Design and implementation of an efficient PWM technique for multilevel inverters with power quality monitoring

Abstract

Multilevel inverters are one of the important components of modern smart grids and the grid integration of renewable energy sources is not possible without them. In this paper, an asymmetrical switch ladder multilevel inverter (ASLMLI) topology is used to develop a 17-level inverter. The switching pulses for the proposed inverter are developed efficiently using a binary search algorithm based on the grid voltage as a reference. A graphical user interface (GUI) based power quality monitoring system is also developed that senses the grid signals accurately to serve them as a reference for grid integration purposes. The loss and efficiency analysis of the ASLMLI is carried out in the form of generic design equations. A comparative study shows the effectiveness of the proposed system in terms of the accuracy of power quality monitoring. The simulation of the ASLMLI is carried out in MATLAB/Simulink, and the power quality monitoring system is developed using a data acquisition card (DAC) and National Instruments (NI) LABVIEW GUI