A CASCADE MULTILEVEL INVERTER USING A SINGLE DC SOURCE

2013-2014

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION
There are numerous industrial applications that require higher power apparatus in recent years.
Some medium voltage motor drives and utility applications require medium voltage and
megawatt power level. For a medium voltage grid, it is troublesome to connect only one power
semiconductor switch directly. As a result, a multilevel power inverter structure has been
introduced as an alternative in high power and medium voltage situations. A multilevel inverter
not only achieves high power ratings, but also enables the use of renewable energy sources.
Renewable energy sources such as photovoltaic and fuel cells can be easily interfaced to a
multilevel inverter system for a high power application.
The concept of multilevel inverters was introduced in 1975. The term multilevel began with the
three-level inverter. Subsequently, several multilevel inverter topologies have been developed.
The elementary concept of a multilevel inverter to achieve higher power is to use a series of
power semiconductor switches with several lower voltage dc sources to perform the power
conversion by synthesizing a staircase voltage waveform. A multilevel inverter generates a
multistep staircase voltage waveform approaching a pure sinusoidal output voltage by increasing
the number of levels. Capacitors, batteries, and renewable energy voltage sources can be used as
the multiple dc voltage sources.
Unfortunately, multilevel inverters do have some disadvantages. One particular disadvantage is
the greater number of power semiconductor switches needed. Although lower voltage rated
switches can be utilized in a multilevel inverter, each switch requires a gate drive circuit. This
may cause the overall system to be more expensive and complex.
Many multilevel inverter applications focus on industrial medium-voltage motor drives, utility
interface for renewable energy systems, flexible AC transmission system (FACTS), and traction
drive systems.

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A CASCADE MULTILEVEL INVERTER USING A SINGLE DC SOURCE

2013-2014

CHAPTER 2

MULTILEVEL INVERTERS
The voltage source inverters produce an output voltage or a current with levels either 0 or Vdc.
They are known as the two-level inverter. To obtain a quality output voltage or a current
waveform with a minimum amount of ripple content, they require high switching frequency
along with various pulse width modulation (PWM) strategies. In high power and high voltage
applications, these two-level inverters have some limitations in operating at high frequency
mainly due to switching losses and constraints of device ratings.
The multilevel inverters have drawn tremendous interest in the power industry. They present a
new set of features that are well suited for use in reactive power compensation. It may be easier
to produce a high power, high-voltage inverter with the multilevel structure because of the way
in which device voltage stresses are controlled in the structure. Increasing the number of voltage
levels in the inverter without requiring higher ratings on individual devices can increase the
power rating. The unique structure of multilevel voltage source inverters allows them to reach
high voltage with low harmonics without the use of transformers or series connected
synchronized switching devices. As the number of voltage levels increases, the harmonic content
of the output voltage waveform decreases significantly.

Figure.2.1. Typical output voltage waveform of a multilevel inverter

Typical output voltage waveform of a multilevel inverter is as shown in figure 2.1.Multilevel
inverters are mainly classified into three types is as follows:
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2.1 TYPES OF MULTILEVEL INVERTERS

1) Diode-Clamped Multilevel Inverter:
2) Flying Capacitor Structure
3) Cascaded multilevel inverter
2.1.1 Diode-Clamped Multilevel Inverter
The diode-clamped inverter provides multiple voltage levels through connection of the phases to
a series of capacitors. This concept can be extended to any number of levels by increasing the
number of capacitors. Early descriptions of this topology were limited to three-levels, where two
capacitors are connected across the dc bus resulting in one additional level. Due to capacitor
voltage balancing issues; the diode-clamped inverter implementation has been limited to the
three levels. Because of industrial developments over the past several years, three-level inverter
is now used extensively in industry applications.
Advantages:
1. When the number of levels is high, the harmonic content is low enough to avoid the need
for filters.
2. The control method is simple.
Disadvantages:
1. Excessive clamping diodes are required when the number of levels is high.
2.1.2 Flying Capacitor Multilevel inverter
The flying capacitor involves series connection of capacitor clamped switching cells. This
topology has several unique and attractive features when compared to the diode-clamped
inverter. One feature is that clamping diodes are not needed. Furthermore, the flying capacitor
inverter has switching redundancy within the phase, which can be used to balance the flying
capacitors so that only one dc source is needed.
Advantages:
1. Large amounts of storage capacitors can provide capabilities during power outages.
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2. These inverters provide switch combination redundancy for balancing different voltage
levels.
3. Like the diode-clamp inverter with more levels, the harmonic content is low enough to
avoid the need for filters.
Disadvantages:
1. An excessive number of storage capacitors are required when the number of levels is
high. High level inverters are more difficult to pack with the bulky power capacitors and
are expensive too.
2. The inverter control can be very complicated, and the switching frequency and switching
losses are high.
2.1.3 Cascaded multilevel inverter
A cascaded multilevel inverter consists of a series of H-Bridge inverter units. Output
voltage of this inverter is the sum of each H-bridge outputs and it is almost sinusoidal.
Advantages
1. To achieve the same number of voltage levels, this type of inverter requires the least
number of components.
2. Unlike diode-clamped and flying capacitor multilevel inverters, no extra clamping diodes
or voltage balancing capacitors are needed.
3. Smaller dc sources are usually involved, resulting in fewer safety issues.
Disadvantages
1. Separate dc sources are required, resulting in limited applicability.
2. For a three-phase system, this type of inverter will require more switches than a more
traditional inverter.

