A Novel Modular Expandable Multilevel Converter

ABSTRACT Multilevel converters are widely used because of low harmonic content, low switching loss, and low electromagnetic interference. However, when the output voltage level of the traditional multilevel converter is high, it needs many power semiconductors and the control is complicated. In order to solve this problem, a new type of expandable multilevel converter is proposed in this brief. It can achieve same number of output levels with a low switch count, and the topology can be changed to adjust the output of different numbers of voltage levels. Furthermore, the one‐dimensional space vector modulation strategy for the proposed topology is designed to generate switching pulses, which significantly simplify the control burden. Finally, the experimental results are provided to verify the effectiveness of the proposed topology.