International Journal of IT, Engineering and Applied Sciences Research (IJIEASR) ISSN: 2319-4413

Volume 1, No. 3, December 2012

i-Xplore International Research Journal Consortium www.irjcjournals.org
25
Comparison of multilevel inverters with PWM Control Method

Vijay Kumar M.G, Dept. of Electronics & Communication Engineering, Basavakalyan Engineering College,
Basavakalyan, Bidar. Karnataka
Manjunath D, Dept. of Electronics & Communication Engineering, Basavakalyan Engineering College,
Basavakalyan, Bidar. Karnataka
Anil W. Patil, Dept. of Electronics & Communication Engineering, Basavakalyan Engineering College,
Basavakalyan, Bidar. Karnataka


ABSTRACT
This paper presents the most important multilevel
inverter topologies like diode-clamped inverter
(neutral-point clamped), capacitor-clamped (flying
capacitor), and cascaded multicell( H-Bridge ) with
separate dc sources. A Comparison of 5-level hybrid
cascaded inverter with PWM method, 5 level diode
clamped inverter & 5 level capacitor coupled inverter is
also presented in this paper. This paper also presents
the most relevant control and modulation methods
developed for this family of inverters i.e. multilevel
sinusoidal pulse width modulation. A simulation model
based MATLAB/SIMULINK is developed for hybrid
cascaded multilevel inverter, diode clamped multilevel
inverter & Capacitor clamped multilevel inverter with
PWM control method. The results experimentally
validate the proposed paper.
Keywords: Induction machine, Space Vector pulse
width modulation, Pulse width modulation, Torque,
Speed, Simulink model.


INTRODUCTION
A multilevel inverter is a power electronic device built
to synthesize a desired AC voltage from several levels
of DC voltages. Such inverters have been the subject of
research in the last several years where the DC levels
were considered to be identical in that all of them were
capacitors, batteries, solar cells, etc.
In Recent Years, industry has begun to demand higher
power equipment, which now reaches the megawatt
level. Controlled ac drives in the megawatt range are
usually connected to the medium-voltage network.
Today, it is hard to connect a single power
semiconductor switch directly to medium voltage grids
(2.3, 3.3, 4.16, or 6.9 kV). For these reasons, a new
family of multilevel inverters has emerged as the
solution for working with higher voltage levels [1][3].
Multilevel inverters include an array of power
semiconductors and capacitor voltage sources, the
output of which generate voltages with stepped
waveforms. The commutation of the switches permits
the addition of the capacitor voltages, which reach high
voltage at the output, while the power semiconductors
must withstand only reduced voltages. Fig. 1 shows a
schematic diagram of one phase leg of inverters with



different numbers of levels, for which the action of the
power semiconductors is represented by an ideal switch
with several positions.


Fig. 1. One phase leg of an inverter with (a) two levels,
(b) three levels, and (c) n levels.

A two-level inverter generates an output voltage with
two values (levels) with respect to the negative terminal
of the capacitor [see Fig. 1(a)], while the three-level
inverter generates three voltages, and so on.
Considering that m is the number of steps of the phase
voltage with respect to the negative terminal of the
inverter, then the number of steps in the voltage
between two phases of the load is k
K=2m+1 (1)
and the number of steps p in the phase voltage of a
three-phase load in wye connection is
p=2k-1 (2)
The term multilevel starts with the three-level inverter
introduced by Nabae I t. [4]. By increasing the number
of levels in the inverter, the output voltages have more
steps generating a staircase waveform, which has a
reduced harmonic distortion. However, a high number
of levels increases the control complexity and
introduces voltage imbalance problems. Three different
topologies have been proposed for multilevel inverters:
diode-clamped (neutral-clamped) [4]; capacitor-
clamped (flying capacitors) [1], [5], [6]; and cascaded
multicell with separate dc sources [1], [7][9]. In
addition, several modulation and control strategies have
been developed or adopted for multilevel inverters
including the following: multilevel sinusoidal pulse
width modulation (PWM), multilevel selective
International Journal of IT, Engineering and Applied Sciences Research (IJIEASR) ISSN: 2319-4413
Volume 1, No. 3, December 2012


i-Xplore International Research Journal Consortium www.irjcjournals.org
26
harmonic elimination, and space-vector modulation
(SVM).

II. INVERTER TOPOLOGIES
A. Diode-Clamped Inverter.

Fig. 2 shows a five-level diode-clamped inverter in
which the dc bus consists of four capacitors, C
1
, C
2
, C
3
,
and C
4
. For dc-bus voltage V
dc
, the voltage across each
capacitor is V
dc
/4, and each device voltage stress will be
limited to one capacitor voltage level V
dc
/4 through
clamping diodes.
Fig. 2. Five-level Diode-clamped multilevel inverter
circuit topology.

