A Comparison of Symmetrical and Asymmetrical Three-Phase H-Bridge Multilevel Inverter for DTC Induction Motor Drives

Earlier studies have pointed out the limitations of conventional inverters, especially in high-voltage and high-power applications. In recent years, multilevel inverters are becoming increasingly popular for high-power applications due to their improved harmonic profile and increased power ratings. Several studies have been reported in the literature on multilevel inverters topologies, control techniques, and applications. However, there are few studies that actually discuss or evaluate the performance of induction motor drives associated with three-phase multilevel inverter. This paper presents then a comparison study for a cascaded H-bridge multilevel direct torque control (DTC) induction motor drive. In this case, symmetrical and asymmetrical arrangements of five- and seven-level H-bridge inverters are compared in order to find an optimum arrangement with lower switching losses and optimized output voltage quality. The carried out experiments show that an asymmetrical configuration provides nearly sinusoidal voltages with very low distortion, using less switching devices. Moreover, torque ripples are greatly reduced.