A new symmetric cascaded multilevel inverter topology with reduced number of power electronic components

Researchers try to improve the multilevel inverters performance or make them more economically proposing new switching algorithms or novel structures. In this paper, a new structure is proposed for symmetric cascaded multilevel inverter which has a simpler structure and uses fewer power switches compared to conventional cascaded inverter. The reduction in the number of power electronic devices will result in the reduction of the economic cost, installation area and switching losses. The proposed structure consists of a number of separate voltage sources at the input side to generate different voltage levels and an H-bridge at the output side. Switches also connect the input voltage sources to the output in a direct form or in series. Input sources can be isolated batteries or renewable energy sources such as solar cells and or fuel cells. Using fundamental switching frequency, the proposed inverter capable of generating 7 levels of voltage at the output, is simulated by use of MATLAB/SIMULINK software. The simulation results confirm the performance accuracy and capability of the proposed inverter to generate different voltage levels.