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2
, and
3
are required to determine the whole cycle of the
waveform.
1
,
2
, and
3
are the switching angles of the three
H-bridges, forming the seven-level inverter.
Fourier analysis of such a waveform yields the following
expression for the rms value of fundamental and harmonic
components of the phase voltage:
V
n
=
_
2
2V
dc
n
(cos(n
1
)+cos(n
2
)+cos(n
3
)) , for odd n
0, for even n.
(1)
Because of quarter-wave symmetry in the waveform, it con-
tains odd-order harmonics only.
The maximum possible value of the fundamental component
is obtained when
1
,
2
, and
3
are all equal to zero and is
given by
V
1
(max) =
6
2V
dc
. (2)
Normalizing the fundamental component based on its maxi-
mum value and presenting it in per unit (p.u.)
V
pu
1
=
V
1
V
1
(max)
=
1
3
(cos(
1
) + cos(
2
) + cos(
3
)) . (3)
Also, the harmonic components can be normalized on the
same base as follows:
V
n
V
1
(max)
=
1
3n
(cos(n
1
) + cos(n
2
) + cos(n
3
)) . (4)
Considering the waveform in Fig. 1, the phase-voltage rms
value can be easily calculated
V
rms
=
_
2
2
_
0
v
2
dt
=V
dc
_
2
_
(
2
1
) + 4(
3
2
) + 9
_
2
3
__
.
(5)
Additionally, in per unit, on the same base as for its
components
V
pu
rms
=
V
rms
V
1
(max)
=
_
36
_
(
2
1
) + 4(
3
2
) + 9
_
2
3
__
. (6)
THD is dened as the ratio of all harmonic components
rms value to the fundamental components rms value and is
expressed as follows:
(THD)
p
=
n=2
V
2
n
V
1
=
_
V
V
1
_
2
1. (7)
Substituting V
1
and V in (7) by (3) and (6), the following
analytical expression is obtained for the phase-voltage THD:
(THD)
p
==
_
_
4
_
(
2
1
)+4(
3
2
)+9
_
3
_
(cos(
1
)+cos(
2
)+cos(
3
))
2
_
1.
(8)
III. LINE-VOLTAGE THD
Unlike the phase voltage, line-to-line voltage of the inverter
has a waveform which is not as simple as that shown in Fig. 1,
and depending on the values of switching angles, it changes the
form. This is shown in Figs. 2 and 3, where the line-voltage
waveform is presented for two different sets of switching
angles. As it is observed, in one case, the waveform has ten
steps, while in the other case, it contains 13 steps. Therefore,
calculating its rms value is not straightforward, as for the phase
voltage, and nding a unique analytical expression for the rms
value is impossible for the entire range of the switching angles.
Instead, after having specied the waveform of the line
voltage for any given values of switching angles, one can
calculate its rms value by making use of the stepped waveform
and integrating its rectangular segments.
To nd the line-voltage instantaneous value and so its wave-
form, we need rst to specify the instantaneous phase voltages.
YOUSEFPOOR et al.: THD MINIMIZATION APPLIED DIRECTLY ON LINE-TO-LINE VOLTAGE OF INVERTERS 375
Fig. 2. Line-voltage waveform of the inverter with ten levels (
1
= 10
2
= 30
, and
3
= 50
).
Fig. 3. Line-voltage waveform of the inverter with 13 levels (
1
= 5
2
= 15
, and
3
= 35
).
Referring to the phase-voltage waveform shown in Fig. 1 and
taking the phase voltage V
a
as the phase reference, it can be
expressed in terms of step function u(t) as follows:
V
a
(t)
=
V
dc
[u(t
1
)+u(t
2
)+u(t
3
)] , 0<t
2
V
a
(t),
2
<t
V
a
(t), <t 2
(9)
where the step function u(t) is dened as
u(t) =
_
1, t 0
0, t < 0.
(10)
Phase voltage V
b
has the same waveform but is lagging V
a
by 2/3 radians. It can be expressed in terms of V
a
as follows:
V
b
(t) =
_
V
a
_
t +
2
3
_
, 0 t
4
3
V
a
_
t
4
3
_
,
4
3
t 2.
