A 7-level Switched Capacitor Multilevel Inverter with Reduced Switches and Voltage Stresses

This brief presents a novel switched-capacitor multilevel inverter (SCMLI). The inverter can produce a 7-level output voltage utilizing a dc source, nine switches, two series-connected diodes, and three capacitors. The capacitors are charged from the supply voltage directly by turning on appropriate switching states. The proposed structure realizes all the output voltage levels without an H-bridge circuit at the load-end. A detailed comparison study with other similar inverters has been presented. It shows that the proposed SCMLI requires a lower number of components and is more cost-effective as compared to other inverters. The circuit build-up, capacitor charging process, operating principle, voltage stress analysis, and capacitor selection procedure of the proposed inverter is presented in detail. Finally, an extensive experimental study validates the performance and effectiveness of the proposed inverter.