Fault-Tolerant Reconfigured Converter for Enhanced Reliability in Wind Turbine Emulation Systems

This paper presents a comprehensive approach to enhancing reliability in wind turbine emulation systems through the implementation of a fault-tolerant quadratic boost converter. The system employs a chopperfed drive with a DC motor-generator set to accurately emulate wind turbine behavior under varying wind conditions. To address reliability concerns in power electronic converters, switch and capacitor redundancy mechanisms are integrated into the conventional quadratic boost converter topology. The study provides a detailed analysis of both component-level and module-level redundancy strategies, supported by reliability assessment using Markov chain modeling. A comparative evaluation between series and parallel faulttolerant converter configurations demonstrates the superior performance of parallel architectures. Design guidelines for fuse integration are derived with appropriate rating calculations. The proposed system is validated through a 60W prototype incorporating FPGA-based control, demonstrating effective faulttolerant operation under capacitor failure conditions.