FPA Optimized Selective Harmonic Elimination PWM Technique Application in Reduced Switch Count Multilevel Inverter

Reduction in the device count and optimizing harmonics in multilevel inverters (MLIs) has been the focus of research from the last few decades. A novel nine-level MLI using less number of switches has been proposed in this study. Compared to the recently developed MLI topologies, the proposed MLI uses less active switches. This work also includes a comparison among MLI topologies based on different performance parameters. Selective harmonic elimination (SHE) technique is used to determine optimal switching angles to eliminate specific low-order harmonics by solving nonlinear transcendental equations. Local and global search in a single stage using flower pollination algorithm (FPA) has been investigated by evaluating a suitable fitness function and best results are taken for controlling the operation of proposed MLI. Moreover, the performance of the FPA is compared with particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm. Simulation results with dynamic loading at different modulation indices are validated by developing a prototype of proposed MLI. The enhancement of output voltage quality confirms the effectiveness of the proposed technique.