A zigzag cascaded multilevel inverter topology with self voltage balancing

This paper presents a zigzag cascaded multilevel inverter topology. The proposed new inverter has the following advantages: 1) only one dc source is needed and with no voltage balancing problem, 2) the output voltage can be boosted or bucked, positive or negative, 3) input and output share the same ground. Compared to the traditional multilevel inverter, it has simpler structure and control strategy. Theoretical analysis for this new inverter is presented. A prototype was built and the experimental results verify the analysis.