Innovative Approach of Designing Multilevel Inverter with Reduced Number of Switches

Abstract: For smooth running of the electronic appliances we need high quality AC power. The quality of the AC output power increases as the level of the inverter increases. But with the increase of the level, the number of switches and other associated components also increases in a huge amount. Thus the losses associated with the inverter are also increases. Due to different kind of losses associated with inverters, the efficiency is affected tremendously. Therefore, for improved and efficient multilevel inverter design, the number of switches has to be reduced as much as possible. In this paper, an innovative approach of designing multilevel inverter is proposed, which can increase the generation of two-levels of output voltage by increasing only one switch. This paper explains nine-level single-phase multilevel inverter with this innovative approach, using only eight switches.

Keywords: Multilevel Inverter, Level generator section, Polarity changer section, H-Bridge, IGBTs with anti-parallel diode, IGBTs without anti-parallel diode, MATLAB SIMULINK software.