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CHAPTER 3

CASCADED MULTILEVEL INVERTERS

The cascaded multilevel inverter has a series connection of multiple H-bridge (single-phase full
bridge) inverter units. Hence it is also called as Cascaded H-bridge multilevel inverter. It
introduces the idea of using separate dc sources to produce an ac voltage waveform. The DC
source can be batteries, fuel cells, solar cells etc. Each H-bridge inverter is connected to its own
dc source. By cascading the ac outputs of each H-bridge inverter, an ac voltage waveform is
produced.

3.1. FULL-BRIDGE OR H-BRIDGE VOLTAGE SOURCE INVERTER

The smallest number of voltage levels for a multilevel inverter using cascaded inverter with
SDCSs is three. To achieve a three-level waveform, a single full-bridge inverter is employed.
Basically, a full-bridge inverter is known as an H-bridge cell, which is illustrated in below Fig
3.1. The inverter circuit consists of four main switches and four freewheeling diodes.
By closing the appropriate switches, each H-bridge inverter can produce three different voltages:
+Vdc, 0 and Vdc. When S1 and S4 are closed, the output voltage is +Vdc. When switches S2
and S3 are closed, the output voltage is Vdc and when either the switches S1 and S2 or the
switches S3 and S4 are closed, the output voltage is 0. A cascaded H-bridge multilevel inverter
using DC sources can produce a maximum of 2s+1 distinct levels in the output voltage.

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2013-2014

Figure.3.1. A H-bridge cell

OUTPUT

SWITCH S1

VOLTAGE
Vs
-Vs

1
0

SWITCH S2

SWITCH S3

0
0
1
1
Table 3.1 Switching states of an H-bridge inverter

Figure.3.2.Output waveform of an H-Bridge inverter

3.2. CASCADED H- BRIDGE MULTILEVEL INVERTER

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SWITCH S4
1
0

A CASCADE MULTILEVEL INVERTER USING A SINGLE DC SOURCE

2013-2014

To synthesize a multilevel waveform, the ac outputs of each of the different level H-bridge cells
are connected in series. The synthesized voltage waveform is therefore, the sum of the inverter
outputs.
FEATURES OF CASCADED MULTILEVEL INVERTER
(1) It is much more suitable to high-voltage, high-power applications than the conventional
inverters.
(2) It switches each device only once per line cycle and generates a multistep staircase voltage
waveform approaching a pure sinusoidal output voltage by increasing the number of levels.
(3) The structure consists of a cascaded connection of many single-phase full-bridge inverter
units and each bridge is fed with a separate DC source.

Figure 3.3 m-level cascaded inverter

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3.3. SINGLE PHASE FIVE LEVEL CASCADED H-BRIDGE MULTILEVEL

INVERTER
The number of output phase voltage levels in a cascaded inverter is defined by m = 2s +1.
When the number of DC sources is 2 (i.e. s=2), then the number of levels would be
m=2s+1
m=2 (2) +1=5
Hence when the number of dc sources is two, a five level output is obtained.
The working principle of a five level inverter circuit is similar to that of an H-Bridge circuit. The
circuit consists of two independent voltage sources Vdc1 & Vdc2. Each H-Bridge consists of
four switches S1, S2, S3, S4 in first cell and S1, S2, S3, S4 in the second cell. The load is
connected between A and B .Firstly switches S1, S2, S1 & S3 are closed. The path of the
voltage is Vdc1-S1-S3-S1-B-A-Vdc1. Here only one voltage source is included, hence only
three level output is obtained hence the output voltage is Vs. Next switches S1, S2, S1, S2 are
closed .Now both the voltage sources are included. The voltage path is Vdc1-S1-S2-Vdc2-S1B-A-S2-Vdc1. Now the output voltage is 2Vs. Hence a 5 level inverter output voltage is obtained
and the switching states are shown in the table 3.2.

