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com
20
Modied Sine-Wave
Inverter Enhanced
Altering the waveform produced by a modied
sine-wave inverter reduces distortion products,
while still permitting use of efcient switching
techniques.
By James H. Hahn, Associate Professor Emeritus, University of By James H. Hahn, By James H. Hahn,
Missouri-Rolla Engineering Education Center, St. Louis
W
ith the increasing popularity of alternate
power sources, such as solar and wind,
the need for static inverters to convert dc
energy stored in batteries to conventional
ac form has increased substantially. Most
use the same basic concept: a dc source of relatively low
voltage and reasonably good stability is converted by a high-
frequency oscillator and stepup transformer to a dc voltage
with magnitude corresponding to the peak of the desired
ac voltage. A power stage at the output then generates an ac
voltage from the higher-voltage dc. Conceptually, the opera-
tion is illustrated in Fig. 1.
Current State of the Art
There are basically two kinds of dc-ac inverters on the
market today. One category is the pure sine-wave inverter,
which produces sine waves with total harmonic distortion
(THD) in the range of 3% (-30 dB). These are typically used
when there is a need for clean, near-sine-wave outputs for
medical, instrument and other critical applications.
Some, for example, are used in boats and RVs as the
main source of electricity, and some feed energy back into
the utility power grid. Waveforms approaching sine waves,
with minimal distortion, are required in any case. These
inverters are available in sizes up to several thousand watts
and typical costs are in the range of $0.50 per watt (visit
www.invertersrus.com/digitalpuresineinverters.html for
an example). Early techniques for designing these true sine-
wave inverters incorporated signicant linear technology,
reducing their efciency and contributing to their higher
cost.
More recent designs used pulse-width modulation
(PWM) to produce a pulsed waveform that can be ltered
relatively easily to achieve a good approximation to a sine
wave (for example, see U.S. patent numbers 4,742,441;
4,600,984; 6,980,450; and 4,466,052). The signicant ad-
vantage of the PWM approach is that switching techniques
are used in the power stages, resulting in relatively high
efciency.
However, PWM, with the pulse width made to vary ac-
cording to the amplitude of a sine wave, requires signicant
control circuitry and high-speed switching. This is because
the frequency of the PWM signal has to be much higher than
that of the sine wave to be synthesized if the PWM signal is
to be ltered effectively. So the PWM approach introduces
signicant complexities and switching losses.
The second category consists of relatively inexpensive
units, producing modied sine-wave outputs, which could
logically be called modied square waves instead. They are
basically square waves with some dead spots between positive
and negative half-cycles. Switching techniques rather than

Fig. 1. Most static-power inverters used in solar- and wind-power

applications convert dc to ac using the architecture shown here.
Fig. 2. Modied sine-wave inverters actually generate square waves
with dead spots between the half-cycles, allowing switching tech-
niques rather than linear circuits to be used in the power stage.
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21
V
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Time
Fig. 3. The square wave provides a benchmark against which we may
compare the THD of the modied sine wave and the waveform gener-
ated by the proposed inverter architecture.
V
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2
2
2 2 0
Fig. 4. Dening the width of the positive and negative portions of the
modied sine wave as 2 enables us to calculate its Fourier coefcients
and then determine its minimum values of THD.
linear circuits are used in the power stage, because switch-
ing techniques are more efcient and thus less expensive.
These inverters require no high-frequency switching, as
the switching takes place at line frequency. Their costs are
generally in the range of $0.10 per watt (for an example, see
www.invertersrus.com/inverters.html).
The typical modied sine-wave inverter has a waveform
as shown in Fig. 2. It is evident that if the waveform is to be
considered a sine wave or a modied sine wave, it is a sine
wave with signicant distortion.
Analysis of Current Technology
It is well known that any periodic waveform such as that
mentioned previously can be represented by a Fourier series,
an innite sequence of sines and cosines, at the fundamental
frequency of the waveform and its harmonics. These har-
monics can cause trouble in several areasparticularly in
motors and sensitive applicationsand the data sheets for
the inverters frequently caution the user that certain devices
may not work with the inverter. Furthermore, even though
the root-mean-square (RMS) value of the waveform may
be a nominal 115 V or 120 V, the peak will be different than
that of a true sine wave, and that factor can cause trouble in
applications that depend on the peak value.
The actual percent distortion is not usually quoted in
the specications for inverters other than the pure sine-
wave versions, so it is instructive to compute the distortion
products to get a feel for the relative distortion involved
with the different approaches. For purposes of comparison,
let us look rst at a conventional square wave (Fig. 3). The
coefcients of the Fourier series are computed with a pair of
integrals that produce the coefcients of the sine and cosine
terms in the series.
For a signal f(x) with a zero dc component, the integrals
are:
a f a f x nx d
n
a f a f a f a f
j
a f a f
(
a f a f a f a f a f a f a f a f
((
a f a f a f a f
\
a f a f
,
a f a f a f a f a f a f a f a f
,,
a f a f a f a f

