The Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) is seeking commercial partners interested in developing a half controlled rectifier that can deliver performance similar to that of a fully-rated three-phase pulse-width-modulated (PWM) rectifier while allowing the ratings of the switches and diodes to be reduced to half the rated power.
1) Has a unity power factor interface putting it in compliance with the IEEE 519 standard 2) Uses less expensive semiconductor devices than those found in conventional rectifiers 3) Directly suited to high-power HVAC applications 4) Could reduce the cost of rectifying alternative AC power sources such as wind farms fuel cells and solar cell complexes 5) Exhibits higher efficiency because switching losses in the semiconductor devices are nearly 16 percent lower than with a regular six-switch configuration 6) Rugged and shoot-through safe 7) Eliminates need for dead-time compensation 8) Uses simpler gate drive circuits than do fully controlled rectifiers 9) Eliminates problems seen in other half-controlled rectifiers such as low-order even harmonics on both the AC and DC sides