2015 17th UKSIM-AMSS International Conference on Modelling and Simulation
Design & Implementation of Single Phase Pure Sine Wave Inverter Using
Multivibrator IC
Meraj Hasan*, Junaid Maqsood*, Mirza Qutab Baig*, Syed Murtaza Ali Shah Bukhari*, Salman Ahmed**
*Department of Electrical Engineering, Bahria University Islamabad, Pakistan
**Sarhad University of Science and Information Technology, Peshawar, Pakistan
qutab@ieee.org
Abstract Pure sine wave inverters are demand of modern
era whenever it comes to utilization of DC power sources for
both low and high power applications. These invertors not only
increase the efficiency of the power system but also prevent the
electrical components from damaging. Research has been
carried out on producing cost-effective and efficient pure sine
wave inverter in recent times and this paper proposes a design
that is highly useful for low power based applications. Paper
focuses on utilizing renewable solar energy by incorporating
Multi vibrator IC (NE 555), in this case operating in A-stable
mode, for the PWM generation technique used to drive pure
sine wave inverter. It is shown that the design is easy to
implement and proves to be cost effective for low power
applications.
KeywordsPWM; inverter; renewable energy; 555 Timer
IC; H-Bridge; TLP 250; L-C Circuit; Harmonics
I. INTRODUCTION
With an aim to cater energy needs of modern era,
distributed systems address power concerns including back-
up power systems and power quality issues [1]. Pure Sine
Wave Inverter is one of the most recognizable technologies
that has been utilized by both industrial and private sectors in
Distributed Power Generation (DG) Systems [2]. DG
Systems are normally assisted by Photovoltaic (PV) systems
and fuel cells on small scale [2]. Most of our present
electrical systems are working on AC, therefore PV energies
are first to be converted into AC to make them suitable for
our regular loads or to connect it to grid [1]. In case of power
back-up systems, which require batteries as a source, inverter
topology is an integral block to be implemented with the
system.
Various realization techniques of Pure Sine Wave
Inverters have been presented [9] and with the ever
advancing technology these techniques are improving on
daily basis. Most of the inverters which are available
commercially and incorporated in UPS (Uninterruptible
Power Supplies) are mostly square wave inverters or quasi
square wave inverters which are not suitable for
sophisticated electrical devices and equipment in daily use
due to their output waveform which constitute of undesirable
harmonics [3].
II. LITERATURE REVIEW
The regulated square wave is not beneficial for the
appliances as it may harm them, therefore for the appliances
978-1-4799-8713-9/15 $31.00 2015 IEEE
DOI 10.1109/UKSim.2015.58
to work properly and the energy be used efficiently, Pure
Sine Wave Invertors are used the produce a pure sine wave
at the output for the load [3], [4], [5], [6].
In [3] a low cost RISC Microcontroller (MC) PIC 16f877
is used that supports 20MHz clock input. At the output of
the Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) generated by the MC a
filter has been connected to make the square wave a
sinusoid and to remove some of the harmonics. The PWM
topology, as discussed in [3], is a 4 kHz signal that has a
positive amplitude for the positive half cycle of the sine
wave (50Hz) and a negative amplitude for the negative
cycle. At the output of the MOSFET Bridge, we obtain a
Sinusoidal PWM (SPWM). This paper includes
mathematical analysis of PWM topology and the
corresponding filter design. Further in the paper, there are
discussed two methods for sustaining heavier loads: varying
the PWM cycles and replacing the P-Channel MOSFETs
with N-Channel MOSFETs.
In [4] PIC 18F4431 MC is used for the PWM generation,
PWM counting and isosceles triangular wave generation.
Unlike [1], in [4] triangular wave is used that, for the
sinusoidal reference wave, has positive and negative peaks
both. Block diagram of this technique has been shown in
Figure 1. The SPWM generated at the output of 20 kHz
frequency has to experience an LC filter attached parallel to
the load, that attenuates the PWM and in-turn produces a
pure sine wave.
PWM pulse from PIC18F4431
Optocoupler Switch Mode Power
isolation circuit Supply
DC input
Full Bridge Inverter
(PV Array)
Filter Load
Fig 1: Proposed Model Realization
451
 In [5] PIC 16F876 Microcontroller (MC) is used for
controlling the switching pattern. With the objective to Battery

make cost effective yet reduced Total Harmonic Distortion

(TDH) pure sine wave inverter, [5] has integrated a buck
Microcontroller
convertor to step up the voltages produced by the PIC16F73
Photovoltaic (PV) Panels as shown in Figure 2. A low cost
and low frequency transformer has been used for better
performances and an extra Aluminum shield has been used Totem Pole
above the surface of the transformer to further reduce the
eddy currents. In [5], a ratio, MA (amplitude Modulation), FeedBack

between the reference sinusoidal signal and the full MOSFETS

triangular wave has been kept around 0.8 to 0.9 for the best
design of the filter used.
Transformers
DC-DC DC-AC
PV array LC Filter Transformer
Converter INVERTER

