2016 3rd International Conference on Electronic Design (ICED), August 11-12, 2016, Phuket, Thailand
Design of Transformer-less DC to AC
Converter Using PWM Technique
Ahmad Hasif Azman
Faculty of Electrical Engineering,
Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM)
Shah Alam, Malaysia
Abstract—This paper presents a method of power conversion
circuit topology for single-phase DC to AC boost converter by
using sinusoidal pulse-width modulation (SPWM) technique. The
presented circuit converter does not use a transformer to step up
the voltage instead it use DC to DC boost converter and expected
to be more efficient and lower cost compare with conventional
converter in the market. The circuit contains of DC to DC
booster and a full bridge converter. It can provide a low
distortion AC output voltage regulation. The circuit achieved
higher efficiency and together with minimum switching losses by
using the proposed technique that was capable of making
inverter achieves single power translation. The low pass filter
circuit was implemented at the end output to minimize the total
harmonic distortion. This paper has successfully achieved to
design transformer-less converter and with low total harmonic
distortion which good for electronic application. To complete the
design of three circuits which are DC/DC booster, converter
circuit and LC filter has been combined to produce 12Vdc to
230Vac with low THD. MATLAB/SIMULINK is one of the
powerful tools that has been used for Simulation in this project,
in order to show the validity of the theory and simulation.
Keywords – DC to AC converter, pulse-width modulation
(PWM), total harmonic distortion (THD).
I. INTRODUCTION
Nowadays, the usage of power electronic converters is
widely being utilized for diverse types of local, farming and
manufacturing applications. AC to DC converters are
extensively taking part for the DC voltage and power control
applications such as charging batteries, UPS or mobile phones,
speed of DC motors and others [1]-[2]. The idea of the
converter has been introduced over few decades ago has cause
investigation actions in the strategy and growth of high power
factor rectification circuits continue to raise since the mid
1980's, [3]-[5]. As the use of non-bear loads in nowadays
electronic systems continue to increase, utility power systems
continue to effect from low power factor and so on [6]. Over
the last ten years, different converter topologies (passive and
active) have been introduced to save as an interface [7]-[8].
Recent research emphasis has been focused on the
active power factor correction because of their many advantages
over the passive. The commonly used PWM active-power factor
correction circuits are the buck, boost and buck-boost. Nowadays,
there are many electronic devices that use
978-1-5090-2160-4/16/$31.00 ©2016 IEEE
Maizan Muhamad
Faculty of Electrical Engineering,
Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM)
Shah Alam, Malaysia
maizan@salam.uitm.edu.my
boost DC to AC inverter as a new controller strategy. The
circumstance, this boost inverter has been used extensively
because it can produce an AC output voltage greater than the
DC input one, hooked on the prompt duty cycle. On today
market, the power inverter that available varies greatly in
efficiency and output type. Generally, of higher end inverters,
the output waveforms seen are either pure sine or modified
sine. Another factor that determines the price and quality of a
boost inverter is the output power in watts.
The boost of DC to AC is comprised of two different
converters. Each circuit is driven by 180º phase shifted DC-
biased sinusoidal positions whose the output is in AC [9]-[10].
As a result, the max value of AC voltage can be lesser or
larger than the DC input voltage. The main problem with this
circuit deals with its controller. Boost inverter consists of
Boost DC to DC converters that need to be measured in a
variable-operation condition [11]-[13]. However, this method
is lack to control individual boost of the inverter, to fix this
issue the common mode filter has been proposed as an option
to control the boost inverter. This method can deal with the
variable operation point condition and thus be applied to both
individual boost converters [10],[14-15].
The boost converter method that consists two circuits has
drawbacks such as large circuit size, many circuit elements
and its high cost. So, it is important to encounter this problem,
by reducing several components in the circuit [22]. This
circuit also has several problems due to boost operation such
as stress on circuit elements which cause from high duty cycle,
which can reduce the lifetime of the component mainly the
switching part [22].
The circuit model that has been proposed consist two
individual circuits that are DC/DC boost converter, DC/AC
inverter and in order to ensure a high power quality at the end of
the system, a passive LC filter has been implemented to reduce
the harmonic distortion in the output voltage waveform. Hence, to
produce a lower the distortion for DC/AC boost inverter, the
output impedance must be lower [16], [17].
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 2016 3rd International Conference on Electronic Design (ICED), August 11-12, 2016, Phuket, Thailand
II. DC BOOSTER
Fig. 1 show the schematic of dc booster in which it
consists an inductor (L), a switch to boost the input voltage,
diode (D), capacitor and a resistive load (R).
Fig. 1 MATLAB simulation circuit design
DC to DC converter is a circuit that boost small input DC
voltage. Usually, DC supply in today’s market only provide DC
voltage but the voltage that been yield is still not enough. A boost
converter is a DC to DC power converter with an output voltage
larger than the input voltage. The initial step of this circuit has
been developed to amplify from 12Vdc to 230Vdc.
Fig. 2 boost dc-dc circuit [18]
Fig. 3 (a) closed circuit [18]
Analysis for the switch closed (a) from the schematic when
the switch closed, the diode will become reverse biased. The
Kirchhoff’s voltage law around the path that containing the
source, inductor, and closed switch is derived:
The change in inductor current is computed from below
equation when the switch is closed:
∆iL for the switch closed,
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(∆iL)closed =
Fig. 3 (b) open circuit [18]
Base from analysis when the switch in (b) is opened, the
inductor current cannot change instantaneously. This will
cause the diode to become forward biased in order to provide a
route for the inductor current.
Since the rate of variation of inductor current is a constant,
so when the switch is opened, the change of current is linear.
This gives by equation below:
Simplify for ∆iL, open;
For the V_O of the dc booster;
Simplify equation for V_O,
In dc-dc booster duty ratio or duty cycle play the main
factor to determine best result. Duty cycle is the percentage of
one period when a signal is active. The equation for this dc-dc
booster is;
For a continuous current in the boost converter the
minimum inductance and switching frequency is given by
below equation:
This L_min is a minimum value requirement for the circuit; a
dc-dc boost converter designed for continuous current operation
will have an inductance for value greater than L_min.
 2016 3rd International Conference on Electronic Design (ICED), August 11-12, 2016, Phuket, Thailand

