A NOVEL MODULAR SYMMETRICAL MULTILEVEL CONVERTER WITH REDUCED NUMBER OF CIRCUIT DEVICES

In this paper a novel symmetric multilevel converter structure based on cascaded converter family is proposed. This inverter is likely to be used in low/medium voltage applications. The proposed topology is analyzed and then compared with conventional multilevel cascade converters. Comparison depicts the proposed inverter superiority over the conventional inverters. In this topology, all the desired voltage levels can be obtained using a lower number of devices. The suggested multilevel converter reduces the requirements for circuit elements including switches and their gate drivers. As a result, the total cost is significantly reduced and the control scheme is simpler. Both the simulation and experimental results are provided to demonstrate the practicability and the good performance of the suggested converter. The simulation and experimental results are in good agreement which shows the effectiveness of the proposed inverter.

Keywords: Multilevel Voltage Source Inverter, Symmetric Inverter, Reduction of Circuit Components, cascaded multilevel converter