a f a f
1
a f a f
0
2

( ) x n x n cos( x n x n ) x d x dxx n > 0

and
b f b f x nx d
n
b f b f b f b f
j
b f b f
(
b f b f b f b f b f b f b f b f
((
b f b f b f b f
\
b f b f
,
b f b f b f b f b f b f b f b f
,,
b f b f b f b f

b f b f
1
b f b f
0
2

( ) x n x n sin( x n x n ) , x d x dxx ) , ) , ) , ) , ) , ) ,
where the a
n
and b
n
terms are the coefcients of the
cosine and sine terms, respectively, in the series. The Fourier
series is then:
f(x) = a
1
cos x + a
2
cos 2x + a
3
cos 3x + . . . + b
1
sin x + b
2
sin
2x + b
3
sin 3x + . . .
The complete background on Fourier series, as well as
treatment of special cases, is covered in several textbooks
on networks or engineering mathematics, and will not be
repeated here. We will just note that because both the square
wave and the modied sine wave have both half-wave
symmetry and quarter-wave symmetry, integration is
required only over one-quarter of the waveform, and
further that only the sine terms and odd harmonics are
required. Thus, the integral used to compute the coefcients
for the conventional square wave becomes:
b f b f x nx dx
n
n
b f b f b f b f
j
b f b f
(
b f b f b f b f b f b f b f b f
((
b f b f b f b f
\
b f b f
,
b f b f b f b f b f b f b f b f
,,
b f b f b f b f

b f b f
4
b f b f
4
0
2

( ) x n x n sin( x n x n ) x d x d
for odd values of n only.
The series is then (4/)sin x + (4/3)sin(3x)+
(4/5)sin(5x) + . . .
The standard measure of distortion is THD dened as:

(
( )
/
distortion
fundamental
( ) ( )
n
n
n
( ) ( )
products)
2
,

,, ]
]
]]

,
,,

1 2 //
3
2
]]
]
]]
]]]]
b
1
1 2 / 1 2 1 2
.
Numerical evaluation of the coefcients for the square
wave indicates that if the square wave is to be considered
a sine wave with distortion, the THD is in the range of
45% (-7 dB). The third harmonic, the hardest to lter out,
is one-third the magnitude of the fundamental (-10 dB).
Turning now to the modied sine wave, let us dene the
width of the positive and negative portions as 2 as depicted
in Fig. 4. Again noting that the waveform has both half-wave
symmetry and quarter-wave symmetry, and carrying out the
integration from 0 to /2, we have:
b
n
n
n

j
(
,
jj
((
\
,
(
\\
,,
4

sin( ) for odd values of n only.

