A novel multilevel inverter with reduced count of power switches

In this paper, a novel cascaded multilevel inverter topology is proposed for a single phase inverter. The inverter is composed of a series connection of the suggested basic unit and it generates only positive levels at its output. Hence an H-bridge is further added to the proposed basic unit. The proposed topology has the main advantage of reduction in the count of power switches and driver circuits required to drive them that helps to lower the cost and ultimately the overall installation space. The proposed structure also has less dc voltage sources and driver circuits, when it is compared to the other inverter topologies. At the output voltage, the final inverter structure is able to produce all the voltage levels (positive as well as negative). The simulation is performed for verifying the operation of the inverter for a three cascaded stages of the basic unit that generates 37-levels at its output.