A New Single-phase Symmetrical Cascade Multilevel Inverter with Low Number of Power Switches

In this paper a new 5-level single phase symmetrical cascade multi-level inverter is proposed. The proposed topology contains combination of unidirectional and bidirectional power switches based on output voltage level number. The number of power switches and withstanding voltage of power swithces were reduced related to the other topologies. This configuration can be extended to the n-level inverter. In symmetrical case of proposed inverter the 5th harmonic output voltage will be eliminated. The performance analysis of the proposed inverter using suitable switching algorithm for producing the 5-level output voltage was confirmed by simulation and experimental results.