A switched-capacitor based multilevel inverter with reduced circuit components and voltage boosting capability

In this paper a novel topology of switched capacitor based multilevel inverters is proposed. In this topology, to increase the output voltage levels and to add the voltage boosting capability, several switched capacitor units are cascaded in series. Having voltage boosting capability and generating maximum number of output voltage levels using minimum number of circuit components, is a merit for this topology. To highlight the attributes of the proposed topology, it is compared with other recently proposed multilevel inverters on number of circuit components such as power electronic switches, diodes and capacitors, voltage boosting capability, total standing voltage, cost and efficiency. The comparison results verify the superiority of the proposed topology over other proposed topologies on number of circuit components, and number of output voltage levels. It is also clear that, this topology has lower voltage stress on power electronic switches, which makes it an appropriate solution for industrial applications. Finally, to show the capabilities of the proposed topology, and to verify the accurate operation of the topology, circuit analysis as well as the experimental results are provided.