Elimination of Selective Harmonics in a Multi-Level Inverter

P.K.

Dhal

C. Christober Asir Rajan

Sathyabama University, Chennai, India

Pondicherry Engineering College, Puducherry, India

E-mail: pradyumna.dhal@rediffmail.com

E-mail: asir_70@pec.edu

Abstract-This paper presents a selective harmonics

elimination in Multi-Level Inverter. The basic concept of this
reduction is to eliminate specific harmonics, which are
generally of the lowest orders, with an appropriate choice of
switching angles. This paper employs Homotopy algorithm
to solve the transcendental equations for finding the switching
angles. This method solves the non-linear transcendental
equations with a much simpler formulation and without
complex analytical calculations for any number of voltage
levels. Also several informative simulation results verifY the
validity and effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.

high power, three-phase, voltage-controlled inverters and

for fixed frequency, fixed-voltage UPS systems. For any
chosen objective function, the optimal switching pattern
depends on the desired modulation index. In the existing
practice, the switching patterns are pre-computed for all the
required values of this index, and stored in look-up tables of
a microprocessor-based modulator [4]. This requires a large
memory and computation of the switching angles in real
time is, as yet, impossible. To overcome this problem, attempts
were made to use approximate formulas, at the expense of
reduced quality of the inverter voltage [5-7].

Keyword:

Recently, alternate methods of implementing these switching

patterns have been developed. Without using a real time
solution of nonlinear harmonic elimination equation, an ANN
is trained off-line to output the switching angles for wanted
output voltage [8-12]. The greatest disadvantage of this
application is the use in training and stage the desired switching
angles given by the solving of the harmonic elimination
equation by the classical method, i.e., the Newton Raphson
method. This algorithm requires starting values for the angles
and does not always converge to the required solution. To
give a solution to this problem, powers electronics researches
always study many novel control techniques to reduce
harmonics in such waveforms. For instance, the transforming
of the transcendental non-linear equation into polynomial
equations [7], produces a simple algebraic equation to define
the harmonic-elimination switching angles [6] and by using
piecewise constant orthogonal functions [16].

Multilevel Inverter,
Optimization Technique.

Homotopy

Algorithm,

I. INT RODUCTION

In switch-mode DC-to-AC power inverters are used in AC

motor drive and uninterruptible AC power supplies (UPS)
etc. [1-3]. In most cases, low distortion sinusoidal output
voltage waveforms are required with controllable magnitude
and frequency. Moreover, the power semiconductor
switching speed has improved dramatically. Modern ultra
fast insulated gate bipolar transistors (lGBTs) demand
switching frequency as high as 5 kHz. The DSP-based
PWM algorithm practically fails on this region where ANN
based PWM can possibly take over [3]. In recent years, multi
level inverters are widely used as static power converter for
high-power applications such as FACTS devices, HYDC
light transmission, AC drives, and active filters [1-3]. One
of the significant advantages of multi-level configuration is the
harmonic reduction in the output waveform without
increasing switching frequency or decreasing the inverter
power output. The output voltage waveform of a multi-level
inverter is composed of a number of levels of voltages,
typically obtained from capacitor voltage sources. The so
called multi-level starts from three levels and as the number
of levels increases, the output total harmonic distortion
(THD) decreases. The number of achievable voltage levels,
however, is limited by voltage unbalance problems, voltage
clamping requirement, circuit layout, and packaging
constraints. The computational delay of this mapping
becomes negligible if parallel architecture of the network is
implemented by an Application-Specific Integrated Circuit
(ASIC) chip. The optimal switching pattern Pulse Width
modulation (PWM) strategies constitute the best choice for
978-1-4673-4603-0/12/$31.00 2012 IEEE

This paper employs Homotopy algorithm to solve the

transcendental equations for fmding the switching angles.
This method solves the non-linear transcendental equations
with a much simpler formulation and without complex
analytical calculations for any number of voltage levels.
Also, several informative simulation results verify the
validity and effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.
II. HARMONICS IN ELECTRICAL SYSTEMS

