International Journal of Engineering and Technical Research (IJETR)

ISSN: 2321-0869, Volume-3, Issue-4, April 2015

Power Quality Enhancement of Diode Clamped

Multilevel Inverter Using Different Modulation
Schemes
Rahul Kumar Sahu, Govind Pandiya, E Vijay Kumar
multilevel inverters. The inverters with voltage level 3 or
Abstract Maximum utilization of DC bus voltage with more are referred as multilevel inverters. Multilevel inverters
improved Power Quality spectral performance are the have become attractiverecently particularly because of the
highlights of third harmonic current injection modulation increased power ratings, improved harmonic performance
scheme for multilevel inverters. In this paper an extensive
and reduced EMI emission that can be achieved with the
investigation on third harmonic injection based modulation
scheme has been proposed. Thus an improved performance in
multiple DC levels that are available for synthesis of the
terms of reduced THD and higher RMS value has been achieved output voltage.
by a control strategy with lesser complexity; thereby preserving Limited fossil fuel reserves and ever increasing
the simplicity of carrier based conventional modulation scheme. population are posing a challenging issue of catering the
The proposed switching strategy is investigated through increasing demand of electrical energy. At the same time,
MATLAB simulation. environmental issues such as global warming are also a cause
of serious concern to humanity. In response to these
problems, most countries have adopted policies which
Index Terms Power Quality, THD, MATLAB/Simulink broadly cover two directives:
Efficient utilization of current energy resources.
Finding out ways for effective utilization of renewable
I. INTRODUCTION
energy resources.
The concept of multilevel power conversion has been gaining The conversion of power from one form to another is
popularity mainly due to improved power quality, lower a major part of the utilization process. Hence, an
switching losses, better electromagnetic compatibility, and efficient and effective conversion process is needed
higher voltage capability. These converters are suitable in to reduce the waste of energy and improve the power
high-voltage and high-power applications due to their ability quality.
to synthesize waveforms with better harmonic spectrum and The most commonly used multilevel topology is the diode
attain higher voltages with a limited maximum device rating. clamped inverter, in which the diode is used as the clamping
These improvements in power conversion are achieved by device to clamp the DC bus voltage so as to achieve steps in
using multiple voltage steps strategy which is an essential the output voltage. The neutral point converter proposed by
reason for medium voltage operation to lowering dv/dt and Nabae, Takahashi, and Akagi in 1981 was essentially a
reducing stress on motor winding insulations. Multilevel three-level diode-clamped inverter. A three-level diode
power conversion has been receiving increasing attention in clamped inverter consists of two pairs of switches and two
past few years for high power applications. Numerous diodes. Each switch pairs works in complimentary mode and
topologies and modulation strategies have been introduced the diodes used to provide access to mid-point voltage. In a
and studied extensively for utility and drive applications in the three-level inverter each of the three phases of the inverter
recent literatures. shares a common DC bus, which has been subdivided by two
In recent years, industry has begun to demand higher capacitors into three levels. The DC bus voltage is split into
power equipment, which now reaches the megawatt level. three voltage levels by using two series connections of DC
Controlled AC drives in the megawatt range are usually capacitors. The voltage stress across each switching device is
connected to the medium-voltage network. Today, it is hard to limited to Vdc through the clamping diodes . It is assumed that
connect a single power semiconductor switch directly to the total DC link voltage isVdcand mid-point is regulated at
medium voltage grids. For these reasons, a new family of half of the DC link voltage, the voltage across each capacitors
multilevel inverters has emerged as the solution for working is VDC /2 .In a three level diode clamped inverter, there are
with higher voltage levels. three different possible switching states which apply the stair
Depending on voltage levels of the output voltage, the case voltage on output voltage relating to DC
inverters can be classified as two-level inverters and linkcapacitorsvoltage rate. For a three-level inverter, a set of
two switches is on at any given time and in a five-level
inverter, a set of four switches is on at any given time and so
Manuscript received April 22, 2015.
Rahul Kumar Sahu, P G Student, Dept. of Electrical Engineering on.
,Bhopal Insttitute of Technology The simplest PWM technique implementation can be done
Govind Pandiya, HOD, Dept. of Electrical Engineering, Bhopal using a triangular carrier signal withfrequency fc trying to
Insttitute of Science and Technology modulate a reference signal with lower frequency fs. A
E Vijay Kumar, Ph.D Scholar, AISECT University, Bhopak & Work
as HOD , Dept. of Electrical Engineering ,R K D F Institute of Science and sinusoidal reference signal is modulated using a triangular
Technology carrier obtaining a high frequency PWM pulse train

389 www.erpublication.org
 Power Quality Enhancement of Diode Clamped Multilevel Inverter Using Different Modulation Schemes