(11)
The line voltage V
ab
can now be obtained by subtracting V
b
from V
a
V
ab
(t) = V
a
(t) V
b
(t). (12)
Having specied V
ab
, the line-voltage rms value V
L
can now
be calculated
V
L
=
_
1
2
2
_
0
V
2
ab
(t) dt. (13)
Because of symmetry, the fundamental components of the
phase voltages V
a
and V
b
have the same amplitude and 120
3V
1
=
2
6V
dc
(cos(
1
)+cos(
2
)+cos(
3
)) . (14)
In per unit, based on its own possible maximum value, the
line-voltage fundamental component is expressed by the same
equation as (3)
V
pu
L1
=
V
L1
V
L1
(max)
=
1
3
(cos(
1
)+cos(
2
)+cos(
3
)) . (15)
Finally, THD of the line voltage is computed using the
following equation:
(THD)
L
=
_
V
L
V
L1
_
2
1. (16)
IV. THD MINIMIZATION
The aim is to determine the optimum switching angles that
generate an output voltage with the required fundamental com-
ponent and the possible minimum THD. This is a problem to
be solved by an optimization algorithm. In this paper, GA is
used which is a simple, powerful, and evolutionary technique,
inspired from the laws of natural selection and genetics. It is
a general-purpose stochastic global search algorithm, with no
need of functional derivative information to search for the so-
lutions that minimize (or maximize) a given objective function.
GA reduces the computational burden and search time, while
solving complex objective functions [16].
To solve the problemfor a given desired fundamental compo-
nent V
1
(in per unit), an objective function is dened as follows:
Objective Function : {10 |V
1
V
1
| + THD} . (17)
In the rst term of the aforementioned objective function,
|V
1
V
1
| is the absolute value of error in adjusting the funda-
mental component. A weighting factor of ten has been applied
to make the error small enough, giving a greater importance
to the fundamental component. The value of this factor can
be controversial. Assigning a value of unity to the weighting
factor results in the same weight for both the fundamental
components error and THD in the objective function. This
means that the error in the fundamental component can be as
much as the THD value. Typical values of the output THD,
in the multilevel inverter under discussion, are mostly above
10%, i.e., 0.1 p.u., which is an unacceptable error for the
fundamental component. To reduce the error to a level on the
376 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 59, NO. 1, JANUARY 2012
Fig. 4. Optimum switching angles versus fundamental component of the
output voltage, obtained by phase-voltage THD minimization approach.
order of 1%, i.e., 0.01 p.u., a weighting factor of ten would
be suitable. With the selected weighting factor, minimization
of the objective function results in a fundamental component
very close to the desired value as well as minimum THD in the
voltage waveform. The solution must also satisfy the following
basic constraint:
0
1
2
3
2
. (18)
The THD minimization algorithm may be applied either
on the phase voltage or on the line-to-line voltage. Due to
the simpler formulation, however, it is usually applied on the
phase voltage. According to the selected approach (phase- or
line-voltage THD minimization), the quantities in the objective
function (17) are substituted from the corresponding equations
obtained in the previous sections.
V. SIMULATION RESULTS
A. Phase-Voltage THD Minimization Approach
In the objective function (17), V
1
and THD are replaced
from (3) and (8), respectively. V
1
is the required fundamental
component in per unit and can vary from zero to one. The GA
is employed to minimize the objective function for the whole
range of fundamental components. The obtained solutions for
optimum switching angles
1
,
2
, and
3
are plotted in Fig. 4.
The corresponding phase-voltage THD and the generated fun-
damental component against the desired value are shown in
Figs. 5 and 6, respectively. Phase-voltage THD, on its own,
is of little interest. For a three-phase load, the line-to-line-
voltage THD is important, since the triplen harmonics, present
in the phase voltage, are eliminated from the line voltage. For
the switching angles obtained by the phase-voltage minimiza-
tion approach, the line-voltage THD is computed and plotted
in Fig. 7.
B. Line-Voltage THD Minimization Approach
In this approach, the THD minimization algorithm is directly
applied to the line-to-line voltage of the inverter. The line-
Fig. 5. Phase-voltage THD versus the fundamental component, obtained by
phase-voltage THD minimization approach.
Fig. 6. Calculated fundamental component for optimum switching angles,
obtained by phase-voltage THD minimization approach.
Fig. 7. Line-voltage THD versus the fundamental component, obtained by
phase-voltage THD minimization approach.
voltage rms value is calculated as explained in Section III.
Stated in per unit, fundamental components are equal in both
approaches, as (3) and (15) are the same, but the rms values are
different.
Performing the minimization process results in the optimum
switching angles shown in Fig. 8. Applying the optimum
YOUSEFPOOR et al.: THD MINIMIZATION APPLIED DIRECTLY ON LINE-TO-LINE VOLTAGE OF INVERTERS 377
Fig. 8. Optimum switching angles versus fundamental component of the
output voltage, obtained by line-voltage THD minimization approach.
