A new modulation method to reduce common-mode voltages in multilevel inverters

This paper proposes a new modulation strategy for multilevel inverters, which selects voltage vectors that generate zero common-mode voltage in the load, working at low switching frequency. Experimental results confirm that the method is highly effective and simple to implement in a modern microprocessor. The voltage distortion (total harmonic distortion), the number of commutations, and the linearity are also studied. Finally, it is concluded that the proposed strategy is highly suited for inverters with a high number of levels.