A novel five-level three-phase PWM rectifier using 12 switches

This paper proposes a new circuit topology for a multilevel PWM rectifier. The proposed circuit combines a diode clamp type topology with a flying capacitor type topology. As a result, the proposed circuit uses only 12 switches, despite the use of a five-level three-phase PWM rectifier. Further, the proposed circuit can obtain good performance as same as to a conventional multilevel circuit. This paper describes the features of the proposed topology; the control strategy and loss analysis using circuit simulation. In addition, the basic operation of the proposed method is confirmed by simulation and experimental results. The proposed converter achieved THD (total harmonic distortion) of 3.4% for the input current and efficiency of 97.4% for a 1 kW class experimental setup.