A Metaheuristic Approach for Eleven-Level Switched-Capacitor Multilevel Inverter Modulation

The transcendental equations can be solved by employing analytical or metaheuristic approaches. The metaheuristic approaches are easier to understand and when implemented result in solutions with proximity to the exact solution. The selective harmonic elimination problem for inverters requires solutions to such transcendental equations under a constrained environment. This problem becomes more complex for multilevel inverters. Hence the nature-inspired techniques serve as a good and fast solution platform. In this work, the ant colony optimization technique has been applied to solve the transcendental equations that will fetch five angles for modulation indexes for wide operation range. This in turn will lead to an AC voltage of a controlled fundamental and four controlled harmonics, that is, 3
^rd
, 5
^th
, 7
^th
, and 9
^th
. Further, this work presents the comparison of the 11-level results thus obtained with the conventional nearest-level control.