Comprehensive Study on Reduced DC Source Count: Multilevel Inverters and Its Design Topologies

Due to cutting-edge innovations in industry and academia, research is more centered around multilevel inverters (MLIs), which play a significant role in different high/medium voltage and high-power applications when contrasted with traditional inverters. Relative analysis of the reduced DC source count and switch inverter topologies highlight its significant benefits, which include control complexity, switch count, source count, reliability, efficiency, cost, voltage stress, total harmonic distortion (THD), and power quality. When switched-capacitor technology is deployed, it is seen that with the assistance of 14 switches, a 53 level result is accomplished, and the THD is just around 1.41%, which is kept up with as per the IEEE 519-2014 norms. Whenever cascaded MLI topology is employed, the inversion efficiency is more prominent, and is about 99.06%. Hence, this review focuses on a few of the late-evolved MLIs utilized, and the benefits and drawbacks for different topologies are examined. To assist with current modern research in this field and the decision of the proper inverter for various applications, a novel topology of an MLI can be planned later on. Different setups of MLIs have been exhaustively covered and reviewed.