The capacitor value in the circuit can be derived from the

equation below;
A. Unipolar PWM

Fig. 5 show the overview of a whole system of DC/AC

converter, first the DC source will be supply to the
This Lmin is a minimum value requirement for the circuit, application, then the boost converter will step up voltage of
a DC/DC boost converter designed for continuous current 12Vdc to 230Vdc. The voltage will flow through full-bridge
operation will have an inductance for value greater than Lmin. converter, switching process will happen to convert dc to ac.

III. DC TO AC CONVERTER
Inverter is a circuit that converts DC to AC. To be more
accurate, the inverter transfer power from a DC source to an
AC load. In other application, the aim of inverter is to create
an AC voltage from a DC voltage.
This project has used single phase full bridge inverter
in order to convert it to AC load.

Fig. 4 Full-bridge dc-ac converter

Fig. 4 shows an overview of converter circuit. This circuit

consists of four switches which are insulated-gate bipolar Fig. 5 DC-AC converter
transistor (IGBT) that has been represented as. This circuit
operation, IGBT 2 and IGBT 3 should not be closed at the
same time, nor should IGBT 4 and IGBT 5. Otherwise, a short From fig. 6 (a) the waveform has shown that there are two
circuit would occur across the dc. signals that has been compared, that is sine wave and
triangular wave. [20]
IV. PULSE WIDTH MODULATION
In power electronics, the subject that has intensive research
and is widely vigorous to control the output voltage of static
power converters. A massive variability of feedback control
and feed forward structures has been defined in the works
[21], but the most extensively use the techniques of PWM are
the sinusoidal PWM (SPWM).

The SPWM switching scheme is the pulse-width

modulation signal that is generated by comparing modulating
signal which is sine wave with the carrier signal or triangular
wave. (a)

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 2016 3rd International Conference on Electronic Design (ICED), August 11-12, 2016, Phuket, Thailand

V. TOTAL HARMONIC DISTORTION

The total harmonic distortion (THD) is a concept that can

be relate in power quality in power electronics. It is a
measurement of the harmonic distortion present and it can be
defined as the ratio of the sum of the sum of the power of all
harmonic components to the power of the essential frequency.
LC filter has been implemented in order to reduce
distortion in the output signal.