To explain how the staircase voltage is synthesized, the
neutral point n is considered as the output phase voltage
reference point. There are five switch combinations to
synthesize five level voltages across a and n.
1) For voltage level V
an
= V
dc
/2, turn on all upper
switches S
1
S
4
.
2) For voltage level V
an
=V
dc
/4, turn on three upper
switches S
2
S
4
and one lower switch S
1
.
3) For voltage level V
an
=0, turn on two upper switches
S
3
and S
4
and two lower switches s
1
and s
2
.
4) For voltage level V
an
=-V
dc
/4, turn on one upper
switch S
4
and three lower switches s
1
s
3
.
5) For voltage level V
an
= V
dc
/2, turn on all lower
switches S
1

S
4

.
Four complementary switch pairs exist in each phase.
The complementary switch pair is defined such that
turning on one of the switches will exclude the other
from being turned on. In this example, the four
complementary pairs are (S
1
-S
1
), (S
2

-S
2

), (S
3
- S
3

),
and (S
4

-S
4

).

B. Capacitor-Clamped Inverter.

Fig. 3 illustrates the fundamental building
block of a phase-leg capacitor-clamped inverter. The
circuit has been called the flying capacitor inverter [1],
[5], [6] with independent capacitors clamping the
device voltage to one capacitor voltage level.

Fig. 3. Five-level Capacitor-clamped multilevel inverter
circuit topology.
The voltage synthesis in a five-level capacitor-clamped
converter has more flexibility than a diode-clamped
converter. Using Fig. 3(b) as the example, the voltage
of the five-level phase-leg a output with respect to the
neutral point n, V
an
, can be synthesized by the
following switch combinations.
1) For voltage level V
an
= V
dc
/2, turn on all upper
switches S
1
S
4
.
2) For voltage level V
an
= V
dc
/4, there are three
combinations:
a) S
1
,S
2
, S
3
, S
1

. (V
an
=V
dc
/2 of upper C
4
s - V
dc
/4 of
C
1
);
b) S
2
, S
3
, S
4
, S
4

. (V
an
=3V
dc
/4 of upper C
3
s - V
dc
/2 of
C
4
);
c) S
1
, S
3
, S
4
, S
3

. (V
an
=V
dc
/2 of upper C
4
s - 3V
dc
/4 of
C
3
+V
dc
/2 of C
2
);
3) For voltage level V
an
=0, there are six combinations:
a) S
1
,S
2
, S
3
, S
2

.(V
an
=V
dc
/2 of upper C
4
s -V
dc
/2 of C
2
);
b) S
3
, S
4
, S
3
, S
4

.(V
an
=V
dc
/2 of upper C
2
s -V
dc
/2 of C
4
);
c) S
1
, S
3
, S
1
, S
3

.(V
an
=V
dc
/2 of upper C
4
s - 3V
dc
/4 of
C
3
+V
dc
/2 of C
2
s -V
dc
/4 of C
1
);

d) S
1
, S
4
, S
2
, S
3

. (V
an
=V
dc
/2 of upper C
4
s - 3V
dc
/4 of
C
3
s +V
dc
/4 of C
1
);
e) S
2
, S
4
, S
2
, S
4

. (V
an
=3V
dc
/4 of C
3
s - V
dc
/2 of C
2
s
+V
dc
/4 of C
1
, - V
dc
/2 of lower C
4
s);
f) S
2
, S
3
, S
1
, S
4

. (V
an
=3V
dc
/4 of C3s - V
dc
/4 of C
1

-V
dc
/2 of lower C
4
s).
4) For voltage level -V
an
= V
dc
/4, there are three
combinations:
a) S
1
,S
1
, S
2
, S
3

(V
an
=V
dc
/2 of upper C
4
s -3V
dc
/4
of C
3
s);
b) S
4
, S
2
, S
3
, S
4

. (V
an
=V
dc
/4 of C
1
-V
dc
/2 of lower
C
4
s); and
c) S
3
, S
1
, S
3
, S
4

. (V
an
=V
dc
/2 of C
2
s -V
dc
/4 of C
1

-V
dc
/2 of lower C
4
s).
5) For voltage level V
an
=-V
dc
/2, turn on all lower
switches, S
1
S
4