In power quality aspects are the harmonic contents in the

electrical system. Generally, harmonics may be divided into
two types: 1) voltage harmonics, and 2) current harmonics.
Current harmonic are usually generated by harmonics
contained in voltage supply and depends on the type of the
load such as resistive load, capacitive load, and inductive

21

Elimination of Selective Harmonics in a Multi-Level Inverter

load. Both harmonics can be generated by either the source

or the load side. Harmonics generated by load are caused by
nonlinear operation of device, including power converters,
arc-furnaces, gas discharge lighting devices, etc. Load
harmonics can cause the overheating of the magnetic cores
of transformer and motors. On the other hand, source
harmonics are mainly generated by power supply with non
sinusoidal voltage and non-sinusoidal current waveforms.
Voltage and current source harmonics imply power losses,
Electro-Magnetic Interference (EMl) and pulsating torque in
AC motor drives [13-15]. Any periodic wave form can be
shown to be the superposition of a fundamental and a set of
harmonic components. By applying Fourier transformation,
these components can be extracted. The frequency of each
harmonic component is a multiple of its fundamental [4].
There are several methods to indicate the quantity of
harmonics contents. The most widely used measure is the total
harmonics distortion (THD), which is defmed in terms of
the magnitudes of harmonics, H at pulsation n OJ , where
OJ is the pulsation of the fundamental component whose
magnitude is H, and n is a an integer [7], [16]. The THD is
mathematically given by
a

L Hn2
THD

!.!:.n=::;2,,--_

. . . (1)

HI

'-1

,1

tJ.
+

t
n

'Vd.

:i,

Note that, each of the waveforms have a Fourier series

expansion of the form [8].
s
a
4V
1
. . . (2)
V(wt) =sin(nwt) I -I(-I),+1 cos(n8;)
11:
n 1=1
n=I,3,5,..
Where 0 8, 82 'If 8, n/ 2, the Fourier series is
summed over only the odd harmonics. Again, the aim here
is to use these switching schemes to achieve the fundamental
voltage. And to eliminate the fIfth, seventh and 11th
harmonics, etc, for those values of the modulation index m,. m
=

s,

FIG. 2: OUTPUT VOLTAGE WAVEFORM OF A

THREE-LEVEL INVERTER ANGLE SHE-PWM

-1

FIG. 1: SINGLE PHASE THREE-LEVEL INVERTER STRUCTURE

III. SELECTIVE HARMONIC ELIMINATION (SHE)

STRATEGY

For the described study, the classic harmonic elimination

strategy was selected. It consists in determining s optimal
switching angles. The primary angles are limited to the fIrst
quarter cycle of the inverter output line voltage (phase a)
"Figure I". Switching angles in the remaining three quarters
are referred to as secondary angles. The full-cycle switching
pattern must have the half-wave and quarter-wave symmetry
in order to eliminate even hannonics. Hence, the secondary
angles are linearly dependent on their primary counterparts
"Figure 2". The resultant optimal switching pattern yields a
fundamental voltage corresponds to a given value of the
modulation index, whereas s - 1 low-order, odd, and triple
harmonics are absent in the output voltage [8], [11-12].

HI (4vd/n). The harmonic elimination technique is very

suitable for inverters control. By employing this technique,

the low THD output waveform without any fIlter circuit is
possible. Switching devices, in addition, turn on and off
only one time per cycle. "Figure 2" shows a general quarter
symmetric inverter waveform.
In the three-phase inverter, the aim is to use this switching
scheme to achieve the fundamental voltage and eliminate
the fIfth, seventh and 11th harmonics, etc (n 1, 5, 7, 11, 13, .. ).
For those values of the modulation index m, the switching
angles 8" 82, es are chosen to satisfy
=

h1 = cos(1 ) cos(2 ) + ... + (1) s +1 cos( s ) = m

h2 = cos(51 ) cos(52 ) + ... + ( 1) s +1 cos(5s ) = 0

s +1
cos(ns ) = 0
hn = cos(n1 ) cos(n2 ) + ... + (1)

