DC-AC SWITCH MODE CONVERTERS (INVERTERS)

• Inversion is the conversion of dc power to ac power at a desired output voltage

or current and frequency. A static semiconductor inverter circuit performs this
electrical energy inverting transformation.
• Voltage-fed and current-fed are used in connection with the output from inverter
circuits.
• Voltage source inverter: the dc input voltage is essentially constant and
independent of the load current drawn. The inverter specifies the load voltage
while the drawn current shape is dictated by the load. Being a voltage source,
an open circuit output is allowable.
• Current source inverter: In current source inverter, the input current remains
constant but this input current is adjustable. The current source inverter is also
called current fed inverter. The output voltage of the inverter is independent of
the load. The magnitude and nature of the load current depends on the nature
of load impedance.
• Inverters can be single phase or three phase.
• Inverter output waveforms are usually rectilinear in nature and as such contain
harmonics which may lead to reduced load efficiency and performance.
• Load harmonic reduction can achieved by either filtering, selective harmonic
reduction chopping or pulse width modulation (PWM).
• The quality of an inverter output is normally evaluated in terms of its harmonic
factor, distortion factor and total harmonic distortion.
𝑉
Harmonic factor 𝑃𝑛 = | 𝑉𝑛| = 𝑛𝜇𝑛 𝑛>1 (1)
1

𝑉 𝑃𝑛
Distortion factor 𝜇𝑛 = |𝑛𝑉𝑛 | = (2)
1 𝑛

𝑉𝑛 2
∑∞
𝑛≥2( )
Total harmonic distortion 𝑇𝐻𝐷 = √ 𝑛
(3)
𝑉1

DC-AC VOLTAGE SOURCE INVERTER BRIDGE TOPOLOGIES

single phase voltage source Inverter bridge
• The output is an ac voltage.
• Switches are employed which may be transistor (MOSFET or IGBT) or high

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 power thyristors (GTO or GCT).
• Conduction patterns are shown below.
• With inductive loads stored energy at turn-off is fed through the bridge reactive
feedback or freewheel diodes D1-D4.
• These four diodes clamp the load voltage to within the dc supply voltage rails
(0 to Vs).
Square wave (bipolar) output
The output waveforms for a square wave output where each device is turned ON for
1800 (that is π) of the output voltage cycle.
The load current iL grows exponentially through T1 and T2 according to;
𝑑𝑖𝐿
𝑉𝑠 = 𝐿 + 𝑅𝑖𝐿 (4)
𝑑𝑡

When T1 and T2 are turned OFF, T3 and T4 are turned ON, thereby reversing load
voltage polarity. Because of the load inductive nature, the load current cannot reverse
instantaneously and load reactive energy flows back into the supply via D3 and D4
(which are in parallel with T3 and T4) according to;
𝑑𝑖𝐿
−𝑉𝑠 = 𝐿 + 𝑅𝑖𝐿 (5)
𝑑𝑡

The load current falls exponentially and at zero, T3 and T4 become forward-biased and
conduct load current, thereby feeding power to load.
The output voltage is a square wave of magnitude ±Vs, and has an rms value of Vs.
For a simple R-L load with time constant T=L/R, during the first cycle with no initial
load current, (4) gives
𝑉𝑠 𝑡
𝑖𝐿 (𝑡) = (1 − 𝑒 − ⁄𝜏 ) (6)
𝑅

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Figure 1: GCT thyristor single phase bridge inverter.
Quasi-square wave output
The rms output voltage from a H-bridge can be varied by producing a quasi-square
output voltage as shown below.
After T1 and T2 have been conducting at angle α, T2 is turned OFF, the current slowly

freewheels through T1 and D3 in a zero voltage loop according to;

𝑑𝑖𝐿
0=𝐿 + 𝑅𝑖𝐿 (7)
𝑑𝑡

When T1 is turned OFF, the remaining load current rapidly reduces to zero back into
the dc supply Vs through D4 and D3.
When the load current reaches zero, T3 and T4 conducts and the output current reverses
through them.
The output voltage consist of a sequence of non-zero voltages ±Vs, alternated with
zero output periods.
With the alternation of the zero voltage loops, losses are uniformly distributed between
semiconductor, device switching frequency is half that experienced by the load.
A better output voltage resolution is achieved.
PULSE WIDTHMODULATION SCHEME
Recall under dc-dc converters, a control signal vcontrol was compared to a repetitive
switching frequency triangular waveform in order to generate the switching signals.
Changing the magnitude of vcontrol, the duty ratio is also varied, which regulated the
average dc voltage output.