.Multilevel PWM can be obtained using more than one to the point of consumption combined with variations in
triangular carrier. For an N-level converter, N-1 carriers are weather, generation, demand and other factors provide many
arranged in contiguous bands across the full linear modulation opportunities for the quality of supply to be compromised.
range of the multilevel converter. All the carriers have the While "power quality" is a convenient term for many, it is the
same frequency and amplitude and the reference waveform is quality of the voltage rather than power or electric current that
placed in the middle of the carrier bands. After reviewing the is actually described by the term. Power is simply the flow of
existing literature on various aspects relating to Investigations energy and the current demanded by a load is largely
on Control Strategies of Multilevel Inverters Topology, the uncontrollable.
focus area of this paper willbe on Pulse Width Modulation
Strategies based on third harmonic Performance indices like III. CONTROL SCHEME
%THD, Crest Factor (CF) and Form Factor (FF) related to The control scheme for the multilevel can be explained from
power quality issues will be evaluated, presented and the waveform shown below in Fig.1and Fig.2. Thewave form
analyzed. The variation of Total Harmonic Distortion (THD) shown below shows the carrier and reference current for a
in the inverter output voltage will be observed for various nine level diode clamped multilevel inverter. As it can be
modulation indices. verified from the figure that a third harmonic waveform has
been superimposed on a fundamental reference wave . The
II. POWER QUALITY resultant reference wave form is a flat topped wave having a
Power quality determines the fitness of electrical modulation index less than 1.
power to consumer devices. Synchronization of the voltage
frequency and phase allows electrical systems to function in
their intended manner without significant loss of performance 15

or life. The term is used to describe electric power that drives

an electrical load and the load's ability to function properly. 10

Without the proper power, an electrical device (or load) may 5

malfunction, fail prematurely or not operate at all. There are

many ways in which electric power can be of poor quality and 0

many more causes of such poor quality power.

-5

The electric power industry Comprises Electricity -10

generation (AC power), electric power transmission and

-15
ultimately electricity distribution to an electricity 0 0.005 0.01 0.015 0.02 0.025 0.03 0.035 0.04

meter located at the premises of the end user of the electric

power. The electricity then moves through the wiring system
of the end user until it reaches the load. The complexity of the Fig. 1 carrier and reference waveform
system to move electric energy from the point of production

Fig.2 subsystem for the proposed modulation scheme

390 www.erpublication.org
 International Journal of Engineering and Technical Research (IJETR)
ISSN: 2321-0869, Volume-3, Issue-4, April 2015

IV. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

15

10

-5

-10

-15
0 0.005 0.01 0.015 0.02 0.025 0.03 0.035 0.04

Fig. 3 carrier and refrence wave form for modulation index 1and k=.21

FFT window: 4 of 5 cycles of selected signal

200
0
-200

0 0.01 0.02 0.03 0.04 0.05 0.06 0.07

Time (s)

Fundamental (50Hz) = 379.2 , THD= 25.84%

100
Mag (% of Fundamental)

80

60

40

20

0
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000
Frequency (Hz)

Fig. 4 Voltage wavefom for Ma=0.9,k=0.21

FFT window: 4 of 5 cycles of selected signal

200

-200
0 0.01 0.02 0.03 0.04 0.05 0.06 0.07
Time (s)

Fundamental (50Hz) = 341.1 , THD= 28.64%

100
Mag (% of Fundamental)

80

60

40

20

0
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000
Frequency (Hz)

Fig. 5 Voltage wavefom for Ma=0.8,k=0.25

391 www.erpublication.org
 Power Quality Enhancement of Diode Clamped Multilevel Inverter Using Different Modulation Schemes

FFT window: 4 of 5 cycles of selected signal

400
200
0
-200
-400
0 0.01 0.02 0.03 0.04 0.05 0.06 0.07
Time (s)

Fundamental (50Hz) = 432.7 , THD= 24.85%

100
Mag (% of Fundamental)

80

60

40

20

0
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000
Frequency (Hz)

Fig. 6 Voltage wavefom for Ma=1.0,k=0.21

15

10

-5

-10

-15
0 0.002 0.004 0.006 0.008 0.01 0.012 0.014 0.016 0.018 0.02

Fig. 7 carrier and refrence wave form for modulation index 1and k=0.5

FFT window: 4 of 5 cycles of selected signal

200
0
-200

0 0.01 0.02 0.03 0.04 0.05 0.06 0.07

Time (s)

Fundamental (50Hz) = 381.9 , THD= 50.10%

100
Mag (% of Fundamental)

80

60

40

20

0
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000
Frequency (Hz)

Fig. 8 Voltage wavefom for Ma=0.9,k=0.5

392 www.erpublication.org
 International Journal of Engineering and Technical Research (IJETR)
ISSN: 2321-0869, Volume-3, Issue-4, April 2015