(3)

These equations are nonlinear, contain trigonometric terms

and are transcendental in nature. Consequently, mUltiple
solutions are possible. A Newton Raphson method has to be
fIrst applied to obtain a linearized set of equations [8]. The
solution of these equations is achieved by means of the
Gauss-Jordan iterative method. In order to obtain convergence
with this method, the starting values of switching angles should
be close to the exact solution. A great deal of effort has been
done in this technique. However after a great computational
time and efforts, no optimal solution is usually reached and
convergence problems are highly arising especially when the
number of equations is increased [4][16]. The application of
the ANN to obtain the switching angles can be introduced to
overcome the aforementioned difficulties.

Proceedings of7'h International Conference on Intelligent Systems and Control (ISCO 2013)

22

IV. CASCADED H-B RIDGE MULTI-LEVEL INVE RTE R

"Figure 3" shows the single-phase structure of a cascade

multilevel inverter [8]. It consists of a series of H-bridge
(single-phase full-bridge) inverter cells, for the output
voltage Vi(i =1,2,V, S with S number of cells employed) three
different values (levels), +U 0, -U by connecting the DC
source Ui to the AC output side by different combinations of
the four devices [13-15], Noting in this level that the voltages
U of the DC sources supplied inverter cells may be different.
So, they can or cannot be equal. The output voltage Vi can be
expressed as,
,

." (4)

that can be synthesized by the cascaded multilevel inverter of

"Figure 1", This switching scheme is designed as a funda
mental switching scheme producing a staircase wavefonn U 2
to approximate the desired sinusoid. It represents the typical
or generalized multilevel output voltage wavefonn involving
pre-calculated or predetennined switching angles modulation
methods.
This work is centered on this waveform chosen here for the
study. It is a periodic waveform which presents the odd half
and quarter-wave symmetric characteristic. It contains 4S
switching angles namely aI, az,V, as per cycle (period) and
structured by several voltage levels which are equal or not.
t 1'=1,71

Where " 2 are, respectively, the connection or switching

functions of the upper switches (KiI, Ki 2) of each cell, which
defme its states (switch on or off).
The AC output voltage Van(U 2) is, therefore, the sum of all

<ot

the individual inverter outputs,

Van=V,+V2+V+VS= I

." (5)

i=1

Using the connection functions, equation (5) becomes,

Van=UI(fll-f'2)+V+US(fSl-fS2)

For the three-phase system, the output of three identical

structure of single- phase cascaded inverter can be connected in
either wye or delta configuration. In this case, line voltage can
be expressed in term of two phase voltages. For example the
line voltage Vah is the potential between phase a phase b which
can be expressed as,
Vab =Van -Vbn

FIG. 4: CHOSEN GENERALIZED MULTILEVEL

. " (6)

. . . (7)

OUTPUT VOLTAGE WAVEFORM

V. REVIEW OF OPTIMIZATION GENERALIZED

MULTILEVEL WAVEFORM TECHNIQUES

According to the choice of generalized waveform parameters,

there are three possible optimization techniques for reducing
the total hannonic distortion (THD) of the output voltage
inverter:

The maximum number of the phase voltage levels that can be

achieved is 3s, where S is the number of cells or H-bridges
used. "Figure 2" illustrates one of the more possible low
frequency switching scheme of the output voltage wavefonns
H-

irMrter cell.

Q
U,

Vi

v,
u?=v."

U".\.'I

U.I

P:-;n

v,

FIG. 3: THE SINGLE-PHASE STRUCTURE OF THE CASCADE

MULTILEVEL INVERTER

The optimization technique based on the step amplitudes

(step heights). In this case, we use a generalized wavefonn
with equally width or equally spaced steps (i.e. with
constant distance between switching angles) and varied
step heights is shown in "Figure 5". To be obtained, this
generalized waveform requires a variable DC supply
voltage.
The optimization technique based on the step spaces
(switching angles). For this case, the used generalized
wavefonn shown in "Figure 6" is known as "a regular
staircase waveform" with equal height steps (equal
amplitudes) and variable widths (variable step spaces).
This requires a constant DC supply voltage (Ul =U2 =V
=U S=U).
The optimization technique based on both width and
height steps which are variable in this case. This
concern an arbitrary generalized waveform is shown in
"Figure 7". Similar to the generalized wavefonn used in
the first technique, this one also need a variable DC
supply.

