New switched-capacitor multilevel converter with reduced elements

Abstract

This paper presents a new switched-capacitor multilevel converter (SCMC) which is able to produce any levels at output voltage waveform. This topology can increase the value of input dc voltage sources using the switched-capacitor units. In the proposed SCMC topology, as the numbers of switched-capacitor units increase, the voltage gain and the number of generated levels will be increased. In this paper, the main merit of proposed SCMC topology is inherent voltage balancing of capacitors which do not require complicated switching strategy. The proposed SCMC structure is compared with traditional multilevel converters. The comparison results verify that the presented SCMC structure needs lower dc voltages sources, switches, and capacitors. The mathematical analysis of standing voltage on switches and different kinds of power losses in the presented SCMC structure are provided. In order to verify the performance of presented SCMC topology, the experimental results for a typical 13-level converter is provided.