Inductor Cell Topology for Multilevel Inverter Applications

This paper presents a new circuit configuration of single-phase multilevel current-source inverter (CSI). In this new topology, a basic H-bridge CSI working as a main inverter generates a multilevel current waveform in cooperation with inductor cells connected in parallel as auxiliary circuits. Each inductor cell is composed by four unidirectional power switches with an inductor across the cell circuit. The inductor cells work by generating the intermediate level of the multilevel current waveform with no additional external dc-power sources. A simple proportional integral controller is applied to control the intermediate-level currents of the multilevel output waveform.