INTRODUCTION

An inverter is a power electronic converter which is used to convert

DC into AC voltage. Although DC power is used in small electrical
devices, most of the household equipments run on AC power.
Therefore, we need a more efficient way to convert DC power into
AC. The inverter is a very useful device. It converts one form of
electrical power into another form of electrical power. But,
unfortunately, it cannot generate power. Thus, the inverter is a
converter but not a generator. It is used as a standalone device such
as solar power or back power for household appliances. The inverter
takes input as DC power from the batteries and converts it into AC
power when there is power failure. An inverter is used in the power
system network to convert bulk DC power to AC power. i.e. it is
used at the receiving end of High Voltage Direct Current
transmission lines. This inverter is also known as a grid-tie inverter.
An inverter does the opposite job and it is very easy to understand
how it works. Suppose we have a battery in a torch and the switch is
closed so DC power flows around the circuit, always in the same
direction, like a race car around a track. Now if we take the
battery(or cells) out and turn it the other way round. Assuming it
easily fits the other way, it will be certain that still if you switch on
the flashlight, you will not observe any change in the light, but the
direction of electric current will actually be the opposite way. Now,
suppose we had lightning-fast hands and were quick enough to keep
reversing the battery around around 60 times a second. This is what
can be called a mechanical inverter, although not practically
possible, which turns the DC power into AC at a frequency of
around 60 hertz.
Of course, the kind of inverters we purchase in electrical stores don't
really work this way, though some are indeed mechanical. These
devices use electromagnetic switches that turn on and off at very
high speed to change the direction of current. These type of
inverters, often produce a square-wave output: the current is flowing
one way or the other otherwise it is instantaneously interchanging
between the two states:
These sudden power reversals are quite brutal for some forms of
electrical equipment. In normal AC power, the current gradually
changes direction from one way to the other in a sinusoidal
waveform, like this:
Power electronic inverters are used to produce varying AC output
from a input DC source. They use electrical components such as
inductors and capacitors to make output current rise and fall
gradually than the instantaneously switching square wave output
signal that we get with a simple inverter.
Another application is that the inverters can also be used with
transformers to convert a DC input voltage into a completely
different AC output voltage but the output power must always be
less than input power. It follows from the law of conservation of
energy that an inverter and transformer cannot transfer out more
power than they absorb in and some energy is bound to be lost as
heat as electricity flows through the various electrical and electronic
components. Generally, the losses in an inverter is usually below 8-
10 percent.
Applications of Cascaded H-Bridge Multilevel Inverters
Some other applications are Motor drives, Active filters, Electric
vehicle drives, DC power source utilization, Power factor
compensators, Back to back frequency link systems, Interfacing
with renewable energy resources, Induction motor control using
DTC (Direct Torque Control) circuit, Static VAR generation,etc.

