A Novel Vector-Based Pulse-Width Modulation for Cascaded H-Bridge Multilevel Inverters

The conventional space vector pulse-width modulation (SVPWM) for cascaded H-bridge inverters (CHBIs) has problems of computational complexity and memory requirements. Operation in overmodulation mode is the other reason for the complexity in SVPWM. This paper proposes a novel modulation method, named as level vector pulse-width modulation (LVPWM), for voltage control of CHBIs. The concept of the proposed method is similar to the SVPWM but with different vector diagram and dwell times calculations. Unlike the SVPWM, the α and β axes and also their variables are considered separately without gathering in complex variables. The vector diagram has two separated α and β axes each of which contains individual switching vectors and reference vectors. The selection of the vectors to synthesize the reference vectors depends only on the amplitudes of the reference vectors. The computational overhead and memory requirement are independent of the number of cascaded H-bridges. Lower computational overhead and easy and continuous extension to overmodulation region are the advantages of the proposed method compared with the SVPWM-based methods. Moreover, the switching algorithm achieves improved efficiency for the inverter. Simulation and experimental results verify the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.