Capacitorless Switched Inductor Single DC Source Multilevel Inverter

This paper introduces a novel capacitorless switched-inductor single DC source multilevel inverter (CSLSDCSMLI). The proposed inverter removes the risk of capacitor failures but still enabling multiplication of input voltage. Since the usage of capacitors in multilevel inverter faces problems in voltage balancing, inrush current and degradation, CSLSDCSMLI only uses inductors as energy storage element. The CSLSDCSMLI consists of DC-DC and DC-AC stages. The first stage produces multiplied DC voltage levels for the second stage's input. The second stage acts as polarity changer and operates at line frequency, while the first stage operates at higher frequency. A switching scheme is also proposed, and it uses an open-loop control method to operate both stages. The proposed converter is simulated using MATLAB-Simulink and the results are presented. The simulation results closely agree with theoretical studies, where output voltage is 3 times higher than input. This inverter is suitable for low voltage generation such as solar PV and fuel cell. Current growth of wideband gap technologies may promise this inverter application at medium voltage level for higher switching frequency and high-power delivery.