According to the output current and voltage waveforms

There are three different types of inverters.
❖ Square wave inverter
❖ Modified sine wave inverter
❖ Sine wave inverter
According to the Type of Load
There are two types of AC power; single-phase and three-phase.
Therefore, the load can be classified into two types. And according
to that, here are two types of inverters:
❖ Single-phase inverter
❖ Three-phase inverter
Three phase inverter
Nowadays, the AC supply and the load used in industries is three-
phase. Due to this, a three-phase inverter is used to supply power to
this load.
In a typical three-phase inverter, six diodes and six thyristors used.
According to the conduction time of thyristor, the operation of an
inverter can be classified into two types;
❖ 120-degree mode of operation
❖ 180-degree mode of operation
120-Degree Mode of Operation
At a time, two thyristors are in conduction. As the name suggests, in
this mode of operation, 120 degrees is the conduction time for all
thyristors. This implies that a switch remains ON for 120-degree
and OFF for the remaining part of the cycle. The final shape
obtained for the output phase voltage is a quasi-square wave and the
shape of the output line voltage is a three-stepped waveform.
180-Degree Mode of Operation
In this mode of operation, at a time, three thyristors are in
conduction. Here, 180 degrees is the conduction time for all
thyristors. The shape of the output line voltage and phase voltage is
opposite to that obtained for the 120 degree mode of operation. For
phase voltage, a output waveform is a three-stepped wave and for
the output line voltage, a waveform has a quasi-square shape. In the
180-degree mode of operation, the two thyristors in a common
bridge are turned ON and OFF simultaneously. In this operation, in
one half cycle (180-degree) S1 is ON and in the next half-cycle S4
is ON. Also, at the time when S1 is switching OFF, S4 is switching
ON. Due of this simultaneous conduction, it is highly probable that
the source may short circuited. This problem does not occur in the
120-degree mode of operation.
Multilevel Inverters
Multilevel inverters are devices which are capable of obtaining the
required AC voltage at the output using multiple levels direct
current voltages(of lower magnitude) applied as input. Generally,
two-level inverters are used to obtain AC voltage from DC voltage.
The real problem is, why do we need to use multilevel inverter when
we have two-level inverter. To answer this question, we will study
the concept of multilevel inverter.
Concept of Multilevel Inverters
Here, we have discussed the case of a two-level inverter. A two-
level Inverter creates two levels of voltages at the output. Suppose
we give Vdc as input to a two level inverter. For switching, mostly
Pulse Width Modulation is used as shown in the figure , where the
reference wave is represented by the dashed blue line. We obtain +
Vdc/2 and – Vdc/2 as output from the two level inverter. In order to
obtain an AC voltage, these two newly generated voltages are
usually interchanged Although this method is effective but it has
few drawbacks which cannot be ignored. Two level inverter creates
harmonic distortions in the output voltage. Also, these types of
inverter have a high dv/dt value which is not desirable. In some
applications, this builds unwanted issues especially those where low
harmonic distortion is highly required in the output. The working
concept of Multilevel Inverter (MI) involves a slight modification of
the two-level inverter working concept. In multilevel inverters, we
do not produce two level voltage. Instead, in order to create a
smoother and more sinusoidal-looking output waveform, more than
two voltage levels are merged together. The output of this inverter
has lower dv/dt and also lower distortion due to harmonics.
Smoothness of the waveform is proportional to the voltage levels, as
we keep on increasing the voltage level, the output multiple-stepped
voltage waveform becomes smoother but the complexity of the
controller circuit and components used in the inverter also increases
along with the increased levels. The output waveform obtained for
the three, five and seven level inverters is shown in the figure. We
clearly see that as the levels are increasing, the output is becoming
more like a sinusoidal waveform.

Various topologies are available to implement the concept of a

multilevel inverter. The difference between multiple topologies lies
in the logic implemented in the switching techniques and the source
of input to the multilevel inverters. The most commonly used
multilevel inverter topologies are:
❖ Cascaded H-bridge multilevel inverters
❖ Diode Clamped multilevel inverters
❖ Flying Capacitor multilevel inverters

Proposed Structure and Multilevel Operation

The proposed topology (Capacitor Clamped H-Bridge MI) combines
the two units to produce the multilevel output voltage. First part is
the high frequency part which is responsible for the generation of
complete positive multilevel output (level generation) and the
second part is the low frequency part (H bridge) to control the
required polarity for the output for each cycle. This will reduce
number of IGBTs switches to generate the output voltage levels in
positive half and negative half cycle. The implementation of nine-
level inverter is depicted in the given figure. An input voltage is
stepped by using four series capacitors C1, C2, C3 and C4. The
voltage, divided between the capacitors, is transmitted to H-bridge
by four IGBTs, and four diodes, which produces multilevel output.
The output voltage is taken across H bridge terminal, which is
formed by four IGBT switches responsible for changing the polarity
of output at constant frequency.
Conclusion
The new topology of multilevel inverters i.e. the capacitor clamped
M.I. has been implemented. The MATLAB/Simulink library has
been used to study and implement the concept of the multilevel
inverter studied in this project. The main idea of the preferred
topology is to reduce the number of power devices and circuit
complexity. As the number of levels increases, the output waveform
of inverter has more steps and look like a staircase wave that
approaches a sinusoidal waveform, so that harmonic distortion of
the output wave decreases as the number of levels increases. The
simulation result shows that THD in output can be eliminated
through CCHB multilevel inverter by adding more steps or level.
The CCHB topology is suitable for medium and low power
applications.
Abstract
In this project, we have tried to present a new topology for three
phase nine level inverter. The Capacitor Clamped H- Bridge
(CCHB) three phase Multilevel Inverter (MI) has been designed in
MATLAB and nine-level three phase ac output voltage inverter and
thirteen-level three phase ac output voltage inverter have been
designed by providing suitable control (gate) signals. The number of
semiconductor switches (IGBTs) and switching losses of power
devices can be reduced in the proposed multilevel inverter & the
circuit complexity is also reduced. The operating principle of the
proposed inverter and power quality parameter of the output like
harmonics are discussed. Finally, the best results have obtained
through proposed (CCHB) three phase multilevel inverter in
MATLAB/SIMULINK platform. The switching sequences of
IGBTs are generated using Sine Pulse Width Modulation (SPWM)
technique pulses with carrier displacing technique.

