Modified Multilevel Inverter Topology with Minimum Number of Switches

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IJSTE - International Journal of Science Technology & Engineering | Volume 3 | Issue 09 | March 2017 ISSN (online): 2349-784X

Modified Multilevel Inverter Topology with Minimum Number of Switches Addagatla Nagaraju Lecturer Department of Electrical Engineering Government Polytechnic, Station Ghanpur, Warangal, Telangana, India

Akkela Krishnaveni Lecturer Department of Electrical Engineering Dr. B.R. Ambedkar Government Polytechnic, for Women, Karimnagar, Telangana, India

Abstract Multilevel voltage source inverter is recognized as an important alternative to the normal two level voltage source inverter especially in high voltage application. Using multilevel technique, the amplitude of the voltage is increased, stress in the switching devices is reduced and the overall harmonics profile is improved. Among the familiar topologies, the most popular one is cascaded multilevel inverter. It exhibits several attractive features such as simple circuit layout, less components counts, modular in structure and avoid unbalance capacitor voltage problem. However as the number of output level increases, the circuit becomes bulky due to the increase in the number of power devices, the general purpose of the multilevel inverter is to synthesize a nearly sinusoidal voltage from several levels of dc voltages, typically obtained from capacitor voltage sources. As the number of level increases, the synthesized output waveform has more steps, which produce a staircase wave that approaches a desired waveform. Also as more steps added to the waveform, the harmonic distortion of the output waveform decreases, approaching zero as the level increases. As the number of level increases, the voltage that can be summing multiple voltage levels also increases. These new types of converters are suitable for high voltage and high power application due to their ability to synthesize waveforms with better harmonic spectrum. Numerous topologies have been introduced and widely studied for utility and drive applications. Amongst these topologies, the multilevel cascaded inverter was introduced in Static VAR compensation and drive systems. This project presents a new technique for getting a multilevel output and also uses PWM control techniques. In this technique, the number of switches used for the dc to ac conversion is reduced. So this dc to ac conversion significantly reduces the initial cost. This technique exhibits some attractive features which suits industrial applications. MATLAB/Simulink environment is used to simulate the results. The simulation of the seven-level multilevel inverter is successfully done using pulse width modulation technique. From the simulation, it is noted that the new multilevel inverter topology works well and shows hope to reduce the initial cost and complexity. When we increase the levels, the number of switches used is very less compared to the other topology. Keywords: Voltage source inverter, pulse width modulation (PWM) ________________________________________________________________________________________________________ I.

INTRODUCTION

Power electronic inverters are becoming popular for various industrial drives applications. In recent years, inverters have even become a necessity for many implementations such as motor controlling and power systems [1],[2]. The concept of utilizing multiple small voltage levels to perform power conversion was patented by an MIT researcher over twenty years ago [3]. The multi-level inverter system is very promising in AC drives, when both reduced harmonic contents and high power are required [4],[5]. Multilevel inverters have been mainly used in medium or high power system applications, such as static reactive power compensation and adjustable-speed drives [6], [7]. A multilevel inverter not only achieves high power ratings, but also enables the use of renewable energy sources. Renewable energy sources such as photovoltaic, wind, and fuel cells can be easily interfaced to a multilevel inverter system for a high power application [8]. The concept of multilevel inverters was first introduced in 1975. The term multilevel began with the three-level inverter. Subsequently, several multilevel inverter topologies have been developed [3], [9]. Up to now, several topologies of multi-level inverter system have been introduced. The main topologies used to generate a high voltage waveform using low voltage devices are the series H-bridge design, diode clamped inverter system and flying capacitor inverter system. Each of these topologies has a different mechanism for providing the voltage level. Comparing with the other components, for instance, DC link capacitors having the same capacity per unit, diode clamped inverter has the least number of capacitors among the multi-level inverter system topologies but it requires additional clamping diodes[4].The flying-capacitor topology followed diode-clamped after few years. Instead of series connected capacitors, this topology uses floating capacitors to clamp the voltage levels.[10] H-bridge inverters have isolation transformers to isolate the voltage source but they do not need either clamping diode or flying capacitor inverters. Also, some soft-switching methods can be implemented for different multilevel inverters to reduce the switching losses and to increase efficiency. Recently, several multilevel inverter topologies have been developed [11], [12],[13], [14].

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