Filtering

MOSFET Output
Driver AC Figure 4: Block Diagram of Proposed Solution

Literature [11] has explained the generation of Sinusoidal

Microcontroller generating SPWM Signal
Fig 2: Block Diagram of Proposed Solution
Unlike [3], [4], [5], paper [6] has used Atmel AT
89C2051 24 PI Microcontroller for PWM and SPWM
generation. After the SPWM generation, the output is made
a pure sine wave, after passing it through an LC Filter.
Isolation and driver circuits have been used in [6] to protect
the switching circuitry and to drive the MOSFETs as shown
in Figure 3.
UC Circuit
Vin
Isolation Circuit
Inverter
Gate Driver
Circuit
Pulse Width Modulation (SPWM) to create a Pure Sine
inverter with integration of a Proportional Integral (PI)
controller on simulation. The PI controller takes in the error
voltage (difference voltage between load output and
reference signal) as input and enforces the error to get
minimized by regulating the inputs (switching frequency
and pulse width).
Using Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT), Perturb
and Observe (P&O) algorithm is another unique addition as
implemented in [12]. The literature has simulated PV
module followed by MPPT block to maximize the power
obtained from PV module. Further a boost converter has
been used which uses the net change in duty cycle obtained
from MPPT calculations.
Figure 5 shows the proposed solution as mentioned in [12]
PV ARRAY
DC-DC DC-AC LC TRANSFORM
CONVERTER INVERTER FILTER ER

LC Filter
MPPT MOSFET DRIVE

OUTPUT AC

Vout Transformer
MICROCONTROLLER GENERATING SPWM SIGNAL

Fig 3: Proposed System Overview

Similar to literature [5], a PIC Microcontroller (PIC 16F73)
has been used in [10] proposing a low cost and harmonics
inverter applicable for low powered applications.
Distinctively, a Sine look up table has been constructed that
stores the sampling figures of sine wave. Figure 4 shows the
proposed solution as mentioned in [10]
Figure 5: Block Diagram of Proposed Solution
III. STRUCTURE OF PROPOSED WORK
Literature view has been done on available solutions and
techniques to implement the Pure Sine Wave Inverter. But
all above products are not versatile enough and are not in
everyones scope while catering low power applications.