Sinusoidal Pulse-Width Modulation(SPWM)

The Sinusoidal Pulse Width Modulation (SPWM) method is also
known as the triangulation, sub harmonic, or sub-oscillation method.
This technique has been explained as shown in the figure. In this
figure, half-bridge circuit topology for a single-phase inverter has
been depicted.
A sinusoidal reference or modulation wave is compared to a high-
frequency carrier wave in this method to generate switching pulses
for H bridge switches. The switching instants are determined by the
intersection points of these two waves and commutation of the
modulated pulse can also be determined by this. The Pulse Width
Modulation method has been depicted in figure, in which Vc is the
maximum amplitude of carrier wave and Vm is the maximum
amplitude of the modulating signal. The figure shows the triangle
and modulation signal with some randomly decided values for
frequency and magnitude. In the given for inverter , the switches are
controlled by comparing the instantaneous values of modulating
signal and the carrier wave which are mixed in a comparator. When
the sinusoidal modulating signal has magnitude greater than that of
the triangular carrier wave, the comparator circuit produces high
output, otherwise the output produced is low(or zero) .

The comparator output(high or low states) is analysed in a pulse

generator so that the pulse width of the output voltage waveform of
the inverter is equal and comparable to the comparator output pulse
width. The ratio of the maximum amplitudes of the modulating
sinusoidal signal and the carrier wave is called the modulation index
(MI). The magnitude of fundamental component of output voltage is
proportional to Modulation Index. Normally, the amplitude vc of the
triangular carrier wave is kept at a constant value. The frequency
modulation index Mf is defined as ratio of the peak frequency
deviation of the carrier wave to the frequency of the modulating
signal , i.e. Mf= ft/fm.
BIPOLAR PWM
The upper and the lower switches in the same leg of the inverter
operate in a complementary fashion such that when one switch is
turned on then, the other one is switched off. Hence, only two
switching pulses vg1 and vg3 need to be produced, which are
therefore, obtained by comparing the reference wave vm and the
carrier wave vcr. VAN and VBN are used to refer to the inverter
terminal voltages. The output voltage is found to be the potential
difference between VAN and VBN. The output voltage waveform
switches between positive and negative dc voltages during both, the
positive and negative half cycles of the sinusoidal modulating
signal. Due to this reason, this PWM technique is called bipolar
PWM.
UNIPOLAR PWM
In unipolar modulation, two reference waves Vm and -Vm are used.
These modulating signals are of same magnitude and frequency and
are phase shifted by 180 degrees. These modulating signals are
compared with a common carrier wave Vcr to obtain two switching
pulses. Thus, we obtain signals,Vg1 and Vg3 for the switches S1
and S3. These two switches do not turn on/off at the same time. In
the inverter output waveform, we observe that voltage is either zero
and +Vd during positive half cycle and zero and –Vd during
negative half cycle. Hence, thus technique is known as unipolar
modulation. This topology helps to reduce switching losses and also
generates low EMI. The unipolar switched inverter offers greater
efficiency that the former & thus an advantage.

References
❖ S.Daher, J.Schmid, and F.L.M.Antunes,“Multilevel inverter
topologies for stand-alone PV systems,” IEEE Trans. Ind.
Electron., vol. 55, no. 7, July 2008
 ❖ N. A. Rahim, K. Chaniago, and J. Selvaraj, “Single-phase
seven-level grid-connected inverter for photovoltaic system,”
IEEE Trans.,vol. 58, no. 6, June 2011
❖ V. G. Agelidis, D. M. Baker, W. B. Lawrance, and C. V.
Nayar, “A multilevel PWM inverter topology for photovoltaic
applications”, Industrial Electronics 1997, IEEE.
❖ Md Ajmal Nayab, Mr. Zafar Khan,“Comparative Study Of
Diode Clamped, Flying Capacitor and H-Bridge Multilevel
Inverter Harmonics Reduction”, IJARSE, June 2016.
❖ Amol K. Koshti, M. N. Rao,“A brief review on multilevel
inverter topologies”, 2017, IEEE
❖ “Multilevel inverters introduction types advantages and
applications”, microcontrollerslab.com

ABOUT
01.
02.
The inverter uses the power electronics switches like IGBT, MOSFET. The
number of switches depends on the type of inverter.

Although DC power is used in small electrical gadgets, most household

equipment runs on AC power. Hence we need an efficient way to convert DC
power into AC power.

04.
03.
In practice, the efficiency of an inverter is often over 90 percent, though basic
physics tells us some energy—however little—is always being wasted
somewhere!

Inverters can be used as an UPS-Uninterruptible power supplies. These can

be used as standalone inverters. These can be used in solar power systems