A Switched-Capacitor-Based Six-Level Inverter

This paper introduces a new switched-capacitor-based multilevel inverter topology. The proposed structure consists of six switches with a single DC voltage source and three floating capacitors, and it is capable of producing a six-level output voltage waveform with voltage boosting gain of 2.5. Moreover, the voltages of the capacitors are constructively balanced because they are directly charged to fixed voltage by the input DC voltage source. The operating principles, circuit description, and pulse-width modulation (PWM control technique for the proposed topology are presented, along with the selection of components. A comparative study between the proposed inverter and other existing multilevel inverter topologies is also discussed. The simulation results are provided to confirm the theoretical analysis. Further, the experimental results obtained from a laboratory-built prototype under different conditions are presented as a comparison to assess the performance of the proposed inverter.