Proceeaings of /E TENCON02

Realization of A Five-Level NPC Inverter

Using Carrier Phase-shift Technique
IFH. h i * , B.Zhoe*, C,K Lee'~ndH&[v Chvng'
Depor.tinei7f of Coniputer Engineering nnd Informatioil Technolop*
Deparmieiit of Electronic Engineering'
City [hiver.viiy of Hong k-ong
lbr Chee h e . . Koivloon, Hong Kong ' China

Abstract Tlus paper presenls a tbeorelical study and

~ using simple phase-sist technique to dilate the oulpul
experiinental resulls or using phase-slur1 lecluuque lo
dilate . the outpul spectmni of a five-level
neutnl-point-clainped (NPC) pulse width modulated
(PWM) H-bridgc invcrtcr. It is shown that the output
spectrum can be lnade to consist of the multiple of the
fourth order cross-modulated hannonics with appropriate
phase-shiCt coiubiilation. The spectruin dilation offers an
advantage of reducing both the number and magnitudes of
tlie low-order signal lwnnonics without increasing the
camer frequent! which will inevitably increase the
swirclling loss. Experimental results obtained from a
prooi-of-conccpt prototypc witli a IOkHz triangnlar camcr
and 2OOHz sinusoidal inodiilating signal confrm the
superior features'of the proposed scheme.
Keywords : Pulse width mnodulaled. multi-level inverter.
Hannonic elimination
Irequency s p e c l ~ i n of a single-phase five-level
neutral-point-clamped (NPC) pulse-width-modulated
(PWM) H-bridge inverter [lo]. It is shown that by
introducing a ni2 phase difference between the hvo camer
signals for the two legs of an imzerter can cause a
quadruple dilation lo tlie outpul frequency spectrum.
Hence. more low-order harmonics are suppressed
inherently without increasing the switclung frequency. It
is interesting to point out that such spectrum dilation is
only associatcd with tlic cross-modulalcd harmonics and
does not alter the output signal frequency.
2. Spectral Characteristics of A Five-Level NF'C
H-bridge PWM lnverter

1. Introduction

Pulsc-width-modulated (PWM) H-bndgc invcrtcr is

widely used in nuny industrial applications. suchas motor
drives and active power filters. The most conunon PWM
techniques include sinusoidal P W M . over-niodulated
PWM. and seleclive-llannonic-eliinilLltionPWM [I]. The
clioicc of the inverter switching frequency is a
coiiiproinise between the switching loss and output
freqoency spectnnn If all tlie switches are coinmutated at
a frequcncy much lugher than tbc output signal frequency
both the camer and cross-inodolated harmonics can easily
be filtered since IIie?. are located at the high frequency
region of the spectnnn The output wavefonn can then be
made sinusoidal at lhe expeiise or lug11switching loss. On
the other Iwnd. lox switching frequency causes low
switching losses but results in poor output waveform since
the low-order hannonics are difficult to be filtered.
Multilevel PWM inverters, such as neutral-pint-
clamped (NPC) invcrten 121-131- have been proposed to
produce output waveforin with reduced lianiioiuc
&stortion. Various control strategies given in [2], [4], and
[5] Iiave been developed to elinunate some specific
harmonic components. However. considerable signal
harmonics anributcd to thc cross-modulatcd harmonics
still exist. Their presence results in hannonic distortion
n4uch cannot satisfy [lie performance requirement in some
dedicated applications such as the digital audio power
aiiiplifier [6]. Tlus paper shows tbe experimental results of
Figure 1: The five-level NPC H-bridge PWM inverter
Froin Fibwre 1. the schemnatics of a typical NPC
H-bridge PWM inverter connected to two voltage sources
of voltage liand a load 2, is shown In practice. the hvo
sourccs aR: soinetiincs fonncd by hvo scrics capacitors
connecting to a single voltage source [7]. Owing to the
sylmnctr). of the circuit. only the left leg operation will be
discussed.
(U) Generution of Control SignuLs
Considering the leg a of the inverter. the modulating
signal and camcr v, an: dcfined as:
v, = -Aw sinm ,,t
vr = - .4< sino ?t . .
wliere A,, and 0 ,are the modulating signal amplitude and
frequency; .4, and o, are the camer amplitude and
frequency. To ensure that the modulation index is less than
1, A , is madc large than.&

