In the current scenario, power electronic device-based induction heating (IH) technologies are widely employed in domestic cooking, industrial melting and medical applications. These IH applications are designed using different converter topologies, modulation and control techniques. This review article mainly focuses on the modelling of half-bridge series resonant inverter, electrical and thermal model of IH load. This review also analyses the performance of the converter topologies based on the power conversion stages, switching frequency, power rating, power density, control range, modulation techniques, load handling capacity and efficiency. Moreover, this paper provides insight into the future of IH application, with respect to the adaptation of wide band-gap power semiconductor materials, multi-output topologies, variable-frequency control schemes with minimum losses and filters designed to improve source-side power factor. With the identified research gap in the literature, an attempt has also been made to develop a new hybrid modulation technique, to achieve a wide range of power control with high efficiency. A 100 W full-bridge inverter prototype is realised both in simulation and hardware, with various modulation schemes using a PIC16F877A microcontroller. The results are compared with existing techniques and the comparisons reveal that the proposed scheme is highly viable and effective for the rendered applications.

Sensorless-based direct vector control techniques are widely used for three-phase induction motor drive, whereas in case of multiple-motor control, it becomes intensively complicated and very few research articles in support to industrial applications were found. A straight-forward direct vector control with sensorless operation for parallel connected two similar-rated induction motors driven by single three-phase inverter is proposed and verified numerically by simulation software test under balanced and unbalanced conditions. The proposed control algorithm adapts the natural observer to estimate the rotor speed, rotor flux, and load torque of both motors. Simulation results along with theoretical background provided in this paper confirm the feasibility of operation of the ac motors and proves reliability for industrial applications.

Induction heating applications aided by power electronic control have become very attractive in the recent past. For cooking applications, power electronics circuits need to feed power to multi loads with a suitable control technique. The induction heating system requires a superlative converter topology and independent control to deliver power to multi loads. The main idea of this research work is to develop a dual‐frequency half‐bridge series resonant high‐frequency inverter feeding power for multi loads independently. A pulse density modulation (PDM) control technique is used to control the output power independently. The inverter simultaneously powers both loads with constant switching frequency. The proposed system is simulated in MATLAB/Simulink and thermal analysis is carried out in COMSOL multi‐physics software. A 1 kW prototype experimental set up is developed to feed power to dual load with the switching frequencies of 20 and 80 kHz for load 1 and load 2, respectively. The experimental results are provided to validate the system performance for various duty cycles of the PDM signal. The simulation and experimental results are in good agreement. The efficient power control is accomplished by varying the density of the switching pulses.