A General Control Method for Multilevel Converters Based on Knapsack Problem

Switching sequences of multilevel inverters have to be properly chosen based on the desired control criteria such as dc-link voltage regulation, common mode voltage reduction, and other application dependent criteria. Control of a converter to satisfy a desired criterion is challenging, especially in high voltage level converters. This paper proposes a simple control method for multilevel inverters with high modularity such as flying capacitor multilevel inverters, H-bridge multilevel inverters, and modular multilevel inverters. It is shown that the method considerably simplifies generation of the switching sequences and fulfills the desired criteria with a reasonable computational cost. The proposed method is computationally efficient in the sense that its implementation for high voltage level inverters requires the same effort as required for a multilevel inverter with a low number of cells. Other prominent advantages of the proposed control method, compared to earlier methods, include its applicability for multiphase multilevel converters and converters with asymmetrical structure and/or unevenly distributed dc voltages, independence from the level number and structure of the converter, and not requiring a lookup table. These advantages make the proposed scheme well suited for high cell-number converters, mainly utilized in FACTS, HVDC, and power quality applications. Simulation and experimental results are presented which verify the performance of the proposed method.