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In inverter circuits, we desire the inverter output to be sinusoidal with magnitude and
frequency controllable.
To achieve this, a sine control signal at the desired frequency is compared with a
triangular waveform as shown in Figure 2a. The frequency of the triangular waveform
establishes the inverter fS and is generally kept constant along with its amplitude vtri.
vtri is at fS which defines the frequency with which the inverter switches are controlled
(fS is called carrier frequency). vcontrol is used to modulate the switch duty ratio and has
a frequency f1, which is the desired fundamental frequency of the inverter output
voltage (f1 is called modulating frequency).
𝑉̂𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑡𝑟𝑜𝑙
Amplitude modulation ratio 𝑚𝑎 = ⁄̂ (8)
𝑉𝑡𝑟𝑖
Where 𝑉̂𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑡𝑟𝑜𝑙 = peak amplitude of control signal, 𝑉̂𝑡𝑟𝑖 =peak amplitude of triangular
signal and it is generally constant.
𝑓
Frequency modulation ratio 𝑚𝑓 = 𝑠⁄𝑓 (9)
1

The inverter in figure 3 has 2 switches TA+ and TA- which are controlled based on the
comparison of Vcontrol and Vtri. The following output voltages are gotten independent of
the direction of i0.
Vcontrol>Vtri TA+ is ON, VAo=+0.5Vd
Vcontrol<Vtri TA- is ON, VAo=-0.5Vd (10)
Since both switches are never off simultaneously, the output voltage V Ao fluctuates
between two values (+0.5Vd and -0.5Vd). VAo and its fundamental frequency
component are shown in figure 2b which are drawn for mf=15 and ma=0.8.
The harmonic spectrum of VAo is shown figure 2c, where the normalized harmonic
(𝑉̂𝐴𝑜 )ℎ⁄
voltages 0.5𝑉𝑑 are plotted. From the plots, it is seen that;
• The peak amplitude of the fundamental frequency component(𝑉̂𝐴𝑜 )1 is 𝑚𝑎 0.5𝑉𝑑 .
𝜔
for a frequency 𝑓1 = 1⁄2𝜋, the output voltage fundamental frequency

𝑉̂
component is (𝑉̂𝐴𝑜 )1 = 𝑚𝑎 𝑠𝑖𝑛𝜔1 𝑡(0.5𝑉𝑑 ) = 𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑡𝑟𝑜𝑙⁄̂ 𝑠𝑖𝑛𝜔1 𝑡(0.5𝑉𝑑 ) 𝑚𝑎 ≤
𝑉𝑡𝑟𝑖
1.0 .
• Harmonics in the inverter output voltage waveform appear as side bands,
centered around fs and its multiples (i.e. around mf, 2mf, 3mf and so on). This
holds for 𝑚𝑎 ≤1.0.
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 The frequency at which voltage harmonics occurs is given by
𝑓ℎ = (𝑗𝑚𝑓 ± 𝑘)𝑓1 (11)
The harmonic order k corresponds to the kth sideband of j times the frequency
modulation ratio mf.
𝑓ℎ = 𝑗𝑚𝑓 ± 𝑘 (12)
• 𝑚𝑓 should be odd integer. This results in odd symmetry [f(t)=-f(t+1/2T1)].
Therefore only odd harmonics are present and the even harmonics disappear
from the waveform of VAO.

Figure 2: pulse width modulation

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Figure 3: one leg switch mode inverter.
Single phase voltage source inverter bridge can be controlled using either bipolar or
unipolar PWM.
The main voltage output difference between the 2 methods is the harmonic content
near the carrier frequency and its harmonics.
Bipolar PWM
This is the simplest PWM method and involves comparing a fixed frequency and
magnitude triangular carrier with the ac waveform desired called the modulation
waveform. The modulation waveform is usually a sinusoid of magnitude M such that
0≤M≤1.
The waveform in figure 4 shows that the load voltage VL swings between the two
voltage levels, +Vs and -Vs (hence the term bipolar output voltage).
T1 and T2 are ON when Vref>Vtri (T3 and T4 are OFF) such that VL=+Vs
T3 and T4 are ON when Vref<Vtri (T1 and T2 are OFF) such that VL=-Vs

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Figure 4:Bipolar Pulse width modulation: (a) carrier and modulation waveforms and
(b) resultant load pwm waveform.
Choice of fs and mf
This is solely dependent on the application. Example in ac motor drives where the
fundamental frequency of the inverter output may be requiredto be as high as 20Hz,
mf may be 9 or even less for fs<2KHz.
Because of ease of filtering at higher frequency, it is desirable to use high fs as possible.
The only drawback has to do with switching loss, because inverter switching loss is
directly proportional to fs.
For most applications fs is chosen to be 6kHz ≤fs≤20kHz to be above the audible
range.
Small mf (mf≤21)
• Mf should be an integer i.e. fs should be a multiple of f1 in order to avoid sub-
harmonics of the fundamental frequency which is very undesirable in most
applications.
• Mf should be an odd integer in order to eliminate even harmonics. This only
holds for bipolar PWM switching not unipolar.
Large mf (mf >21)
• The amplitudes of sub-harmonics due to asynchronous PWM are small at large

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 values of mf. Thus at large values of mf, the asynchronous PWM can be used
where the frequency of the triangular waveform is kept constant, whereas the
frequency of Vcontrol varies, resulting in non-integer values of mf (so long as they
are large).
• This is not applicable for ac motor drives because sub-harmonics at zero or close
to zero frequency, even though small in amplitude will result in large currents
that will be highly undesirable. Therefore, the asynchronous PWM should be
avoided.
Overmodulation (ma>1.0)
When ma>1.0, the converter is said to be operating in overmodulation mode. This
causes the output voltage to contain many more harmonics in the sidebands as
compared as compared with the linear range (ma≤1.0) as shown in figure 5.
• The harmonics with dominant amplitudes in the linear range may not be
dominant during overmodulation.
• The amplitude of the fundamental frequency component does not vary linearly
with ma.
• The overmodulation region is avoided in uninterruptible power supplies because
of a stringent requirement on minimizing the distortion in the output voltage.

