A patent titled "Fault-tolerant topology for multilevel T-type converters", U.S. Patent No. 10,658,920, was granted by USPTO on May 19, 2020. This patent, authored by Prof. JiangBiao He and Prof. Nabeel Demerdash, invented a new power converter concept that provides soft switching and high efficiency during normal operation while enables desired fault-tolerant capability under switching fault condition. Unlike the conventional power converters where high efficiency and high reliability are typically conflicting factors due to the redundancy of power electronics, this proposed concept can be very attractive for many safety-critical applications where both reliability and power efficiency are critical, such as propulsion drives in electric vehicles and electric aircraft, solar inverters, and the like. More details of this patent can be found on the USPTO Website.
