A power converter includes an inverter, a converter, an electrical-machine busbar, an electrical-machine sensor, an electrical-machine-sensor housing, a converter, a converter busbar, a converter-sensor housing. The inverter supplies a three-phase alternating current to a rotating electrical machine. The converter converts a voltage between a direct current power supply and the inverter. The electrical-machine busbar passes a current between the inverter and the rotating electrical machine. The electrical-machine sensor detects the current flowing through the electrical-machine busbar based on a magnetic field. The electrical-machine-sensor housing accommodates the electrical-machine sensor and the electrical-machine busbar together. The converter sensor detects the current flowing through the converter based on a magnetic field. The converter-sensor housing is disposed apart from the electrical-machine-sensor housing, and accommodates the converter sensor and the converter busbar together.

A vehicle includes a battery, an inverter, a permanent magnet electric machine, and a controller. The controller commands discharge of a storage element of the inverter through the permanent magnet electric machine via a current having a zero quadrature axis component and a positive direct axis component.

Provided is a power conversion device capable of observing a chip temperature with high accuracy without increasing a cost of the power conversion device mounted with a current sense element for observing a main current of a power device. A main control MOSFET 11, a current MOSFET 12, and a diode 13 connected to a source electrode 8 of the main control MOSFET 11 and a source electrode 9 of the current MOSFET 12 are mounted in a chip of a power device, a temperature measurement circuit 3 is connected to the source electrode 9 of the current MOSFET 12, and when the main control MOSFET 11 is in an off state, a forward current (I.sub.f) is caused to flow through the diode 13, and an anode potential is observed to measure the chip temperature.

A power converting device includes upper-arm and lower-arm gate drive circuits which respectively drive upper-arm and lower-arm semiconductor switching elements and which respectively include upper-arm and lower-arm time point detection circuits for detecting time points at which voltages between main terminals of the upper-arm and lower-arm semiconductor switching elements have crossed respective reference voltages, and a controller including a calculator which calculates a change time point of an inverter output voltage and a PWM command pulse generator which generates, on the basis of information about the time point calculated by the calculator, a PWM command pulse to be given to the upper-arm gate drive circuit and the lower-arm gate drive circuit.

A motor driving apparatus that drives a motor including a plurality of windings respectively corresponding to a plurality of phases, may include a first inverter including a plurality of first switching elements, and connected to a first end of each of the windings; a second inverter including a plurality of second switching elements, and connected to a second end of each of the windings; and a controller including a current controller to produce, based on a predetermined current command of the motor, a voltage command for determining a switching duty of the first switching elements and the second switching elements, wherein the current controller is configured to produce a zero-phase component voltage command among the voltage commands by applying 3.sup.rd harmonic feedforward compensation.

A method of clamping an output current of a three-phase power converter is provided. The three-phase power converter includes three switching bridge arms and provides a three-phase output voltage command, and each switching bridge arm has an upper switch and a lower switch connected in series. The method includes steps of: determining that the output current is greater than a first current threshold to activate a current clamping control procedure, comparing a carrier signal with the three-phase output voltage command to turn on the lower switches by a first zero vector when the carrier signal is rising and turn on the upper switches by a second zero vector when the carrier signal is falling, determining that the output current is greater than a second current threshold to activate an overcurrent protection procedure, wherein the second current threshold is greater than the first current threshold.

Systems, apparatuses, and methods are described for power conversion. Dampening circuitry may be operatively connected to power converter circuitry to reduce accumulated charge during different portions of an alternating current (AC) cycle. The dampening circuitry may be arranged for soft switching of the converter circuitry to reduce voltage or current spikes and noise.

A single-phase power converter is disclosed for converting a direct current power source to an alternating current power across first and second output terminals, which may be connected to a split-phase system having a first-phase load connected between one phase and a second-phase load connected between the other phase. When the loads are not balanced, the single-phase power converter provides a differential current to compensate for the imbalance.

A bridge circuit includes a first leg and a second leg arranged in parallel between the first node and the third node. A clamp circuit includes a third leg including a first bidirectional switch disposed between a fourth node that is a midpoint of the first leg and a fifth node that is a midpoint of the second leg. A first reactor is connected with the fourth node and a sixth node, and a second reactor is connected with a fifth node and a seventh node. A fourth leg includes a second bidirectional switch disposed between the second node and the fourth node or the fifth node.

A power conversion device is provided between a power supply and a load, and converts power from the power supply and supplies the converted power to the load. The power conversion device includes a plurality of switching elements composed of semiconductor elements, and a control device which generates drive signals for controlling the plurality of switching elements. Voltages are respectively applied to the plurality of semiconductor elements, on the basis of the drive signals generated by the control device. The plurality of semiconductor elements have equivalent failure probabilities due to neutron beams. Thus, a failure of the power conversion device due to neutron beams is prevented, and size increase thereof is suppressed.