Output

Switch

Switch

voltage
Vs
2Vs
-Vs
-2Vs

S1
1
1
0
0

S2
S3
S4
S1
S2
1
0
0
1
0
1
0
0
1
1
0
1
1
0
1
0
0
0
0
0
Table 3.2: Switching states of a 5 level inverter

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Switch

Switch

Switch

Switch

Switch

Switch

S3
1
0
0
1

S4
0
0
1
1

A CASCADE MULTILEVEL INVERTER USING A SINGLE DC SOURCE

Figure3.4 Circuit diagram of cascaded 5 level inverter

Figure 3.5 Output voltage waveform of a 5 level inverter

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2013-2014

3.4. CASCADED MULTILEVEL INVERTER USING SINGLE DC SOURCE

To operate a cascade multilevel inverter using a single DC source, it is proposed to use capacitors
as the DC sources for all but the first source. Consider a simple cascade multilevel inverter with
two H-bridges as shown in Fig. 3.5.

Figure 3.6 Single phase structure of a multilevel cascaded H-bridge inverter

The DC source for the first H-bridge (H1) is a DC power source with an output voltage of Vdc,
while the DC source for the second H-bridge (H2) is a capacitor voltage to be held at Vdc /2. The
output voltage of the first H-bridge is denoted by v1 and the output of the second H-bridge is
denoted by v2 so that the output of the cascaded multilevel inverter is:
v (t) = v1 (t) + v2 (t)
By opening and closing the switches of H1 appropriately, the output voltage v1 can be made
equal to Vdc , 0 or Vdc while the output voltage of H2 can be made equal to Vdc /2, 0 or
Vdc /2 by opening and closing its switches appropriately. Therefore, the output voltage of the
inverter can have the values 3Vdc /2, Vdc, Vdc /2, 0, Vdc /2, Vdc, 3Vdc /2, which is seven
levels and is illustrated in Fig. 3.7(a).
Fig 3.7(b) shows how the waveform of Fig.3.7 (a) is generated if, for 1 2, v1 = Vdc and
v2 = Vdc /2 is chosen.
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Fig 3.7(a) Output waveform of a 7-level cascade multilevel inverter.

Fig 3.7(b) H-bridge voltages v1 and v2 which achieve the output voltage waveform
v = v1+v2.
Below Table shows how a waveform can be generated using the topology of Fig3.6.

Table 3.3: Output voltages for a 7-level inverter

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3.4.1 SWITCHING ANGLES:

If the nominal capacitor voltage is chosen as Vdc/2, then one can compute the switching angles
1, 2, and 3 as shown below. The Fourier series expansion of the (staircase) output voltage
waveform of the multilevel inverter as shown in Fig. 3.7(a) is

Ideally, given a desired fundamental voltage V1, we determine the switching angles 1, 2 and
3 so that the above equation becomes V (t) = V1 sin (t). For three-phase systems, the triplen
harmonics in each phase need not be cancelled as they automatically cancel in the line-to-line
voltages. In this case where there are 3 DC sources, the desire is to cancel the 5th and 7th order
harmonics as they tend to dominate the total harmonic distortion. Therefore the mathematical
statement of these conditions is

This is a system of three transcendental equations in the three unknown values of 1, 2, and 3.
There are many ways to solve for these angles.

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2013-2014

CHAPTER 4

CONCLUSION
Multilevel concept provides an efficient reduction of harmonic distortion. The benefits of
multilevel inverter include lower-order harmonics cancellation, lower transient power loss due to
low-frequency switching. This paper proposes a 5 level cascaded multilevel inverter with a
single DC source. Suitable capacitor is used as a DC source for the second H-bridge. It is
expected that the proposed multilevel inverter topology can be applied to solar photovoltaic and
energy storage (with multiple battery cells) applications. Subject to specified constraints, the
voltage level of the capacitors can be controlled while at the same time choosing the switching
angles to achieve a specified modulation index and eliminate harmonics in the output waveform.
Future work will be towards PWM voltage control and harmonics minimization.

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2013-2014

REFERENCES
[1]M. Klabunde, Y. Zhao and T. A. Lipo, Current control of a 3 level rectifier/inverter drive
system, in Conference Record 1994 IEEE IAS Annual Meeting, 1994, pp. 23482356.
[2] G. Sinha and T. A. Lipo, A four level rectifier-inverter system for drive applications, in
Conference Record IEEE IAS Annual Meeting, October 1996, pp. 980987.
[3] J. K. Steinke, Control strategy for a three phase AC traction drive with three level GTO
PWM inverter, in IEEE Power Electronic Specialist Conference (PESC), 1988, pp. 431438.
[4] J. Zhang, High performance control of a three level IGBT inverter fed AC drive, in Conf.
Rec. IEEE IAS Annual Meeting, 1995, pp. 2228.
[5] M. Manjrekar P. K. Steimer and T. Lipo, Hybrid multilevel power conversion system: A
competitive solution for high-power applications, IEEE Transactions on Industry Applications,
vol. 36, no. 3, pp. 834841, May/June 2000.

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