• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.15 no.5
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• pp.1235-1243
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• 2015

This paper presents a modified Space Vector Pulse Width Modulation Technique (SVPWM), which solves the well-known problem of voltage imbalance in the capacitors of a single-phase multilevel inverter. The proposed solution is based on the measurement of DC voltage levels at each capacitor of the inverter DC bus. The measurements are then used to adjust the size of the active vectors within the SVPWM algorithm to keep the voltage waveform sinusoidal regardless of any voltage imbalance on the DC link capacitors. When a voltage deviation exceeds a predetermined hysteresis band, the correspondent voltage vector is restricted to restore the voltage level to an acceptable threshold. Hence, the need for external voltage regulators for the voltage capacitors is eliminated. The functionality of the proposed algorithm is successfully demonstrated through simulations and experiments on a grid tied application.