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Article history:
Received 30 July 2013
Received in revised form 17 May 2014
Accepted 20 May 2014
Available online 3 July 2014
Keywords:
Diode clamped inverter
Multilevel inverter
Pulse width modulation
Switched-capacitor converter
a b s t r a c t
The diode-clamped multilevel topology has the problem of voltage unbalance of dc link capacitors. This
can be solved by using separate DC sources, or adding auxiliary circuits or adopting space vector modulation control in three-level inverter applications. For higher level applications, the use of separate DC
sources is not viable and the control techniques for other two methods will be more complicated to
implement. Hence the Hybrid Multilevel Inverter Based on Switched-Capacitor and Diode-Clamped units
can be used for higher levels. This topology can balance the capacitor voltage and also step up the output
voltage. The boosting of output voltage contributes to lessen the transformation ratio of the input transformer or even eliminate it, thereby reducing the cost, which will benet the design of converters in mediumhigh voltage applications. The topology is simulated using MAT lab simulink software and compared
with other voltage balancing techniques.
2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Introduction
Recently, multilevel inverters [6] have drawn tremendous interest in the eld of high-voltage and high-power applications
because it can realize high voltage and high power output through
low-voltage switches without transformer and dynamic voltage
balance circuits, with the number of output level increasing,
harmonics of the output voltage and current are decreasing and
EM1 are decreasing Multilevel inverters are mainly classied as
diode-clamped, capacitor-clamped and cascaded H-bridge
inverters.
Among the basic multilevel inverters the problem of voltage
unbalance of dc link capacitors exists inherently in the diodeclamped converter topology [13,15], which limits the further application [5] of it, especially at the level above three. To balance the
voltage of DC link series capacitors, three main approaches have
been proposed. They are: (1) using separate DC sources, [3,7], (2)
adding some auxiliary balancing circuits [8,9,16] and (3) improving
the control method by selecting redundant switching states, [4,10].
By auxiliary circuits, the transferred current or power can be controlled accurately, but the additional feedback control strategies
are also needed, so the control of these converters becomes more
complicated, and converters are less reliable.
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K.S. Gayathri Devi et al. / Electrical Power and Energy Systems 63 (2014) 363372
365
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Table 1
Relationships between the output voltage V0 and the working states.
No. of working states
Output level Vo
S1
S2
S3
S4
S5
S6
Group A
Group B
+2Vdc
2
3
+1Vdc
1
0
1
1
1
1
0
1
0
0
0
0
1
0
0
1
4
5
0Vdc
0
0
1
0
1
1
1
1
0
1
0
0
1
0
0
1
6
7
1Vdc
0
0
0
0
1
0
1
1
1
1
0
1
1
0
0
1
2Vdc
Table 2
First kind of working states combination for HMI-BSD.
No. of working states
Output level Vo
S1
S2
S3
S4
S5
S6
Group A
Group B
1
2
4
6
8
+2Vdc
+1Vdc
0Vdc
1Vdc
2Vdc
1
1
0
0
0
1
1
1
0
0
1
1
1
1
0
0
0
1
1
1
0
0
0
1
1
0
0
0
0
1
0
1
1
1
1
1
0
0
0
0
Table 3
Second kind of working states combination for HMI-BSD.
No. of working states
Output level Vo
S1
S2
S3
S4
S5
S6
Group A
Group B
1
3
5
7
8
+2Vdc
+1Vdc
0Vdc
1Vdc
2Vdc
1
0
0
0
0
1
1
0
0
0
1
1
1
0
0
0
1
1
1
1
0
0
1
1
1
0
0
0
1
1
0
0
0
0
1
1
1
1
1
0
Fig. 5. PWM carriers for rst and second kind of working states.
K.S. Gayathri Devi et al. / Electrical Power and Energy Systems 63 (2014) 363372
367
three-phase topology. And for a ve-level topology, only the connection mode 1 can be used. The function of boosting the output
voltage of the HMI-BSD contributes to lessening the transformation ratio of the input transformer, thereby reducing the cost, even
to eliminate the input transformer, which will benet the design of
converters in mediumhigh voltage application. On the other hand,
compared to the conventional switched-capacitor topology, less
switching devices and dc link capacitors are needed in the HMIBSD, which can also reduce the production cost in applications.
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obtained are 0 V, 45 V, 90 V, 135 V and 180 V. The switching frequency is 5 kHz. Figs. 8 and 9 shows the output voltage and capacitor voltage of ve level diode clamped inverter.
From Fig. 10 it can be observed that the voltage of capacitors 1,
and 4 are increasing to 90 while the voltage across capacitors 2 and
3 are decreasing to 20 V. From Fig. 10 it can be observed that the
K.S. Gayathri Devi et al. / Electrical Power and Energy Systems 63 (2014) 363372
369
sources the voltage will be balanced but for this each level requires
a separate DC source and is expensive. Another method that uses
separate DC sources are called cascaded H-bridge inverter. This
needs separate DC sources for each bridge. The simulation of cascaded H-bridge inverter is done with 110 V DC input to each bridge.
Phase disposition SPWM is used for generating gate pulses and the
carrier frequency is 5 kHz. The output voltage is shown in Fig. 11.
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Table 4
Comparison of different ve level topologies.
DC Link Capacitors
Flying Capacitors
Resonant capacitors
Inductors
Diodes
No. of main switching devices
No. of clamping switching
devices
No. of DC sources
THD in %
HMIBSD
DCI with
RSCC
CHB
DCI
2
3
0
0
4
6
6
0
4
2
2
6
8
8
0
0
0
0
0
8
0
4
0
0
0
6
8
0
1
17.42
1
18.19
2
18.42
1
25.18
Conclusion
The structure and the principle of operation of Hybrid Multilevel Inverter Based on Switched Capacitor and Diode Clamped
units are introduced. The switched-capacitor circuits are applied
to balance the voltage of dc link capacitors and ying capacitors,
as well as participate in synthesizing the output voltage levels.
Both advantages of the switched-capacitor and the diode-clamped
circuits are included in the HMI-BSD by the combination of the two
circuits. Not only this new topology balances dc link capacitors, but
also it can step up the output voltage with kinds of boosting
modes, which will contribute to lessen the turns ratio of the input
transformer, even to eliminate it. In conclusion, the application of
the switched-capacitor circuit in the HMI-BSD can reduce the cost
to a certain extent. The HMI-BSD can operate effectively under the
three-phase condition. Finally, the validity of the HMI-BSD is veried by the simulation of ve level HMI-BSD and compared with
other ve level topologies used for voltage balancing.
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