.
International Journal of IT, Engineering and Applied Sciences Research (IJIEASR) ISSN: 2319-4413
Volume 1, No. 3, December 2012


i-Xplore International Research Journal Consortium www.irjcjournals.org
27
DC Power
Supply
40V
R
C/2
C/2
H-bridge 1
H-bridge 2
H-Bridge 3
Three phase
V-I measurment block
Inverter output
Voltage &H-hridge o /p voltage
Output H -Bride
inverter volage &
current
3 Phase Resistance
Three phase
V-I measurment block
powergui
Discrete,
s = 5e-006
Vabc
Iabc
A
B
C
a
b
c
A
B
C
a
b
c
A
B
C
A
B
C
1 2
1 2
1 2
Pulse
Generator 2
Pulse
Generator 1
Pulse
Generator
PWM Subsystem
Logical
Operator 2
NOT
Logical
Operator 1
NOT
Logical
Operator
NOT
g
m
C
E
g
m
C
E
g
m
C
E
g
m
C
E
g
m
C
E
g
m
C
E
Gain 1
1
Gain
1
Vabc
From
Hbridgevolteg
3 Phase Resistance
Three phase
V-I measurment block
pwm Subsystem
powergui
Discrete,
s = 1e-006
Three -phase 5-level
diode clamped inverter .
C
b
A
Vabc
Iabc
A
B
C
a
b
c
A
B
C
A
B
C
Gain 1
1
Gain
1
In the preceding description, the capacitors with
positive signs are in discharging mode, while those with
negative sign are in charging mode. By proper selection
of capacitor combinations, it is possible to balance the
capacitor charge. Similar to diode clamping, the
capacitor clamping requires a large number of bulk
capacitors to clamp the voltage.

C. Cascaded Multicell (H-bridge) Inverters.

A different converter topology is introduced here,
which is based on the series connection of single-phase
inverters with separate dc sources [7]. Fig. 4 shows the
power circuit for one phase leg of a five-level inverter
with one cell in each phase. The resulting phase voltage
is synthesized by the addition of the voltages generated
by this cell.
Figure 4: one phase leg of a five-level inverter with one
H-bridge cell.

The bottom is one leg of a standard 3-leg inverter with a
DC power source. The top is an H-bridge in series with
each standard inverter leg. The H-bridge can use a
separate DC power source or a capacitor as the dc
power source. The output voltage V
1
of this leg (with
respect to the ground) is either +V
dc
/2 (S5 closed) or -
Vdc/2 (S6 closed).
i.e V1=+Vdc/2 when S
11
, S
13
, S
15
closed (for
each leg) & V1=-Vdc/2 when S
12
, S
14
, S
16

closed (for each leg)
This leg is connected in series with a full H-bridge that
in turn is supplied by a capacitor voltage. If the
capacitor is kept charged to V
dc
/2, then the output
voltage of the H bridge can take on the values +V
dc
/2
when (S1and S4 closed), 0 when (S1and S2 closed or
S3 and S4 closed), or -Vdc/2 (S2 and S3 closed).

III. MATLAB SIMULINK SIMULATION
The modulation control schemes for the multilevel
inverter can be divided into two categories, fundamental
switching frequency and high switching frequency
PWM such as multilevel carrierbased PWM, selective
harmonic elimination and multilevel space vector
PWM. Both PWM and fundamental frequency
switching methods can be used for the hybrid multilevel
inverter.
Multilevel carrierbased PWM strategies are the most
popular methods because they are easily implemented.
Three major carrier-based techniques that are used in a
conventional inverter can be applied in a multilevel
inverter: sinusoidal PWM (SPWM), third harmonic
injection PWM (THPWM), and space vector PWM
(SVM). SPWM is a popular method in industrial
applications. It uses several triangle carrier signals, one
carrier for each level and one reference, or modulation,
signal per phase. In the proposed inverter, the top H-
bridge inverter is operated under the SPWM mode and
the bottom standard 3-leg inverter is operated under
square-wave mode in order to reduce switching loss.

In this paper, the simulation model is developed with
MATALB/SIMULINK. The MATALB/SIMULINK
model for the power circuit of hybrid cascaded
multilevel inverter, diode clamped multilevel inverter,
capacitor clamped multilevel inverter is shown in Fig.
5, fig 6 and fig 7 respectively.






Figure 5: Simulink model for cascaded H-bridge
inverter.

Figure 6: Simulink model for Diode clamped inverter.
International Journal of IT, Engineering and Applied Sciences Research (IJIEASR) ISSN: 2319-4413
Volume 1, No. 3, December 2012


i-Xplore International Research Journal Consortium www.irjcjournals.org
28
A 3
b 2
C 1
Series RLC Branch
3
Series RLC Branch
2
Series RLC Branch
1
Series RLC Branch
g m
C E
g m
C E
g m
C E
g m
C E
g m
C E g m
C E
g m
C E
g m
C E
g m
C E
g m
C E
g m
C E
g m
C E
g m
C E
g m
C E
g m
C E
g m
C E
g m
C E
g m
C E
g m
C E
g m
C E
g m
C E
g m
C E
g m
C E
g m
C E
From
9
s22 From
8
s21
From
7
s14
From
6
1 From
5
s12 From
4
s11
From
3
s14
From
23
s34
From
22
s31From
21
s33 From
20
s32
From
2
s13
From
19
s34
From
18
s33
From
17
s32 From
16
s31
From
15
s23From
14
s24 From
13
s22
From
12
s21
From
11
s24 From
10
s23
From
1
s12
From
s11
DC V

