A Generalized Modular Multilevel Current Source Inverter

This paper proposes a novel topology of multilevel current source inverter which is suitable to apply in low/medium voltage. The proposed topology is capable of producing desirable bidirectional output current levels. Furthermore, it can employ symmetrical DC current sources as well as asymmetrical ones which is a significant advantage. Asymmetrical mode makes it possible to generate a great number of output levels by appropriate selection of DC current source magnitude, needless to make changes in the hardware of the inverter. As a result, various methods are presented to compute the magnitude of needed DC current sources. In comparison to the conventional H-Bridge inverter (CHB), the proposed inverter has lessened the number of required DC current sources, switches as well as related gate driver circuits. The reduced number of required components has leads to cost and volume advantages. In addition, the control layout has become simpler. Reduction of power loss as a result of reduced number of on-state switches is the other merit of the proposed inverter. To evaluate the efficiency of the proposed inverter, its simulation and experimental results are extracted including results of various methods of determining DC current source magnitude.