A SINGLE – PHASE CASCADED H-BRIDGE MULTILEVEL

INVERTER WITH REDUCED SWITCHING

Presented By
K. Gnaneshwar (20D41A0240)
L. Varsha (20D41A0243)
MD. Sameer (20D41A0244)
V. Varun (20D41A0266)
Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering
Sri Indu College of Engineering and Technology

ABSTRACT - This paper presents the has been obtained experimentally using
design and implementation of three number of cascaded H-bridge
microcontroller-based single-phase inverters which require less power
multilevel inverters for reducing the switching devices. It is found that total
number of switching devices and total harmonic distortion is reduced with
harmonic content at the output voltage. increasing number of levels at the output
Multilevel inverters are suitable for high- voltage of the multilevel inverter.
voltage and high-current applications.
Keywords- microcontroller;
The proposed system consists of a
microcontroller, three separate input de multilevel inverter; cascaded H-
sources, isolating circuit and three bridge; total harmonies distortion.
cascaded H-bridge MOSFET-based
I. INTRODUCTION
voltage source inverters. A
microcontroller has been used to In recent years, multilevel inverters
generate proper gate signals for have been attracting the attention of
MOSFETs of the three H-bridge Electrical Engineers due to its high power
inverters. The complexity of generating quality, high voltage capability, low
gate drive signals for higher levels of switching losses and low Electro-Magnetic
inverter output voltage can be reduced Interference [1-5]. A multilevel inverter is a
dramatically using microcontroller. power electronics circuit which is capable
Maximum thirteen-level output voltage of providing desired alternating voltage
level at the output with variable voltage and inverter improves the AC power quality by
frequency from single de voltage or performing the power conversion in small
multiple lower level de voltages as input voltage steps leading to lower harmonics.
and they have been proposed as the best
A large number of research works [6-
choice in several medium and high voltage
23] have been undertaken and various
applications [1].
classifications of multilevel inverters have
A conventional inverter has two been made with different topologies, such
possible voltage levels. Multilevel inverter as, diode clamped, flying capacitor,
can switch their outputs between many cascaded H-bridge, hybrid H-bridge and
voltage or current levels and have multiple new hybrid H-bridge multilevel inverters.
voltage or current sources. A multilevel Out of these topologies, cascaded H-bridge
inverter can be implemented in different multilevel inverter has been attracted much
topology [6-10] with its own advantages attention of the Electrical Engineers due to
and limitations. The simplest technique its simplicity. The serially connected H-
adopted is parallel or series connection of bridge with separate DC source is called as
conventional inverters to form the cascaded H-bridge multilevel inverter. In
multilevel inverter. More complex this type of configuration voltage on each
structures involve, inserting inverter within DC source is same value 1]. However, the
inverter to form a multilevel inverter. multilevel inverter has drawbacks like
trouble in increasing the voltage levels in
The main function of a multilevel
the power switching devices, switching
inverter is to produce a desired AC voltage
losses, circuit complexity and economic
level from several DC voltage sources. This
aspects. Also, the increasing number of
DC voltage source may or may not be equal
switching devices tends to reduce the
to one another. The AC voltage produced
overall reliability and efficiency of the
from this DC voltage appears to be a
power converter. The main objective
sinusoidal. One pitfall of using multilevel
of the present works is to design and
inverter is to approximate sinusoidal
implement cascaded H-bridge multilevel
waveforms concern with harmonics. The
inverters with minimum number of
staircase waveform produced by a
switching devices in order to minimize the
multilevel inverter contains sharp
overall energy loss and total harmonic
transitions. The harmonics generated on the
distortion, and thereby improve the
AC side greatly influence the power quality
performance of the inverters.
of the control system. The multilevel
II.DESCRIPTIONOF PROPOSED MI0, and the lower switches by MIl and

MULTILEVEL INVERTER MI2. The Arduino Mega 2560 is a

microcontroller board based on the
The block diagram of the multilevel
ATmega2560. It has 54 digital input/output
inverter circuit used in the present study is
pins, 16 analog inputs, a 16 MHz crystal
shown in Fig. 1. Three single-phase H-
oscillator, a USB connection, a power jack,
bridge inverter units are connected in series
an ICSP header, and a reset button.
to form a cascaded multilevel inverter. The
general function of this multilevel inverter
is to obtain a desired voltage at the output
from three separate de sources, 6 v, 12 v and
18 v, which may he obtained from batteries,
fuel cells, or solar cells. The multilevel
inverter consists of three H-bridge inverters
connected in series. One separate de source
is connected to an H-bridge inverter.

