Cascaded H–Bridge Multilevel Inverter: Review of Topologies and Pulse Width Modulation

Abstract

Multilevel inverters (MLIs) have become more popular for medium-voltage and high-power applications. The cascaded H-bridge multilevel inverter (CHBMLI) is one of the three most popular topologies of MLIs. It was more reliable due to its fewer components per level. The number of possible output voltage levels is more than twice the number of DC sources, the most suitable topology for integration with renewable energy sources, easy to design, and has good performance with modularity. The main disadvantage of CHBMLI is the need for separate DC sources for each H-bridge. However, this can be considered as an advantage to be employed in renewable energy applications. This paper provides a review of CHBMLI topologies and pulse width modulation (PWM) techniques, including fundamental and high switching frequency techniques, such as selective harmonic elimination (SHE), space vector modulation (SVM), nearest level modulation (NLM), and Carrier-Based PWM.