Practical inverter design and control: implementation strategies and performance analysis

Inverters are devices that convert electrical energy from DC to AC. They come in all shapes and sizes, ranging from low-power functions such as powering a PC back-up to powering a building during a power outage. Inverters come in many varieties, differing in price, power, efficiency, and application. Inverters can be single-phase or three-phase depending on the desired application. For each of them, there are two types of control: Full-wave control: the output signal is at the switching frequency and is generally close to a square signal. This type of inverter is used when the shape of the alternating signal is not essential. PWM (Pulse Width Modulation) control: this type of control allows the generation of a wave which, after filtering the switching, is sinusoidal with variable amplitude and frequency. This type of inverter is used to generate an alternating signal close to a sinusoid. This work is the design and implementation of a single-phase bridge inverter that can be used for static converters. The switch control is managed by a PIC and will cover all types of possible controls. The energy source can be a photovoltaic generator. To calculate the switching angles and store them in memory areas, a computer medium is used as a control tool. For this, we have chosen the PIC18F452 microcontroller. The latter was chosen based on its technical performance, its ease of implementation and its availability on the market. The experimental results are presented.