Fig. 9. Calculated fundamental component for optimum switching angles,
obtained by line-voltage THD minimization approach.
Fig. 10. Line-voltage THD versus the fundamental component, obtained by
line-voltage THD minimization approach.
switching angles to the inverter generates the line-voltage fun-
damental component and THD, as shown in Figs. 9 and 10,
respectively.
Fig. 11. Line-voltage THD versus the fundamental component, obtained by
line-voltage THD minimization approach, phase-voltage THD minimization
approach, and their difference.
C. Comparison Between the Two Approaches
Comparing the results of the two approaches indicates that
they give different solutions for switching angles (compare
Figs. 4 and 8). In both cases, the obtained optimum switching
angles generate an output line-to-line voltage, the fundamental
component of which very closely follows the desired value
(Figs. 6 and 9), but the THD contents are different (Figs. 7
and 10).
For the purpose of comparison, the line-voltage THD re-
sulted from the two approaches and their difference are shown
together in Fig. 11. It indicates a signicant improvement when
the THD minimization algorithm is directly applied to the line
voltage. Within a wide range of the output voltages, the line-
voltage THD minimization approach results in lower THD,
with a reduction of up to 40%, compared to the phase-voltage
THD minimization approach. The reason seems to be mostly
the absence of triplen harmonics in the line voltage. Since the
phase voltage contains all odd-order harmonics, including the
triplens, its THD minimization gives the optimum condition for
the phase voltage itself but not for the line voltage. To obtain the
optimum condition for the line voltage, the harmonic compo-
nents present at the line voltage should only be considered in the
minimization process. It is observed that the proposed approach
is less effective at the two side regions of the fundamental
component.
VI. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
Fig. 12 shows an experimental prototype of a three-phase
seven-level wye-connected cascaded inverter. The maximum
rating of this inverter is 2 kVA. The MOSFET drivers and
isolation circuits are placed on each module itself. Because
of low switching frequency, an ATMEGA32 AVR microcon-
troller has been chosen to control the switching signals [22].
With 16 million instructions/s operation of this chip, the
error between calculated and implemented switching angles,
caused by delays in the digital system, is less than 1 s. This
378 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 59, NO. 1, JANUARY 2012
Fig. 12. Experimental prototype seven-level cascaded inverter.
TABLE I
OPTIMUM SWITCHING ANGLES AND PHASE- AND LINE-VOLTAGE THDs,
OBTAINED BY PHASE-VOLTAGE THD MINIMIZATION APPROACH
FOR A FUNDAMENTAL COMPONENT OF 0.7 p.u.
Fig. 13. Measured phase-voltage waveform for switching angles given
in Table I.
microcontroller is programmed using the open-source software
WinAVR [23].
Based on the phase-voltage THD minimization approach,
for the fundamental component of 0.7 p.u., the calculated
switching angles and corresponding phase and line-voltage
THDs are as presented in Table I. These switching angles have
been applied to the inverter, and a Tektronix TDS2002 digital
oscilloscope has been used to measure the voltage waveforms.
The waveforms of the phase and line-to-line voltages are shown
in Figs. 13 and 14, respectively.
In this case, the phase- and line-voltage THDs, measured
with a Voltech PM3000A universal power analyzer, are 17.07%
and 14.51%, respectively. Referring to the user manual of
Voltech PM3000A version 10, the Voltech PM3000A power
analyzer measures the rms value and fundamental component
of the output waveform, and then, THD of the waveform is
calculated by (16).
For the same fundamental component (0.7 p.u.), if the line-
voltage minimization approach is utilized, the switching angles
given in Table II are the solutions. Also shown in Table II
are the phase-voltage THD and line-voltage THD, calculated
based on the given switching angles. Applying these switching
angles to the experimental seven-level inverter has produced the
Fig. 14. Measured line-to-line-voltage waveform for switching angles given
in Table I.
TABLE II
OPTIMUM SWITCHING ANGLES AND PHASE- AND LINE-VOLTAGE THDs,
OBTAINED BY LINE-VOLTAGE THD MINIMIZATION APPROACH
FOR A FUNDAMENTAL COMPONENT OF 0.7 p.u.
Fig. 15. Measured phase-voltage waveform for switching angles given
in Table II.
Fig. 16. Measured line-to-line-voltage waveform for switching angles given
in Table II.
output phase-voltage and line-to-line-voltage waveforms shown
in Figs. 15 and 16, respectively.
