Application of Kalman Filter to Estimate Junction Temperature in IGBT Power Modules

Eleffendi, Mohd. Amir; Johnson, Christopher Mark

Abstract

Knowledge of instantaneous junction temperature is essential for effective health management of power converters, enabling safe operation of the power semiconductors under all operating conditions. Methods based on fixed thermal models are typically unable to compensate for degradation of the thermal path resulting from aging and the effect of variable cooling conditions. Thermosensitive electrical parameters (TSEPs), on the other hand, can give an estimate of junction temperature TJ, but measurement inaccuracies and the masking effect of varying operating conditions can corrupt the estimate. This paper presents a robust and noninvasive real-time estimate of junction temperature that can provide enhanced accuracy under all operating and cooling conditions when compared to model-based or TSEP-based methods alone. The proposed method uses a Kalman filter to fuse the advantages of model-based estimates and an online measurement of TSEPs. Junction temperature measurements are obtained from an online measurement of the on-state voltage, VCE(ON) , at high current and processed by a Kalman filter, which implements a predict-correct mechanism to generate an adaptive estimate of TJ. It is shown that the residual signal from the Kalman filter may be used to detect changes in thermal model parameters, thus allowing the assessment of thermal path degradation. The algorithm is implemented on a full-bridge inverter and the results verified with an IR camera

Citation

Eleffendi, M. A., & Johnson, C. M. (2016). Application of Kalman Filter to Estimate Junction Temperature in IGBT Power Modules. IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics, 31(2), 1576-1587. https://doi.org/10.1109/TPEL.2015.2418711

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Mar 14, 2015
• Online Publication Date: Mar 31, 2015
• Publication Date: 2016-02
• Deposit Date: May 18, 2016
• Publicly Available Date: May 18, 2016
• Journal: IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics
• Print ISSN: 0885-8993
• Electronic ISSN: 1941-0107
• Publisher: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 31
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 1576-1587
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1109/TPEL.2015.2418711
• Keywords: Kalman filters; Semiconductor junctions; Temperature measurement; Thermography (temperature measurement); Electrical parameter; Health management; Junction temperatures; Real time; Solder fatigue; Insulated gate bipolar transistors (IGBT)
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/746289
• Publisher URL: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/articleDetails.jsp?arnumber=7073633
• Additional Information: 2015 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other users, including reprinting/ republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted components of this work in other works
• Contract Date: May 18, 2016