Colonial Competitive Algorithm Development Toward Harmonic Minimization in Multilevel Inverters

Selective harmonic elimination pulse width modulation (SHEPWM) is a well-known switching technique applied directly to the output voltage waveform of multilevel inverters which aims to omit low-order harmonics. Related equations for this technique are transcendental, so an objective function should be defined in order to cover all constraints. Evolutionary computation is demonstrated to be a promising tool meeting requirements of such problems. In this paper, the standard colonial competitive algorithm (CCA) is improved to be employed for the mentioned technique in two cases of equal and unequal dc sources. The results are compared with two other successful algorithms namely genetic algorithm (GA) and particle swarm optimization (PSO). Results indicate that this method outperforms other methods in terms of convergence rate and tackling local optima. Experimental results verify the simulation results.