A Review on Multilevel Converter Topologies for Electric Transportation Applications

This paper presents some popular multilevel converter topologies and associated modulation techniques considering advantages for electric transportation (ET) applications including electric vehicles (EVs), charging stations, wireless charging, etc. Cascaded H-Bridge (CHB), Flying Capacitors (FC) and Neutral Point Clamped (NPC) are analyzed. Moreover, mostly used switching techniques in multilevel converters including Sinusoidal Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) and Space Vector Modulation (SVM) are explained and investigated comprehensively. Various advantages of multilevel converters such as generating low harmonic waveforms, low common mode voltage and low switching frequency would be reviewed to show their capability in medium and high power ET applications such as car or train.