A novel design and performance improvement of symmetric multilevel inverter with reduced switches using genetic algorithm

Abstract

Multilevel inverter (MLI) synthesizes the preferred level of alternating voltage from multiple input sources of lower-level direct voltage. By adopting a suitable harmonic elimination technique, the MLI produces stepped sinusoidal waveforms with reduced total harmonic distortion (THD) without using any filter-based applications. MLI will be an apt choice for industries operating under medium- and high-power alternating current (AC) drives, and this finds application in interfacing non-conventional energy sources with power grid lines. This paper emphasizes a novel design of performance-enhanced cascaded MLI (PEC-MLI) with less quantity of switching devices for renewable energy system. The desired switching of MLI cost function is calculated using Genetic Algorithm (GA), and the appraised firing angle is calculated and the same is given as input to the Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) technique coded with chosen Nearest Voltage Level (NVL) control scheme. The gating signals generated for switching devices with the control strategies of NVL—PWM and hybrid PWM techniques using Genetic Algorithm. The MATLAB/Simulink model successfully evaluates the performance of proposed MLI. The simulated results analyze the system efficiency by comparing it with other similar MLI configuration cited in recent research articles. An effective realization of proposed MLI is experimented successfully and whose results are found be satisfactory with the simulated results.