(b)
Fig. 6 The AC signal waveform [19] (a) Unipolar PWM,
b) generate signal

The unipolar requires two sinusoidal controlling waves

which are Vm and Vm- . These waves are of the same degree
and frequency, but 180 out of phase. The two modulating
waves are compared with a triangular carrier wave.
Fig. 6 (b) presents generate signal this results obtained
from the preliminary analysis of (a) it has produced square
wave, refer to fig. 6 (a) when the sine wave is in the positive (a) (b)
cycle the square wave will be produced, but when the wave in Fig. 8 The difference between two same sine wave signals:
the negative cycle the wave become zero. (a) Ideal sine wave, (b) Distorted sine wave
As shown in fig. 8 (a) and (b) has shown the difference in
This paper has proposed the method to use unipolar PWM the form of signal. The signal (b) distorted waveform
in boost inverter DC/AC, because the unipolar switch inverter compared to the (a) ideal sine wave is significantly altering the
offers reduced switching losses and generate less EMI. From form of the sinusoidal.
this graph has shown that unipolar method has more
advantages compare to other.
B. Low pass filter(LC Pi filter)
Low pass filter has been used in many applications, it was There is a suggestion that THD in the equipment should be
particularly used to cut off high frequency and allow desire no more than 5% in order to get better performance.
frequency. This circuit consists two types of passive
components which are series inductor and two shunt capacitor.

VI. MATLAB-SIMULINK CONVERTER BOOSTER DC-AC

Fig. 9 (a) schematic of DC/DC booster is the first sub

circuit in this converter. These circuits use the switching
method in order to boost the small voltage; as a result this
converter has been successfully to produce the target output.

Fig.7 LC pi filter
Calculation for cut-off frequency:

Calculation for capacitor

The capacitor value should be same for C2 and C3 (a)

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 2016 3rd International Conference on Electronic Design (ICED), August 11-12, 2016, Phuket, Thailand

VII. RESULTS

Figure 11 below shows DC current and voltage obtained

from simulation using MATLAB/Simulink. Another important
finding was that the component in this circuit can influence
the target result which is fit with the theory. IDC = 4.929A
and VDC = 246.5V

Fig. 11 Output current and voltage

Sinusoidal Pulse Width Modulation (SPWM)
Generator is use in order to turn on or turn off the power
(b) switches and to control the output of the inverter. From fig. 12
has shown that the first row there is two signals which are
triangular waveform (carrier signal) and sine waveform
(modulation signal). The second row is the output pulse for
SPWM positive cycle. The third row is same as in the first row
but the difference is modulation signal was inverted compare
to first row signal. Last row is the output pulse for SPWM
negative cycle. The output waveform is the comparison
between sine wave and triangular wave. The output signal is in
binary number ‘1’ or ‘0’. The relevant of this output is to turn-
on and turn-off of the converter switches. If
(c) , the output ‘1’ while if
the output is ‘0’.
Fig. 9 the sub circuit (a) dc-ac converter, (b) dc-dc booster,
(c) LC filter

Fig. 9 (b) compares with (a) is the converter circuit which

convert dc source to ac output this circuit play an important
part in order to achieve the objective of this project.

Fig. 12 PWM Waveform

From fig. 13 (a) current and (b) voltage has shown the
output waveform of the output ac at load that has not been
applied with appropriate filter.

Fig. 10 Sinusoidal Pulse Width Modulation (SPWM)

Generator circuit
(a) (b)
Fig. 13 Unfiltered ac output. (a) Current, (b) Voltage

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 2016 3rd International Conference on Electronic Design (ICED), August 11-12, 2016, Phuket, Thailand

Fig. 14 (a) current and (b) voltage has shown the output
waveform of the output ac load that has been applied with the
appropriate filter, in this case LC filter in order to produce
output with the lower THD.
(a) (b)
Fig. 14 Filter ac output (a) Current, (b) Voltage
VIII. CONCLUSION
A method to produce transformer-less pure sine wave from
DC to AC inverter successfully achieved 12Vdc to 230Vac
with low THD by using PWM technique. Moreover, by using
this method, an inverter booster with the least amount of
harmonic distortion can be implemented at lower cost
compared with currently available DC to AC inverter in the
market. Since dc source is involved, in order to produce ac
output, the dc source must be kept stable to make sure the
circuit function well as per specification and this method
satisfy the condition.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
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The authors wish to thank, RMC UiTM and Ministry of

Higher Education (MOHE) for the funding of this work under
the Research Acculturation Collaborative Effort (RACE) grant
No. 600-RMI/RACE 16/6/2(2/2015).

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