Cascaded Half-Bridge Multilevel Inverter with Reduced Number of Power Switches

This paper proposes a novel multilevel inverter. The proposed topology is synthesized with several basic modules and one complementary module. Each basic module is able to realize either a positive or negative voltage level but not a zero voltage level. Therefore, the complementary module, which is able to realize positive, negative, and zero voltage levels, makes up this disability of the basic modules. Using half-bridge cells instead of full-bridge cells, the proposed topology is able to reduce the number of power switches required to construct a multilevel inverter. This topology has a modular structure with symmetric dc sources. Simulation results along with experimental results are provided to validate the feasibility of the proposed topology.