Study and Analysis of a Novel Three-Phase Hybrid Cascaded Multilevel Inverter with Less Number of Power Electronic Switches

This paper introduces a novel three-phase hybrid multilevel inverter (MLI). The presented structure consists of two sections, named as a basic module and auxiliary unit. Cascade connection of basic modules contributes to an augment in the number of generated output level while the auxiliary unit helps to double it. In this paper, high and low-frequency switching techniques are applied to synthesize the converter AC side voltage waveform. The fundamental frequency strategy is employed as a low-frequency technique, and also multicarrier level-shifted sinusoidal pulse-width modulation (LSPWM) is applied as a high-frequency modulation method. Since the number of semiconductor components against the number of generated output levels is an essential factor in designing MLIs, the proposed circuit is compared with the conventional inverters to show the merits of the new topology. Simulation is performed in MATLAB/SIMULINK to ensure the feasibility and performance of the proposed topology.