452
Pure Sine Inverter may have series of modules to design and
they must be able to operate along-with competitive
efficiency, cost, ease of implementation & use. Figure 6
shows the block diagram of proposed technique.
H-Bridge
PV Pannel Filter
Inverter
555
TLP 250 Load
Timer Ic
Fig 6: Structure of Proposed Solution
A. 555 Timer IC
The main objective of this paper is to produce sinusoidal
waveform using multi-vibrator ICs. Therefore, the
application has been realized using NE555 timer IC which is
suitable for both mono-stable and astable applications. Like
others ICs, the on-off time of this IC is also dependent on
external capacitor. The capacitor (C) takes finite period of
time to charge and discharge through resistor (R) which can
be determined using R & C values using expression:
t=RxC (1)
One of the most common operational modes of this IC is
its use as Astable multi-vibrator for varying duty cycle
generation. Astable multi-vibrator is arrangement of bistable
multi-vibrator to switch states periodically. Bistable multi-
vibrator is connected with RC network in feedback loop to
control the RC time constant [8]. In this mode, it simply acts
as an oscillator generating a continuous waveform of
rectangular ON-OFF pulses alternating between two voltage
levels. The frequency and duty cycle can be set using
Resistor (R) & capacitor (C) values. Figure 7 shows the
operating configuration of NE555 Timer IC.
Fig 7: NE555 Timer IC Configuration
The 555 is connected as an astable multi-vibrator.
Trigger (pin 2) and Threshold (pin 6) to the two
comparators are shorted together. Both pins are connected to
453
external capacitor. When the voltage is applied, the external
capacitor charges via Resistor R1 and R2. The discharge Pin
(7) is linked to a transistor internally and externally
connected to the junction of those two resistors.
The frequency of operation of the astable circuit is
dependent upon the values of R1, R2, and C. The frequency
can be calculated with the formula:
f = 1 / (0.693 x C x (R1 + 2 x R2)) (2)
The time intervals for the OFF and ON cycles of
the output can be varied using Resistors values R1 & R2.
The percentage of time duration when the signal is active
for one cycle to the total period is known as the duty-cycle.
The duty-cycle can be calculated with the formula:
D = (R1 + R2) / (R1 + 2R2) (3)
Since our proposed system is for low power AC
applications which run on frequency of 50 Hz, so we set the
frequency of our system to 50 Hz with 50% of duty cycle
being generated from 555 timer IC.
B. H-Bridge
In order to convert the DC input waveform to AC, DC-
AC converters are used which take DC voltage at input and
provide AC output voltage and frequency as per desired
design specifications.
A typical DC-AC converter is known as H-Bridge which
is most commonly used inverter for said purpose. This paper
has presented Voltage Source Inverter (VSI) topology to
implement pure sine wave inverter. The block diagram of H-
Bridge circuit has been shown in Figure 8. Switching has
been done in two groups. For generating one cycle, Q1 and
Q4 are turned ON together. For generating negative cycle,
Q3 and Q2 are turned ON together using PWM coming
through NOT Gate.
Fig 8: H-Bridge Inverter Circuit
H-Bridge has different operation modes, which are based
on quadrant operation; this paper utilized the bipolar
technique. In this paper 4 quadrant drive is implemented.
The advantage of bipolar PWM technique is that 555 Timer
needs to generate only one PWM signal to drive our bridge.
C. Gate Driver
The MOSFETs incorporated in H-Bridge design do not
run simply by applying control signals at their gate [3]. For
MOSFETs, gate voltage requirement is higher than control
signal magnitude that is coming from a controller or 555
Timer IC in our case. Therefore, to provide suitable signal to
drive MOSFET, it is needed to connect gate driver IC
between our control signals. In our paper, TLP 250 drive IC
[10] has been used to drive MOSFET. The great feature of
this IC is that it provides two features in one IC; Opto-
isolator plus Gate Driver feature. Figure 9 shows the IC
working configuration.
Fig 9: TLP 250 Driver IC Configuration
D. Filter
In design of Sine Waver Inverter, there are harmonics
produced in output waveform caused by semiconductor
switching. For harmonics reduction, a Chebyshev Low Pass
filter is implemented [12]. A 7th order LCL filter as shown in
figure 10 is implemented for harmonics reduction which will
produce pure sinusoid waveform. Cut off frequency is one of
the important parameter of filter design which should be half
of the switching frequency of our H-Bridge inverter for filter
having adequate attenuation in switching frequency range.
[7]
Fig 10: Filter Realization
E. Proposed System Realization
The proposed system has two main parts. One is power
processing side and other one is control side. Power
processing side contains the H-Bridge Inverter while the
control side contains the 555 Timer IC and Gate Driver TLP
250. The control part is electrically isolated from power
454
conversion part by Opto-coupler which is inbuilt in TLP 250.
It provides protection to our control part from any high
reverse current surges from H-Bridge converter. Figure 11