23

Elimination of Selective Harmonics in a Multi-Level Inverter

lO" and "Figure 11" which are found to be 46.36%, and

11.50%, respectively.

FIG. 5: A GENERALIZED WAVEFORM WITH EQUALL Y WIDTH STEPS

t ":

FIG. 6: A REGULAR STAIRCASE GENERALIZED WAVEFORM

FIG. 7: AN ARBITRARY GENERALIZED WAVEFORM

VI. SIMULATION RESULTS

To verify the proposed Homotopy algorithm, a simulation

model for a three-phase 7-level cascaded H-bridge inverter
th
is implemented. 5 and 7th harmonics are selected to be
eliminated from the output voltage and the fundamental
component is specified by the modulation index m. DC
source voltages are selected to be VI = VI,vdc = 63.00V, V2
= V2,vdc = 51.00 V, and V3 = V3 Vdc = 60.60 V. The results
for phase a are plotted in "Figure 8" which shows the
switching angles {8" 82 83} versus m. Comparing "Figure
,
8" with the simulation and experimental results of [2]
confirms validity of the proposed algorithm. A three-phase
induction motor model with the following parameters is
attached to the multi-level inverter:

Rated Power=1/3 hp
Rated Current= 1.5 A
Rated Speed=1425 rpm
Rated Voltage=208 V line to line rms at 50 Hz

With
the switching angles corresponding to m = 0.52,
i.e., 81= 40.0978, 82= 54.3146, 8J= 75.6119 (taken from
Figure 3), the simulation results of the 50 Hz three-phase
output voltages, both phase and line to line voltages, are
presented in "Figure 9". Normalized FFT of the phase a
voltage and line to line voltage between phases a and bare
shown in "Figure 10" and "Figure I I". Note that 5th and 7th
harmonics are zero in phase and line-to-line voltages. Also,
it is noted that although phase voltage contains triplen
harmonics such as 3rd and 9th, these harmonics do not appear
in line to line voltage. THD for the phase voltage and line to
line voltage can be computed from the FFT given in "Figure

"Figure 12" shows the three-phase motor currents resulting

from applying the voltages of "Figure 9" to the motor. The
normalized FFT of phase a current waveform is shown in
"Figure 13". The harmonic content of the current is
significantly reduced compared to that of the voltage because
of filtering by the motor's inductance. THD of the current
waveform of phase a, computed using the FFT data of
"Figure 13", is found to be 0.76%.
In another set of simulations, the modulation index m is
considered to be equal to 0.70 and the frequency is set to
50 Hz. The switching angles are taken from Figure 8 with
m = 0.70 (81 = 17.4122, 82 = 41.9400, 83 = 2.5332). The
resulting three-phase voltages are simulated and both the phase
and line to line voltages are shown in "Figure 14".
Normalized FFT of the phase a voltage and line to line voltage
between phases a and bare shown in "Figure 15" and "Figure
16" respectively. Similar results as those of the previous case
can be deduced again, with a considerable reduction in the
phase voltage harmonics. The THD of phase a voltage and line
to line voltage between phases a and b are computed using
the information given in Figures 15 and 16 and found to be
18.36%, and 10.53%, respectively.
To obtain an accurate result, the harmonic components up to
the 200th have been considered in calculating the voltage
THD. The phase and line to line voltage THD of the 7-level
inverter, as a function of the modulation index m, are shown in
"Figure 17". It is seen that the phase voltage THD increases
dramatically, when m decreases. The line to line voltage THD,
however, increases slightly with decreasing m. Also, for a
given m, the line to line voltage THD is much less than the
phase voltage THD, due to cancellation of the triplen
harmonics in the line to line voltage. For example, at m=0.63,
THD of the output phase voltage is 32.97%, whereas, that of
the line to line voltage is 9.42%.
80