The ac terminal voltages of different

level inverters are connected in series. The Figure 1. block diagram of the proposed
cascaded inverter does not require-any cascaded H-Bridge multilevel inverter
voltage-clamping diodes or voltage-
The microcontroller has been used to
balancing capacitors like the diode-clamp
generate proper gate signals for MOSFETs.
or flying-capacitors inverter [1]. Each H-
An optocoupler is used for each switch for
bridge consists of four IRF540 MOSFET
isolating gate signal from the main power
switches. In H-bridge 1, MOSFET switches
circuit. Generated pulses from
are denoted as MI, M2, M3 and M4. The
microcontroller are applied to optocoupler
upper two switches are indicated by Ml and
through a resistor. The phase output voltage
M2, and the lower switches by M3 and M4.
is synthesized by the sum of three inverter
In H-bridge 2, MOSFET switches are
outputs as shown in Fig. 1. Each inverter
denoted as M5, M6, M7 and M8. The upper
level can generate three different voltage
two switches are indicated by M5 and M6,
outputs, +Vde, 0, and -Vde, by connecting
and the lower switches by M7 and M8. In
the de source to the ac output side by
H-bridge 3, MOSFET switches are
different combinations of the four switches,
indicated by M9, M10, M11 and M12. The
MI, M2, M3 and M4. Switching off all
upper two switches are indicated by M9 and
 switches yields zero output voltage. minimized by using proper power witching
Similarly, the ac output voltage at each level devices and suitable gate drive circuits.
can be obtained in the same manner.
TABLE 1. OUTPUT VOLTAGE LEVELS

III.EXPERIMENTAL RESULTSAND FOR 7-LEVEL MULTILEVEL INVERTER

BASED ON OFF AND ON STATES
DISCUSSION
OF POWER SWITCHES
The experimental setup for studying
the cascaded multilevel inverter is shown in
Fig. 2. The on/off state of MOSFET power
switches for 7 levels output voltage
obtained from a multilevel inverter Total harmonic distortion in the output
consisting of three cascaded H-bridge units voltage has been calculated for 7-level, 9-
is shown in Table I. Experimental output level, 11-level and 13-level cascaded H-
voltages across the load for 7-level, 9-level, bridge multilevel inverters and they are
1-level and 13-level cascaded H-bridge found to be 23.41%, 21.85%, 20.57% and
multilevel inverters are shown in Figs. 3-6. 17.06%, respectively.

Figure 3. 7-level output voltage across the

load obtained from the experimental study.
Figure 2. Experimental setup for studying
multilevel inverter

It is found that there are switching

spikes in the output voltages as shown in
the Figures. This switching spike can be
 A 7-level output voltage is obtained
from a cascaded three H-bridge inverters by
applying proper gate signals to the specific
MOSFET switches. Similarly 9-level, 11-
level and 13-level output voltages are found
from the experimental study. Total
harmonic distortion was calculated from the
experimental results using simulink
software. It is observed that total harmonic
Figure 4. Output voltage of a 9-level distortion decreases with increasing the
multilevel inverter consisting of three H- number of level of the output voltage of
bridge units multilevel inverter. The total number of
MOSFET switch used in this study was 12.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The authors are grateful to the

Institute of Energy, Environment. Research
and Development of the University of Asia
Pacific, Dhaka, Bangladesh for partial
funding of this research works.

Figure 5. 11-level output voltage REFERENCES

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