FFT window: 4 of 5 c y cles of selec ted signal

400
200
0
-200
-400
0 0.01 0.02 0.03 0.04 0.05 0.06 0.07
Time (s)

Fundamental (50Hz) = 349.1 , THD= 57.96%

100
Mag (% of Fundamental)

80

60

40

20

0
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000
Frequenc y (Hz)

Fig. 9 Voltage wavefom for Ma=0.8, k=0.5

AsymmetricalMultilevel Inverters," Industrial Electronics, IEEE

Transations on , vol.57, no.7, pp.2297-2306, July 2010
The simulation results for the proposed scheme has been
shown for different modulation index Ma, and for different [3] F. Z. Peng, J. S. Lai, J. W. McKeever, J. VanCoevering, A Multilevel
value of harmonic injection constant k. for example k=0.5 Voltage-Source Inverter with Separate DC Sources for Static Var
means the ratio of the injected harmonic signal to refrence is Generation, IEEE TransACtions on Industry Applications, vol. 32,
0.5. It can be clearly observed from Fig.3 and Fig. 7 that the no. 5, Sept. 1996, pp. 1130-1138.
variation in the value of k results in a sharp dip in the peak
[4] M. Manjrekar and T. Lipo, A Hybrid Multilevel Inverter Topology for
value of modulation signal. Furthermore a decrement in rms Drive Applications, in Proceedings of the IEEE Applied Power
value of fundamental component is observed at reduced Electronics Conference (APEC), Vol. 2, 1998, pp. 523 529.
modulation index , on the contrary a slight variation in THD is
observed. On the other hand from Fig. 5 and Fig.9 , for [5] P. Steimer and M. Manjrekar, Practical Medium Voltage Converter
ma=0.8 and k=0.25, rms fundamental value is 341.1volts and Topologies for High Power Applications, in Proceedings of the IEEE
Industry Applications Society Annual Meeting (IAS), Vol. 3, 2001,
THD is 28.64%, while for the same Ma and k=0.5, rms value
pp. 17231730.
increses to 349.1 while THD is 57.96%. Thus it can be
concluded that increase in harmonic injection magnitude k [6] J. Holtz, "Pulse Width Modulation- A Survey", IEEE Transactions on
results in maximum utilisation of DC bus but at the same time Industrial Electronics, Vol. 39, No. 5, pp. 410-420, October 1992.
also deteriotes the spectral propperties of the wave form as
shown in table.1 [7] G. Carrara, S. Gardella, M. Marchesoni, R. Salutari, and G. Sciutto, A
New Multilevel PWM Method: A Theoretical Analysis, IEEE Trans.
on Power Electronics, vol. 7, no. 3, pp. 497-505, July 1992.
K=0.5 K=0.25
Modulatio THD RMS THD RMS value [8] Palanivel, P.; Dash, S.S.; , "Analysis of THD and output voltage
n index value performance for cascaded multilevel inverter using carrier pulse width
Ma=0.8 57.96 349.1 28.64 341.1 modulation techniques," Power Electronics, IET , vol.4, no.8,
pp.951-958, September 2011.
Ma=0.9 50.10 381.9 25.84 379.2
[9] Wenxi Yao; Haibing Hu; Zhengyu Lu; "Comparisons of Spacee-Vector
Modulation and Carrier-Based Modulation of Multilevel Inverter,"
Power Electronics, IEEE Transactions on, vol.23, no.1, pp.45-51, Jan.
2008.
V. V CONCLUSIONS
From thesimulation results it can be cocluded that [10] Gupta, K.K.; Jain, S.; "Topology for multilevel inverters to attain
harmonic injection in refrence current waveform has a maximum number of levels from given DC sources," Power
significant influence on the magnitude of outvoltage and Electronics, IET, vol.5, no.4, pp.435-446, April 2012.
spectral properties of output voltage waveform. A proper
Sepahvand, H.; Jingsheng Liao; Ferdowsi, M.; , "Investigation on
value of k and modulation index may result in an improved CapacitorsVoltage Regulation in Cascaded H-Bridge Multilevel
perfomance in terms of THD and DC bus utilisation. Converters With Fundamental Frequency Switching," Industrial
Electronics, IEEE Transactions on , vol.58, no.11, pp.5102-5111,
Nov. 2011
REFERENCES

[1] Mariusz Malinowski, K. Gopakumar, Jose Rodriguez, and Marcelo A.

Prez, A Survey on Cascaded Multilevel InvertersIEEE
TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 57,
NO. 7, JULY 2010

[2] Zambra, D.A.B.; Rech, C.; Pinheiro, J.R.; , "Comparison of

Neutral-Point-Clamped, Symmetrical, and Hybrid

393 www.erpublication.org