• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.15 no.5
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• pp.1227-1234
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• 2015

The efficient electric power demand management in electric power supply industry is currently being changed by distributed generation. Meanwhile, small-scale distributed generation systems using renewable energy are being constructed worldwide. Several small-scale renewable distributed generation systems, which can supply electricity to the grid at peak load of the grid as per policy such as demand response programs, could help in the stability of the electric power demand management. In this case, the power quality of the small-scale renewable distributed generation system is more significant. Low prices of power semiconductors and multilevel inverters with high power quality have been recently investigated. However, the conventional multilevel inverter topology is unsuitable for the small-scale renewable distributed generation system, because the number of devices of such topology increases with increasing output voltage level. In this paper, a single-phase multilevel inverter based on H-bridge, with DC_Link divided by bi-directional switches, is proposed. The proposed topology has almost half the number of devices of the conventional multilevel inverter topology when these inverters have the same output voltage level. Double Fourier series solution is mainly used when comparing PWM output harmonic components of various inverter topologies. Harmonic components of the proposed multilevel inverter, which have been analyzed by double Fourier series, are compared with those of the conventional multilevel inverter. An inverter prototype is then developed to verify the validity of the theoretical analysis.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Illuminating and Electrical Installation Engineers
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• v.28 no.8
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• pp.82-89
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• 2014

The industrial products to use single phase inverter are raised the necessity of power quality improvement, such as AC Motor Driver, Lighting, Renewable energy power converter. Also, it is increasing that applied the single phase multilevel inverter for high quality power at renewable energy power converter. Especially, the photovoltaic multilevel inverters have at least more than two DC_Link and more than one DC/DC Converter. This paper proposes a triple output DC/DC Converter with one switch for photovoltaic multilevel inverter. The proposed converter has advantages of low cost and volume because it has one switch. The operation principle of the converter is analyzed and verified. A prototype is implemented to verify of the proposed converter.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.17 no.5
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• pp.1173-1185
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• 2017

In this paper, a new single phase multilevel inverter topology with a single DC source is presented. The proposed topology is developed based on the concepts of the L-Z source inverter and the switched capacitor multilevel inverter. The input voltage to the proposed inverter is boosted by two steps: the first step by an impedance network and the second step by switched capacitor units. Compared to other existing topologies, the presented topology can produce a higher boosted multilevel output voltage while using a smaller number of components. In addition, it provides more flexibility to control boosting factor, size, cost and complexity of the inverter. The proposed inverter possesses all the advantages of the L-Z source inverter and the switched capacitor multilevel inverter like controlling the start-up inrush current and capacitor voltage balancing using a simple switching strategy. The operating principle and general expression for the different parameters of the proposed topology are presented in detail. A phase disposition pulse width modulation strategy has been developed to switch the inverter. The effectiveness of the topology is verified by extensive simulation and experimental studies on a 7-level inverter structure.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.138-145
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• 2010

This paper presents a single phase multilevel inverter for using as a voltage harmonic source. First, a single phase multilevel inverter system is presented and the structural parts of the inverter are described. In order to obtain multilevel output voltage waveforms, a switching strategy based on calculating switching angles is explained and an improved formula for determining switching angles is given. Simulation and experimental results of multilevel voltage waveforms are given for 15, 31 and 127 levels. The proposed topology does not only produce output voltages with low THD values. It also produces the required harmonic components on the output voltage. For this purpose, equations for switching angles are constituted and the switching functions are obtained. These angles control the output voltage as well as provide the required specific harmonics. The proposed inverter structure is simulated for various functions with the required harmonic components. The THD values of the output voltage waves are calculated. The simulated functions are also realized by the proposed inverter structure. By using a harmonic analyzer, the harmonic spectrums, which belong to the output voltage forms, are found and the THD values are measured. Simulation and experimental results are given for the specific functions. The proposed topology produces perfectly suitable results for obtaining the specific harmonic components. Therefore, it is possible to use the structure as a voltage harmonic source in various applications.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.223-231
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• 2013

A modular three-phase multilevel inverter especially suitable for electrical drive applications has been previously presented. This topology is based on series connection of power cells in which each cell comprised of two inverter legs in series. In this paper, in order to generate the maximum number of voltage levels with reduced number of switches, three algorithms are proposed for determination of the magnitudes of dc voltage sources. In addition, a new hybrid multilevel inverter is proposed that is composed of series connection of the previously presented multilevel inverter and some H-bridges. The proposed topology has been compared with some other presented multilevel inverters. The performance of the proposed multilevel inverter has been verified by simulation and experimental results of a single-phase 39-level multilevel inverter.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.498-511
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• 2016

