High-resolution numeral-based multilevel inverter with low number of conducting switches for low-voltage PV applications

A new high-resolution staircase-output multilevel inverter for low voltage PV applications is proposed in this paper. The proposed topology can provide high number of levels with low number of sources and conducting switches. A 1-2-7-14-source version of this new topology can generate 49 levels with 4 sources, 30 total switches and 6¹ conducting switches. The topology also can be expanded horizontally and vertically to achieve higher resolution. In addition, a multiwinding-based variant of the topology is proposed with lower number of switches and one DC source. Experimental results show the feasibility of the inverter. At last, the proposed topology was compared with other staircase topologies considering important parameters in low voltage PV systems.