Investigation of Line Current Harmonics in Cascaded Multi-level Inverter Based Induction Motor Drive and an Adaptive On-line Selective Current Harmonic Elimination Algorithm

Multilevel Inverters (MLIs) have drawn increasing attention in numerous applications, especially in drives, distributed energy resources area, utility etc. MLIs have the ability to synthesize a near sinusoidal output voltage wave with minimal Total Harmonic Distortion (THD) in low frequency switching. Even though they offer lower THD, the presence of lower order harmonics is objectionable and harmonics elimination in Multilevel Inverters (MLIs) has been receiving immense attention for the past few decades. Existing Selective Harmonic Elimination (SHE) techniques can eliminate the objectionable lower order voltage harmonics with low switching frequency by solving the Fourier non-linear transcendental equations of the output voltage. The line current harmonics has a direct role to play on the magneto-motive force and results in increase of mismatching of air-gap permeance, vibrations, acoustic noise etc. This study proposes Normalized Least Mean Squares (NLMS) algorithm based scheme to eliminate the selected dominant harmonics in load current using only the knowledge of the frequencies to be eliminated. The algorithm is simulated using MATLAB/SIMULINK tool for a three-phase VSI to eliminate the fifth and seventh harmonics. The informative simulation results verify the validity and effectiveness of the proposed algorithm. The system performance is analyzed based on the simulation results considering Total Harmonic Distortion (THD), magnitude of eliminated harmonics and frequency spectrum.