0-7803-7490-8/02/$17.0002002IEEE.
1978
 Tlie three-level PWM wavefonn generation process
will be studied in detail since it fonns the basis of the
five-level PWM waveform. Figure 2 illustrates the
generation process of the three-level PWM output.
waveform for die leg a. A hvo-level naturally sampled
PWM signal I,, is generated by coniparing 1% with v,.
Another two-level signal i~.,,is generated in a similar
manner b-! comparing -I,." with v,. Finally. a three-level (3)
class BD PWM waveforin is obtained by subtracting v.,,
froiu i.e.. iBo = i$
12~. -i ~ However.
. ~ vBD cannot be directly It is clearly shown in (3) that our proposed scheme only
used to control the leg a to obtain a three-level PWM consists of the order four cross-modulated haponics. The
output at point n. To solve this problern a logic signal VBD induction of a phase s l ~n/2
t to the carrier causes a further
is generated by canying out an XOR operation behveen I$ dilation of the cross-niodulated spectruiii.
and i'cpmlucli are represented by logic signals with value of
0 or 1. It is shown in Figure 2(e) that I,& contains the
infonuation about thepulse position and uidth of the class
BD PWM wavefonn. With the aid of a signal indicating
the polarity-of the modulating signal as shown in F i y r e
2(f). I, can be deconiposg into four control signals as
shown in Figure 2(g-11) for operating the switches of.the
leg a. With tbese. control signals. the output voltage 1'.
becomes a three-level class BD PWM waveform as shown
in Figure 2(i). Figure 3 illustrates the schematic diagram
for generating Uie control signals for the proposed NPC
H-bridge PWM inverter shown in Figure 1 .
Tlie output I,, of t i e leg a is obtained by adding a
voltage l,'to vBD and can be written as:

Figure 2: The-level PWM control and output signals

(1)

r?'';
where .llrepresents tlie niodulation index.

(b) Five-Level PWM Waveform

A five-level PWM output can be obtained by takingthe ...................................................................

differential output behveen the hvo legs of the NPC + s,,
inverter. In this paper. it is proposed to apply an inverted Sam<
cadigumtion
.
-
.
s,,
- s,,
modulating signal together with a phase-shified camer, as abvvc -
nl2 relative to that for leg a leg b. Our proposed sclieme ....................................................................
i s,
can dilate the output spectrum with respect to that of the
five-level iiiulti-camer scheme inverter, Figure 3: Schematic diagram for generating ,.he control
We will now examine the spectrum of the proposed signals for the NPC-PWM inverter
NPC inverter which introduces a ni2 phase shift to the
camer signal for the leg b. 1~~can be derived by replacing
U)* 1 with o,I + nI2 in ( I ) : 3. Spectral Comparisons with Multi-carrier PWM
Schemes
1'
b
( f ) = I' -I,.*
p
+I.
In order to demonstrate the advantages of using our
proposed scheme, the harmonic spectrum of the five-level
multi-cagier type PWM inverter [9] has also been
considered. Simulations by PSIM have been carried out to
_.I,._
: m
~
(-I)? r.
+m Z,,d.l
~~(-)~i,,(,,,("~t +L)+no,t) examine,the output spectra of botliPWM inverters and the
n1=2.i,6 .... j1I n=ii.f3.+S,.. 2 . results are shown in Figure 4. The.simulation conditions
(2) arew,=2n x200 rads-';a,= 271 xlO000 rads~'.,l.l= 0.884.
It is observed that the hannonics of tlie multi-camer