------ - - ---

----- ---- .', ----- --

--

o:>

----

40
30

_o r

-;

----- --- ------1- ---i ---- --

--

------- -

8 .3

0.35

OA

--

0.45

---

--

-2
-

L _____ i ___

--- - ,

-- -

-1

----

____

50
---- -

_____ ____ _____

____

-----.,: ----- --

or

----

__'_____

; ---- --------- ;
--

-------

0.5

0.55

Mod"I,...

0.6

0.65

IQIl 1".1., .. (...)

0.7

0.75

FIG. 8: SWITCHING ANGLES VERSUSM

.' . " " " ""''' ' ' + . ' ' . ' '
i=

,-0

'i
:::;1

-.-

. . .

..

. .. . .
:

..

;.

. .

. . .. . .
..

...

..

...

. .

.
"'

. ,
..

..

...

FIG. 9: PHASE AND LINE TO LlNE VOLTAGE WAVEFORMS FORM=

0.52

Proceedings of7'h International Conference on Intelligent Systems and Control (ISCO 2013)

24

100 nr--------__.

100 nr---------.

80

60

lL

'0

40

'"

80

1E

60

...
(;

40

'"

20

i1!
:i1

20

I I
O-----
5

Harmonic Order

FIG. 10: NORMALIZED FFT OF THE PHASE A VOLTAGE WAVEFORM

10

.
15
20
25
30
Harmonic Order

35

40

FIG. 15: NORMALIZED FFT OF THE PHASE A VOLTAGE WAVEFORM

100 nr--------__,

100 nr---------.

80

60

80

60

...
o

40

lL

'0

40

'"

20

OUL-----
I --L--
5

OUL____L_
I
I _
. ___u.L_
35
o
5
10
15
20
25
30
Harmonic Order

10

15
20
25
H3rmonic Order

30

35

40

FIG. 16: NORMALIZED FFTOF THE LINE TO LINE VOLTAGE BETWEEN

PHASES A AND B

FIG. 11: NORMALIZED FFToF THE LINE TO

LINE VOLTAGE BETWEEN PHASES A AND B

Ph""se Volt"'g&
Line_to_Line Voltgae

30
25

Mod"I .... 'io" I"de

.. (I..)

FIG. 17: THE PHASE AND LINE TO LINE OUTPUT VOLTAGE

THD OF A 7-LEVEL INVERTER AS A FUNCTION OFM

Time [s]
FIG. 12: OUTPUT CURRENT WAVEFORMS FORM= 0.52

VII. CONCLUSION

100 nr-------------__--__--__----_,

80

60

....
'0

40

'"

:!l

20
O UL------o
5
10
15
20
25
so
35
40
Harmonic Order

FIG. 13: NORMALIZED FFT OF THE PHASE A CURRENT WAVEFORM

nt
--
0.4

::J

-3.4

0.42

0._

0.4.2

0.._

Time [&1

TIJne [s)

0."""

OA8

0.46

0.48

FIG. 14: PHASE AND LINE TO LINE VOLTAGE

I WAVEFORMS FORM= 0.70

0.&

0.5

This paper employs Homotopy algorithm to solve the nonlinear

transcendent equations which are formed to fmd switching
angles of the devices in a cascaded H-bridge multi-level
inverter with unequal DC sources, in order to eliminate some
selected harmonics from the output voltage. The proposed
algorithm is very effective, efficient and reliable in finding
solutions to high-order nonlinear equations. This algorithm
solves the nonlinear transcendent equations with a much
simpler formulation. Also it can be used for any number of
voltage levels without complex analytical calculations.
Computer simulations based on a seven-level cascaded H
bridge inverter have been provided for the verification of
validity of the proposed algorithm.
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Elimination of Selective Harmonics in a Multi-Level inverter

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