Provide a New Basic Unit for Cascaded Multilevel Inverter by Reducing the Maximum Blocking Voltage and Switches

Multilevel converters provide high power capability, associated with low output harmonics and low commutation losses. Disadvantages of these converters are their complexity, requiring a great quantity of power devices and passive components, and a rather complex control circuitry. This work researches a novel multilevel converter topology using bidirectional and unidirectional auxiliary switches. In this article, a novel basic unit is recommended for cascaded multilevel converters. This unit is comprised of series connection of two basic units. The final topology is obtained from n-unit series of recommended unit. Important advantages of this topology are reducing maximum blocking voltage and Switches. Three different algorithms have been recommended to measure values of dc voltage sources and create symmetric and asymmetric modes. In this article, in addition to compare the recommended structure with conventional topologies, the ability of the recommended structure in generating all voltage levels is verified by simulation results of a 13-level inverter.