. 1979
 schemes appear at tlie lower frequency. around the center
frequencics of 10 kHz (i.e., oi,.) while tlie hannonics of the
proposed scheme first appcar around 40 kHz (i.e.. 4aJ. It
dcinonstratcs tlic advaiitagc of tlic proposcd sclicmc wluch
exhibits tbe lower lowarder Iiannoiucs then the
multi-camer scheme.
New Scheme
2
d h I = 10~Ogk*loOO
z = 5 0 0 (internal implenient of the instrument)
The Fundamental signal is about 1.1Vrms (x10 probe)
when :\[i = 0,884. Figure 5b shows that the
cross-modulated hannonics associated with the oddarder
carrier frequcncies are eliminated due to the introduction
of a phase shift of n to the modulating signal, i.e. the
cross-modulated spectnun is dilated %ice without
doubling the carrier frequency.
In Figure 6b. it can'be seen that the output of tlie
H-bridge iiwcrter only contains the multiple of the
fourtli-order families of thc crossmodulated harmonics.
The families of second order harmonics are eliminated by
introduced a n/2 phase sluft to tlie carrier signal for the
opposite leg.
From all of above. it is obvious that the performance
of OUT proposed five-level NPC H-bridge PWM invener
agrees with the theoretical prediction.

Figure I: Spectral Comparison between two different

five-level PWM iwerters with siinulation conditions: a,=
271 x200 rads-'. a>,.= 2n x10000 rads-' and Ad= 0.884

4. Experimental Verifications
.
1. : : .
~. . . .

r'":' '. . .
..
.
. .... . ...
. .
. ..
.
. . ..
. . - Ii
In order to verify the theoretical analysis. a low power
protovpe of the five-level NPC H-bridge PWM inverter
. ,
has been realized. In tlus prototype. all the circuitry is
inipleniented in aiulogue way using simple components.
The supplv voltage is i l 2 V d c or 24Vdc. It can deliver a
maximum output power of about 20W to a output load of
8C2mitli:\~f= I
The PWM signal I,? and 1 2 are
~ ~ obtained by comparing

tlic modulation signal and the triangular camcr Y,. using

LM339 comparator, 74LS fanul)~of TTL logic ICs is used.
The magnitude of the sinusoidal modulating signal :1 is Figure Sa: The 3-level output voltage waveform
2.5Vnns (7.1Vpp) and its frcqucncy is 200Hz. Tlic
ofa single leg
triangular carrier I:< is l0KHz and SVpp. The value of
modulation index is equal to 0.88. MOSFETs IRF640 are
uscd as tlic snitclung dcviccs in tlic circuit shown in
Figure 1. The four neutral point clamped diodes are the
MURX40. The gate signals.are applied Lo sii,,1112,1s,5-I
via
optical isolators 740L6010.
RC snubber circuits are connected in parallel with the
syitclung devices to improve the I ~ r m o N cspectrum. The
values are given bclow:

' R=.lOQ C=22OOpF

The Mevel single leg output voltage waveforms. the

5-lcvcl H-bridgc output vollagc navcfornL and thcir
spectmnis are slio\rn in Figures 5a. jb, 6a and 6b.
respectively. The lmnonics spectrum was measured by
HP vcctor sigvil analyzcr 89410A in dB form. Thc Figure Sb: The spectrum of the Neve1
conversion from &in to Vrms value is given below: single leg output (0 - 50KHz)

1980

. . ..
.. ...... ...
. ... . , ,..L..A..:A.* ,
....
I 18.6V
Figure 6a: The 5-level output voltage waveform
of the H-bridge inverter
. ~/~
,__ .
i
I
..;.
F i y r e 6b: The spectrum of the 5-level
H-bridge inverter output (0 - 50KHz)
5. Conclusion
A phase-slufi tecluuque for dilating the output
cross-modulated spectrum of a five-level NPC PWM
inverter has been developed. A proof-of-concept prototype
has been iniplcmented to demonstrate the spectral
characteristics or the proposed technique. Experimental
results agree with the theoretical prediction and only the
fourth order cross-modulated harmonics have been
obsewed. However. it should also be pointed tlut precision
phase control is v e y crucial lo achieve the expcted
cross-modulated Iunnonics elimination. The proposed
design is particularly suitable for application with stringent
hannonic distortions requirement. for example class D
audio amplifier. for wluch the phase shift control can
easily achieve tluough digital implementation.
6. Acknowledgement
The work described in this paper is fully supported
by a research grant (CityU 1192199E) from the RGC of the
HKSAR, China.
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