly used PEF HV pulse waveforms can be generated as bipolar or monopolar with controllable pulse durations, repetition times, and voltage magnitudes. The UPG has the ability to generate multilevel pulses that have controllable dv/dt, which allows reduction of the electromagnetic interference generated by the converter. The UPG topology is based on half-bridge modular multilevel converter (HB-MMC) cells forming two transition arms in conjunction with two bistate arms, together creating an H-bridge. The HB-MMC cell capacitors provide a controllable energy source which charge from the dc input supply and discharge across the load, while the two bistate arms allow charging the HB-MMC cell capacitors. Hence, the UPG topology offers modularity, redundancy, and scalability. The HB-MMC individual cell capacitance is low and the cell voltages are balanced by employing the sorting and rotating algorithm used in conventional HB-MMC topologies for HV dc transmission applications. The viability of the proposed UPG converter is validated by MATLAB/Simulink simulation and scaled-down experimentation.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article number7817824
Pages (from-to)8979-8991
Number of pages13
JournalIEEE Transactions on Power Electronics
Volume32
Issue number12
DOIs
StatePublished - Dec 2017
Externally publishedYes

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2017 IEEE.

Keywords

  • Electroporation
  • high voltage (HV)
  • modular multilevel converters (MMCs)
  • pulse-waveform generator
  • pulsed electric field (PEF)
  • series-connected insulated-gate bipolar transistors (IGBTs)
  • transition arm

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Electrical and Electronic Engineering

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