shows the simulation of the proposed system.
Fig 11: Proposed System Realization
DC input from PV Panel is fed to the power rail of H-
Bridge Inverter which needs to be turned down to AC. The
MOSFETs in H-bridges are driven using pulses coming from
555 Timer IC through TLP 250 and the switching
combination produces alternating waveform of DC rail at H-
Bridge output terminals.
This waveform is not pure sinusoid, therefore, filter
needs to be applied to obtain pure sinusoid waveform at its
output.
IV. RESULTS
Figure 12 shows the pulses that are supplied at
MOSFETs gates and the output filtered waveform. The
simulation results show that output of H-Bridge inverter
(Channel C) is being filtered to an extent where pure
sinusoid waveform is obtained (Channel D). Same has been
observed in practical realization of inverter, that is, the
waveform at the output of H-Bridge is not pure sinusoidal in-
fact a triangular wave is obtained from bridge output. This
triangular waveform is then turned into pure sinusoidal
waveform using the filter.
Fig 12: Simulation Results of Proposed System
Waveforms of practical realization of sine wave inverter
have been shown in Figure 13. The figure shows the
waveform that is being obtained at the output of bridge
inverter which is close to sinusoid waveform.
Fig 13: Practical waveform at output of bridge inverter
V. FUTURE WORK & RECOMMENDATIONS
The results shown are being carried out for an open loop
system. So for a closed loop system, better results can be
obtained by implementing appropriate feedback and control
systems. Moreover, voltage can be regulated and inverter can
be controlled more independently if we realize this design
using Microcontroller and feedback control (closed loop
inverter) especially for high power applications.
VI. CONCLUSION
A lot of work has been done in the field of Pure Sine
Wave Inverter but to obtain a waveform with reduced
number of harmonics along-with high efficiency is still an
open challenge. There are techniques available to do so, but
need is to adapt a solution which is easy to implement as
well specifically for low power applications. This paper has
discussed available techniques and tried to come up with a
solution for low power applications which is easy to
implement, cost efficient and reliable from consumers
perspective. We have tried to come up with a design for low
power applications which is cheap to realize. We plan to
extend this work as mentioned in future work and present a
better solution for low as well as high power applications.
Conference on Applied Power Electronics and Expostion, 2009, pp.
889-893
[3] A.Ali Qazalbash, Awais Amin, Abdul Manan and Mahveen Khalid
Design and Implementation of Microcontroller based PWM
technique for Sine wave Inverter, International Conference on Power
Engineering, Energy & Electrical Drives, 2009.
[4] Rafid Haider, Rajin Alam, Nafisa Binte Yousuf, Khosru M. Salim,
Design and Construction of Single Phase Pure Sine Wave Inverter
for Photovoltaic Application, International Conference on
Informatics, Electronics & Vision (ICIEV), 2012.
[5] Ahmed Sony Kamal Chowdhury, M. Shamir Shehab, M. Abdul
Awal, M. Abdur Razzak, Design and Implementation of a Highly
Efficient Pure Sine-Wave Inverter for Photovoltaic Applications,
International Conference on Informatics, Electronics & Vision
(ICIEV), 2013, pp. 1-6.
[6] B. Ismail, S.Taib MIEEE, A. R Mohd Saad, M. Isa, C. M. Hadzer,
Development of a Single Phase SPWM Microcontroller-Based
Inverter, IEEE International Power and Energy Conference, 2006,
pp. 437-440.
[7] Jirri Lettl, Jan Bauer, Libor Linhart, Comparison of Different Filter
Types for Grid Connected Inverter, Progress in Electromagnetics
Research Symposium (PIERS), 2011, pp, 1426-1429
[8] Adel S. Sedra, Kenneth C. Smith, Microelectronic Circuits, 2004
[9] E.Koutroulis, J.Chatzakis, K.Kalaitzakis and N.C.Voulgaris, A
bidirectional, sinusoidal, high-frequency inverter design, IEEE
Proc.Electr. Power Appl., Vol. 148, No. 4, July 2001, pp. 315-318
[10] A. A. Mamun, M. F. Elahi, M. Quamruzzaman, M. U. Tomal,
"Design and Implementation of Simgle Phase Inverter",
International Journal of Science and Research (IJSR), Vol. 2, Issue 2,
Febuary 2013.
[11] Sandeep Phogat, "Analysis of Single Phase SPWM Inverter",
International Journal of Science and Research (IJSR), Vol. 3, Issue 8,
August 2014.
[12] Sridhar Dandin, Dr. Ashwini Kumari, "Highly Efficicent Pure Sine-
Wave Inverter for Photovoltaic Applications with MPPT Technique",
International Journal of Engineering Research and Technology
(IJRET), Vol. 3, Issue 5, May 2014.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT
On completion of this research, we would like to
acknowledge efforts of our respected faculty member Sir
Saad Ul Hasan with appreciation whose technical support in
field of inverters was very valuable in conducting research
and practical implementation of inverter.

REFERENCES

[1] Krismadinata Chaniago, J. Selvaraj, N. A. Rahim, Implementation of

Single-Phase Grid Connected Inverter Using TMS320F2812, 3rd
IEEE Conference on Industrial Electronics and Application, 2008, pp.
1498-1502.
[2] Eunsoo Jung, Seung-ki Sul, Implementation of Grid-connected
Single Phase Inverter Based on FPGA, 24th Annaul IEEE

455