This paper presents a single-phase five-level inverter controlled by two novel pulse width modulation (PWM) switching techniques. The proposed PWM techniques are designed based on minimum switching power loss and minimum total harmonic distortion (THD). In a single-phase five-level inverter employing six switches, the first proposed PWM technique requires four switches to operate at switching frequency and two other switches to operate at line frequency. The second proposed PWM technique requires only two switches to operate at switching frequency and the rest of the switches to operate at line frequency. Compared with conventional PWM techniques for single-phase five-level inverters, the proposed PWM techniques offer high efficiency and low harmonic components in the output voltage. The validity of the proposed PWM switching techniques in controlling single-phase five-level inverters to regulate load voltage is verified experimentally using a 100 V, 500 W laboratory prototype controlled by dspace 1103.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.532-541
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• 2016

A single-phase asymmetrical cascaded multilevel inverter is introduced with the goal of increasing power quality with the reduction of power in insulated-gate bipolar transistor (IGBT) switches. In the present work, the proposed inverter topology is analyzed and generalized with respect to different proposed algorithms for choosing different voltage source values. To prove the advantages of the proposed inverter, a case study involving a 17-level inverter is conducted. The simulation and experimental results with reduced THD are also presented and compared with the MATLAB/SIMULINK simulation results. Finally, the proposed topology is compared with different multilevel inverter topologies available in the literature in terms of the number of IGBT switches required with respect to the number of levels generated in the output of inverter topologies.

• JSTS:Journal of Semiconductor Technology and Science
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.451-462
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• 2016

Photovoltaic energy conversion becomes main focus of many researches due to its promising potential as source for future electricity and has many advantages than the other alternative energy sources like wind, solar, ocean, biomass, geothermal etc. In Photovoltaic power generation multilevel inverters play a vital role in power conversion. The three different topologies, diode-clamped (neutral-point clamped) inverter, capacitor-clamped (flying capacitor) inverter and cascaded h-bridge multilevel inverter are widely used in these multilevel inverters. Among the three topologies, cascaded h-bridge multilevel inverter is more suitable for photovoltaic applications since each pv array can act as a separate dc source for each h-bridge module. This paper presents a single phase Cascaded H-bridge five level inverter for grid-connected photovoltaic application using sinusoidal pulse width modulation technique. This inverter output voltage waveform reduces the harmonics in the generated current and the filtering effort at the input. The control strategy allows the independent control of each dc-link voltages and tracks the maximum power point of PV strings. This topology can inject to the grid sinusoidal input currents with unity power factor and achieves low harmonic distortion. A PID control algorithm is implemented in Arm Processor LPC2148. The validity of the proposed inverter is verified through simulation and is implemented in a single phase 100W prototype. The results of hardware are compared with simulation results. The proposed system offers improved performance over conventional three level inverter in terms of THD.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.1504-1512
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• 2016

This paper presents a new single-phase asymmetrical cascaded multilevel DC-link inverter. The proposed inverter comprises two stages. The main stage of the inverter consists of multiple similar cells, each of which is a half-bridge inverter consisting of two switches and a single DC source. All cells are connected in a cascaded manner with a fixed neutral point. The DC source values are not made equal to increase the performance of the inverter. The second circuit is a folded cascaded H-bridge circuit operating at a line frequency. One of the main advantages of this proposed topology is that it is a modular type and can thus be extended to high stages without changing the configuration of the main stage circuit. Two control schemes, namely, low switching with selective harmonic elimination and sinusoidal pulse width modulation, are employed to validate the proposed topology. The detailed approach of each control scheme and switching pulses are discussed in detail. A 150W prototype of the proposed system is implemented in the laboratory to verify the validity of the proposed topology.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.15 no.5
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• pp.1235-1243
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• 2015

This paper presents a modified Space Vector Pulse Width Modulation Technique (SVPWM), which solves the well-known problem of voltage imbalance in the capacitors of a single-phase multilevel inverter. The proposed solution is based on the measurement of DC voltage levels at each capacitor of the inverter DC bus. The measurements are then used to adjust the size of the active vectors within the SVPWM algorithm to keep the voltage waveform sinusoidal regardless of any voltage imbalance on the DC link capacitors. When a voltage deviation exceeds a predetermined hysteresis band, the correspondent voltage vector is restricted to restore the voltage level to an acceptable threshold. Hence, the need for external voltage regulators for the voltage capacitors is eliminated. The functionality of the proposed algorithm is successfully demonstrated through simulations and experiments on a grid tied application.