Sinusoidal Pulse-width Modulated Three-phase Multi-level Inverter Topology

Abstract

Abstract—This article presents a sinusoidal pulse-width modulated three-phase multi-level inverter topology. In this configuration, the basic two-level, three-phase inverter is modified to synthesize higher voltage levels by the insertion of two auxiliary switches per phase leg. The multi-level inverter configuration generates output voltage levels similar to the corresponding well-known conventional diode-clamped flying capacitors and cascaded H-bridge inverters but with fewer power circuit components and more simplicity. For output voltage and frequency variations demanded by such applications as variable-speed drives, active power filters, photovoltaic power conversions, etc., the sinusoidal pulse-width modulation technique is employed in the generation of the gating signals for the proposed three-phase multi-level inverter. A balanced three-phase R-L load is applied at the inverter output terminals, and the inverter performance is compared with that of other sinusoidal pulse-width modulated conventional multi-level inverter configurations. The validity of the proposed multi-level inverter topology and the modulation scheme are verified through simulations and experiments.

Keywords:

• Inverter
• multi-level
• cascaded
• pulse-width modulation
• H-bridge
• total harmonic distortion

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Charles Ikechukwu Odeh

Charles Ikechukwu Odeh received his B.Eng., M.Eng., and Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, in 2002, 2006, and 2010, respectively. He is a senior lecturer at the Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Nigeria, Nsukka. From January through September 2011, he was an exchange scholar sponsored by the U.S. Navy at Tennessee Technological University, Cookeville, TN. Currently, he is an Alexandra Von Humboldt (AvH) fellow at E.ON Energy Research Center, RWTH University, Germany. His research interests are power electronics multi-level converter topologies and applications.