Comparative analysis of NR and DE methods for multilevel inverters: An experimental case study

This paper presents an experimental performance comparison between differential evolution (DE) algorithm and Newton Raphson (NR) method for solving the optimal switching problem for multilevel inverters with the objective of improving the output AC voltage quality. The methods are used to compute optimal switching angles to control a multilevel inverter in such way that allows the elimination of low order harmonics; this control technique is called selective harmonic elimination. The proposed inverter in this article is composed of two H-bridge cells with non-equal DC voltage sources in order to generate seven voltage levels. The differential evolution (DE) optimization and the Newton Raphson (NR) algorithm is used to solve non-linear transcendental equations necessary for the (SHPWM). Computational results obtained from computer simulations presented a good agreement with the theoretical predictions. A laboratory prototype based on STM32F407 microcontroller was built in order to validate the simulation results.