Design and Hardware Validation of a Cascaded Half Bridge Multilevel Inverter

This paper provides an exhaustive hardware validation of a cascaded half-bridge multilevel inverter, designed to improve the power conversion quality in renewable energy sources. Multilevel inverters have been increasingly popular over the past few years since they are capable of generating stepped voltage waveforms with less harmonic distortion, thus their use in applications such as solar, wind, and other renewable energy sources. Among these, the cascaded half-bridge topology is particularly notable due to its scalability, modularity, and high output voltage generation capability without needing high-voltage components. The primary goal of this research is to verify the performance of the inverter both at the simulation and real-time hardware levels. There exists a thorough design approach, beginning with the inverter simulation under MATLAB/Simulink to confirm the theoretical output voltage waveform, THD, and switching behavior. The simulation process assists in tailoring the control strategy and component selection prior to advancing into the hardware phase.