A Five-Leg Three-Level Dual-Output Inverter

Classical 3-level dual-output inverter, 3-L DOI, involves two similar 3-level inverters that provides a pair of 3-phase output voltages with same or different frequencies from common input voltage source. Flexibility of either operation of the constituting inverters is evident in this DOI; but total duplication of power switches is a major drawback. State of the art coupled 3-L DOIs reduce this drawback by providing series-shared power devices between the two different 3-phase output terminals. Compared with the classical 3-L DOI, these newly developed coupled 3-L DOIs involves a smaller number of power switches; however, independent operation of the constituting inverters is lost. In this brief, a 3-L DOI is proposed which involves lesser number of power devices and provides flexibility of either operation of the constituting inverters. The 3-L DOI feature hinges on the concept of parallel-common-inverter-leg representation. At the same or varying frequency mode operation, the proposed inverter can synthesize two 3-phase output voltages. Range and relation between the two modes of operations are defined for the DOI. The control strategy is based on the single triangular carrier sinusoidal pulse-width modulation perspective. Experimental results are presented that depict the DOI inverter performances.