C9
C8 C7
C6
C5
C4C3
C2
C18
C17
C16C15
C14 C13
C12
C11
C10
C1
A 3
b 2
C 1
Series RLC Branch
3
Series RLC Branch
2
Series RLC Branch
1
Series RLC Branch
Mosfet
9
g m
D S
Mosfet
8
g m
D S
Mosfet
7
g m
D S
Mosfet
6
g m
D S
Mosfet
5
g m
D S
Mosfet
4
g m
D S
Mosfet
3
g m
D S
Mosfet
24
g m
D S
Mosfet
23
g m
D S
Mosfet
22
g m
D S
Mosfet
21
g m
D S
Mosfet
20
g m
D S
Mosfet
2
g m
D S
Mosfet
19
g m
D S
Mosfet
18
g m
D S
Mosfet
17
g m
D S
Mosfet
16
g m
D S
Mosfet
15
g m
D S
Mosfet
14
g m
D S
Mosfet
13
g m
D S
Mosfet
12
g m
D S
Mosfet
11
g m
D S
Mosfet
10
g m
D S
Mosfet
1
g m
D S
From
9
s22 From
8
s21
From
7
s14
From
6
s1 From
5
s12 From
4
s11
From
3
s14
From
23
s34
From
22
s31From
21
s33 From
20
s32
From
2
s13
From
19
s34
From
18
s33
From
17
s32 From
16
s31
From
15
s23From
14
s24 From
13
s22
From
12
s21
From
11
s24 From
10
s23
From
1
s12
From
s11
DC V

3 Phase Resistance
Three phase
V-I measurment block
pwmSubsystem
powergui
Discrete,
s = 1e-006
Three -phase 5-level
capacitor clamped inverter .
C
b
A
Vabc
Iabc
A
B
C
a
b
c
A
B
C
A
B
C
Gain 1
1
Gain
1
Figure 7: Simulink model for capacitor clamped
inverter.
Figure 8: internal model of five level capacitor clamped
inverter.



Figure 9: internal model of five level diode clamped
inverter.


IV. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS

A simulation of the multilevel inverter was carried out.
The DC link voltage V
dc
was set to 40 V so that the 3-
leg inverter puts out 20 V. The capacitors were
regulated to 20 V. The experimental results including
phase voltage, phase-phase voltage, and phase current
of hybrid cascaded multilevel inverter are shown in Fig.
10.













Figure 10: phase voltage, phase-phase voltage, and
phase current hybrid cascaded multilevel inverter.

The output phase voltage is five-level. The phase
current waveform is close to sinusoidal. A simulation of
the diode clamped multilevel inverter was carried out.
The DC link voltage V
dc
was set to 500 V so that the 3-
leg inverter puts out 200 V. The capacitors were
regulated to 200 V.
The experimental results including phase voltage,
phase-phase voltage, and phase current of diode
clamped inverter are shown in Fig.11.
Figure 11: phase voltage (blue), phase-phase voltage
(green), and phase current (red) of diode clamped
multilevel inverter.
A simulation of the capacitor clamped multilevel
inverter was carried out. The DC link voltage V
dc
was
set to 500 V so that the 3-leg inverter puts out 200 V.
The capacitors were regulated to 200 V.
The experimental results including phase voltage,
phase-phase voltage, and phase current of diode
clamped inverter are shown in Fig.12.
Phase voltage
Phase-

Phase current
International Journal of IT, Engineering and Applied Sciences Research (IJIEASR) ISSN: 2319-4413
Volume 1, No. 3, December 2012


i-Xplore International Research Journal Consortium www.irjcjournals.org
29
Figure 12: phase voltage (blue), phase-phase voltage
(green), and phase current (red) of capacitor clamped
inverter.
The THD of phase currents of five-level hybrid
cascaded multilevel inverter is 2.71%, The THD of
phase currents of five level diode clamped inverter is
20.55% and The THD of phase currents of five level
capacitor clamped inverter is 18.27%. From above
THDs it is clear that the five-level hybrid cascaded
multilevel inverter is better than of five level diode
clamped inverter as well as five level capacitor coupled
inverter.

V. CONCLUSION

This paper has provided a brief summary of multilevel
inverter circuit topologies and their control strategies. A
simulation model for the hybrid cascaded multilevel
inverter, diode clamped multilevel inverter and
capacitor coupled inverter are developed in SIMULINK
co-simulation platform. The hybrid cascaded multilevel
inverter output is a five level phase voltage while the
diode clamped multilevel inverter output is a five level
phase voltage with high distortion in phase current . The
paper presents the main circuit model in MATLAB and
simulation results in detail. The experiment and FFT
analysis results verified the proposed hybrid cascaded
multilevel inverter with a PWM control method.

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