Self-Balanced 13-Level Inverter Based on Switched Capacitor and Hybrid PWM Algorithm

A 13-level inverter based on switched-capaci-tor technique is proposed in this article. It consists of ten transistors, four diodes, and four capacitors with self-balanced voltages. The ten transistors form two H-bridges and one half-bridge resulting in simple structure and easy design of gate drivers. With a hybrid of level-shifted and phase-shifted pulsewidth modulation algorithm, voltage ripples of capacitors and low harmonic components of output voltage are suppressed simultaneously. Compared with the existing solutions, the proposed 13-level inverter has a simpler structure and the lower cost per level. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed inverter has the advantages of high boosting factor, self-balanced capacitor voltages, low harmonics, and high efficiency, and the maximum efficiency is up to 97.2%.