A Step-up Reduced Device Count 31-Level Switched Capacitor Multilevel Inverter with Asymmetric DC Sources

This paper presents a novel switched capacitor multilevel inverter (SCMLI). The proposed inverter can synthesize 31 output voltage levels with the help of 14 unidirectional switches, 6 capacitors, 2 diodes, and 2 DC sources. The proposed inverter has self output voltage-boosting and capacitor voltage balancing abilities. The working principle, voltage stress across switches, and optimal capacitor selection have been discussed in detail. The developed SCMLI is compared with the recently reported SCMLI structures in terms of component count, total standing voltage (TSV), boosting factor, requirement of the H-bridge circuit, and cost-effectiveness of the structure. The comparison study reveals that the developed inverter needs significantly fewer components to realize a better quality output voltage waveform than others. The extensive simulation study of the developed 31-level SCMLI is conducted in MATLAB-Simulink platform under different load conditions and the performance of the inverter is validated.