Novel single-phase five-level voltage-source inverter

This paper presents a new single-phase five-level voltage-source inverter. The proposed design improved on the complex circuit structure of a conventional multilevel inverter and achieved as much output voltage levels as possible with fewer power switches. In this topology two power switches were used together with a conventional single-phase H-bridge voltage-source inverter. By using six power switches, five output voltage levels can be obtained at ac side. Simple PWM (Pulse-Width Modulation) control was achieved. The simple PWM control strategy was presented on the base of analysis of operating principles and six working model. Experimental results verify the validity of the proposed topology and control strategy.