Soft computing-based harmonic elimination PWM techniques for multi-level voltage source inverter

Harmonic elimination pulse width modulation (HEPWM) method has been widely applied to improve the harmonics profile of the multilevel voltage source inverter (MVSI). However, the computation of the HEPWM switching angles for MVSI is very challenging due to the non-linear and transcendental nature of the equations. With the proliferation of low cost and powerful computers, the soft computing (SC) approach seems to be well suited to handle the complexity of the HEPWM based MVSI. This paper attempts to summarize and highlights the most common SC methods used to solve HEPWM problem. In addition, a case study to solve the HEPWM angles for fifteen level no-notch and seven level notch type MVSI is demonstrated. The results are proved using simulation and hardware.