Evaluation of this expression for various values of
indicates that the minimum harmonic distortion occurs at
= 0.352, where the THD is 23.8% (-12 dB), about half
that of the square wave. The third harmonic is about 6.5%
(-24 dB) of the fundamental, also a signicant improvement
Power Electronics Technology August 2006 www.powerelectronics.com August 2006 www.powerelectronics.com
22
over the square wave. However, these gures indicate that
the modied sine wave is far from being a true sine wave,
and suggest that improvement is in order.
Proposed Improvement
Consider now a further modicationthe addition of
another level. The waveform is shown in Fig. 5. Again using
the fact that the waveform has both half-wave and quarter-
wave symmetry, we carry out the integration over the period
0 to /2, with the result that:
b
n
for
n

j
(
,
jj
((
\
,
(
\\
,,

4

( ) AA AAAA ( ) ( ) )
odd values of n only odd values of odd values of .
This result has four variables, of which all could theoreti-
cally be varied to achieve minimum distortion. However, one
particularly efcient approach is to choose a very simple
set of values for A and Bnamely B = 2Aand then
optimize the values of and for minimum distortion.
This approach requires only two positive and two negative
power-supply voltages, all of which can be generated from a
single transformer in the high-frequency oscillator. (Other
values of A versus B may be useful, but were not investigated
because the simple relationship of B = 2A had very good
results as discussed later.)
With this restriction, evaluation of the Fourier coef-
cients indicates that the minimum distortion that can
be achieved is about 6.5% (-24 dB), and occurs at =
0.42 and = 0.248. The third harmonic is only about
0.17% (-55 dB) of the fundamental, suggesting that mini-
mal low-pass ltering would greatly reduce the fth and
higher-order harmonics and produce a relatively clean sine
wave. The third harmonic can be eliminated entirely, with
= 0.42 and = 0.246698, at the expense of slightly
higher THD.
[Note: The Fourier analysis was carried out through the
ninth harmonic for all three types of waveforms considered
in this article. Harmonics above the ninth are not negligible,
but any ltering applied to reduce the third through ninth
harmonics will be even more effective on those above the
ninth. Therefore, the higher-order harmonics are ignored
in this analysis.]
Implementation
As demonstrated here, the modied-sine-wave inverter
can be modified further to produce a much closer ap-
proximation to a sine wave, at a relatively small increase in
manufacturing costs, simply by incorporating another level
into the waveform. The design still uses switching technol-
ogy in the power stage, assuring high efciency. A patent
application has been submitted for the approach described
in this article.
The switching stage could be implemented with a com-
bination of bridge and half-bridge components commonly
used in power switching applications. To produce the pro-
posed multiple-level waveform, several implementations
are possible. In general, they all involve connecting the
output lead to a specic voltage level with switches such as
power MOSFETs capable of handling substantial current.
Consider the block diagram shown in Fig. 6 where the
voltages A and B correspond to the voltage levels dened
previously.
Appropriate digital logic and timing circuits will be used
to activate each switch at the correct time to achieve the
and pulse widths. A table can be developed to indi-
cate which switches must be closed for each section of the
output waveform. Note that Switch #3 in Fig. 6 will need
to be a bidirectional switch, since it must switch the output
lead V
OUT
lead V lead V to ground regardless of any voltage present in the
load. All other switches can be unidirectional.
Unlike conventional PWM-inverter designs, which switch
at high frequencies, the proposed inverter design switches
at just three times the line frequency. As a consequence, the
proposed inverter design will reduce switching losses from
that of the PWM-controlled inverter and will save power
regardless of the output power level.
For further details on implementation, contact the author
at jhahn@umr.edu. PETech
SINE WAVES SINE WAVES
Time
2 0
2
B
A
-A
-B
2
2
2
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Fig. 5. Adding another level to the modied sine-wave results in a Fourier
series with four variables that may be varied to minimize distortion,
though in practice B will be set equal to 2 A.
Fig. 6. The proposed enhancement to the modied sine wave inverter is
implemented by connecting the output lead to a specic voltage level
at the correct time with electronic switches such as power MOSFETs.
Voltage A
Voltage B
GND
Voltage -B
Voltage -A
Switch #1
Switch #2
Switch #3
Switch #4
Switch #5
V
OUT
GND