The measured values of THD, obtained with a Voltech
PM3000A universal power analyzer, are 26.63% for the phase
voltage and 10.23% for the line voltage. As it is seen, a
considerable reduction in the line-voltage THD is attained by
YOUSEFPOOR et al.: THD MINIMIZATION APPLIED DIRECTLY ON LINE-TO-LINE VOLTAGE OF INVERTERS 379
Fig. 17. Harmonic spectra of the phase-voltage waveform for switching
angles given in Table I.
Fig. 18. Harmonic spectra of the line-to-line-voltage waveform for switching
angles given in Table I.
Fig. 19. Harmonic spectra of the phase-voltage waveform for switching
angles given in Table II.
this approach. On the contrary, the phase-voltage THD is worse
in this case, compared to the other approach. This is of no
signicance for the three-phase load, because the line-to-line
voltage of the inverter is important in three-phase applications.
The harmonic spectra of the phase- and line-voltage wave-
forms for switching angles given in Tables I and II are shown in
Figs. 1720, respectively. Comparison of these gures indicates
that the phase-voltage approach has had its triplen harmonics
minimized (Fig. 17), whereas the line-voltage approach has
not and nontriplen harmonics are the focus of minimization
(Fig. 19). Therefore, less energy is spread over nontriplen
harmonics in Fig. 19 compared to those in Fig. 17. This would
Fig. 20. Harmonic spectra of the line-to-line-voltage waveform for switching
angles given in Table II.
Fig. 21. Measured line-voltage THD versus the fundamental component,
obtained by phase- and line-voltage THD minimization approaches.
obviously result in lower harmonic contents in the line voltage,
as it is observed in Fig. 20 relative to Fig. 18, leading to lower
line-voltage THD by the proposed approach.
Measurement is repeated for a number of different operating
points, and the result is plotted in Fig. 21. Experimental results
also indicate that application of the THD minimization algo-
rithm to the line voltage is more effective in reducing the line-
to-line-voltage THD in three-phase applications, supporting the
simulation results.
VII. CONCLUSION
For THD minimization in multilevel inverters output volt-
age, attention is mostly paid to the phase voltage, which
has simpler waveform and easy formulation. Since, in three-
phase applications, line-to-line voltage of the inverter is of
the main concern, it is important to achieve as small THD
as possible in the line voltage. Although phase-voltage THD
minimization has a direct impact on the line-voltage THD, it
does not necessarily lead to the possible minimum THD in the
line voltage. It has been proposed in this paper to apply the
THD minimization algorithm directly to the line voltage. By
simulation and experimental results, the proposed approach has
been shown to be more effective than the common approach of
phase-voltage THD minimization and results in smaller THD
in the line voltage.
380 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 59, NO. 1, JANUARY 2012
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Nima Yousefpoor was born in Tehran, Iran, in 1986.
He received the B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in electrical
engineering from the Amirkabir University of Tech-
nology (formerly Tehran Polytechnic), Tehran, in
2008 and 2010, respectively. He is currently working
toward the Ph.D. degree at the North Carolina State
University, Raleigh.
His research interests include multilevel inverters,
exible ac transmission system devices, renewable
energy systems, and HVdc transmission systems.
Seyyed Hamid Fathi (M03) received the B.Sc.
degree in electrical engineering from the Amirkabir
University of Technology (AUT), Tehran, Iran, in
1984, the M.Sc. degree in electrical engineering
from the Iran University of Science and Technology,
Tehran, in 1987, and the Ph.D. degree in electrical
engineering from the University of Newcastle Upon
Tyne, Newcastle Upon Tyne, U.K., in 1991.
Afterward, he joined AUT, where he is currently
an Associate Professor with the Department of Elec-
trical Engineering. His research interests include
power quality, exible ac transmission systems, power electronics, and electric
drives.
Naeem Farokhnia (S10) was born in Amol, Iran,
in 1984. He received the B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees
in electrical engineering from the Amirkabir Univer-
sity of Technology (formerly Tehran Polytechnic),
Tehran, Iran, in 2006 and 2009, respectively, where
he is currently working toward the Ph.D. degree in
the Power Electronic Laboratory.
His research interests include multilevel inverters,
power electronics, exible ac transmission system
devices, and distributed generation.
Hossein Askarian Abyaneh (SM09) was born in
Abyaneh, Iran, on March 20, 1953. He received the
B.S. and M.S. degrees in Iran in 1976 and 1982,
respectively, and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in elec-
trical power system engineering from the University
of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology,
Manchester, U.K., in 1985 and 1988, respectively.
He is currently a Professor and the Head of the
Department of Electrical Engineering, Amirkabir
University of Technology, Tehran, Iran, where he is
working in the area of the relay protection and power
quality. He published over 140 scientic papers in international journals and
conferences.