Comparative Study on Power Converter Topologies for Multilevel Converter-Based Sonar Power Amplifiers

Active Sonar Transmitter System uses Power Amplifiers (PA) to drive electroacoustic transducer elements with the amplified sonar control signals. The underwater electro acoustic projector is a complex load and is resistive at resonant frequencies and reactive on either side of the resonant frequencies. Multiple stages of power conversion is required to optimize the Sonar Power Amplifier and the Transducer interface. Multilevel Converter Topologies are gaining popularity in the high power SPA design as it requires high voltage and current drive output which helps in long range detection. In this paper, a comparative study on few suitable topologies for high power SPA is presented. Analysis on each topology based on the system requirement parameter and advantages and disadvantages of each topology is explained. Output Power, Efficiency, THD, and Dynamic range of operation are major parameters considered here for the comparison. Simulation study of each topology is done using the Simulink/Matlab and salient results are presented.