Figure 5: Harmonics due to overmodulation, drawn for ma=2.5 and mf=15.

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Unipolar PWM
This can be implemented either using two triangular carriers displaced by 1800
compared with a single modulating signal or a single triangular carrier compared with
two modulating signals displaced by 1800. Both are shown in figures 6 and 7.
The waveforms in figure 7 show that the load voltage VL swings between the two
voltage levels +Vs and -Vs, with interspaced zero periods (i.e 0, ±Vs).
T1 is ON when Vref>Vtri such that Vao=+Vs
T4 is ON when Vref<Vtri such that Vao=oV
T3 is ON when Vref<-Vtri such that Vbo=+Vs
T2 is ON when Vref>-Vtri such that Vao=0V
The output voltage is the difference between the two leg voltage waveforms and can
be defined as;
T1 and T2 are ON such that Vao=+Vs, Vbo=0V, Vab=+Vs
T2 and T3 are ON such that Vao=0V, Vbo=+Vs, Vab=-Vs
T1 and T3 are ON such that Vao=+Vs, Vbo=+V, Vab=0V
T2 and T4 are ON such that Vao=0V, Vbo=0V, Vab=0V

Figure 6: Unipolar Pulse width modulation: (a) carrier and modulation waveforms and
(b) resultant load pwm waveform.

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Figure 7: Unipolar Pulse width modulation: (a) carrier and modulation waveforms and
(b) resultant load pwm waveform.

Spectral comparison between Bipolar and Unipolar PWM Waveforms

H-bridge inverter output voltage with bipolar PWM are;
• Vtri has only odd fourier components, so the output spectrum only has carrier
components at odd harmonics of the carrier frequency.
• The carrier components occurs at the carrier frequency frequency fc.
• Sideband components occur spaced by 2fo from other components around all
multiples of the carrier frequency fc.
Unipolar PWM are;
• The output fs is 2fc, since the switching of each leg is time shifted by 1800, hence

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 the first carrier related components in the output occur at 2fc and then at
multiples of 2fc.
• No Vtri fourier components exist in the output voltage since the two carriers are
in anti-phase (1800 apart), effectively cancelling one another in spectrum terms.
• Side-band components occur spaced by 2fo from other components, around each
multiple of the carrier frequency 2fc.

Figure 8: Typical phase output frequency spectrum, at a give switch commutation

frequency for: (a) bipolar PWM and (b) Unipolar PWM.
Three phase Voltage source inverter bridge.
The basic dc to three phase voltage source inverter bridge is shown in figure 9. It
comprises six power switches together with six associated reactive energy feedback
diodes. Each of the three inverter legs operate at a relative time displacement (phase)
of 2π/3 or 1200. The output of each leg, for example VAN (w.r.t. the negative dc bus),
depends on Vd and the switch status; the output voltage is independent of the output
load current since one of the two switches in a leg is always on at any instant. Here,
we ignore the blanking time required in practical circuits by assuming the switches to
be ideal. The inverter output voltage is independent of the direction of the load current.

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Figure 9: Three phase Inverter.
PWM in three phase Voltage source Inverter
The objective in PWM three phase inverters is to shape and control the three phase
output voltages in magnitude and frequency with an essentially constant input voltage
Vd. To obtain balanced three phase output voltages in three phase PWM inverter, the
same triangular voltage waveform is compared with three sinusoidal control voltages
that are 1200 out of phase, as shown in figure 10a. (which is drawn for mf=15).
It should also be noted from figure 10b that an identical amount of average dc
component is present in the output voltages VAN and VBN, which are measured w.r.t.
the negative dc bus. These dc component are cancelled out in the line to line voltages.
For example in VAB shown in figure 10b. this is similar to what happens in a single full-
bridge inverter utilizing a PWM switching.
In three phase inverters, only the harmonics in the line to line voltages are of concern.
The harmonics in the output of any one of the legs, for example, VAN in figure 10b have
odd harmonics as sidebands which are centered around mf and its multiples, provided
mf is odd.
Concerning harmonics at mf, the phase difference between the mf harmonic in VAN and
VBN is (120mf)0. This phase difference will be equivalent to zero (a multiple of 3600) if
mf is odd and a multiple of 3.
The harmonic at mf is suppressed in the line to line voltage VAB. The same argument
applies in the suppression of harmonics at the odd multiples of mf if mf is chosen to be
an odd multiple of 3 (mf is chosen to be an odd multiple of 3 in order to eliminate

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even harmonics and keep mf odd). Therefore, some of the dominant harmonics in the
one-leg inverter can be eliminated from the line to line voltage to a three phase inverter.

Figure 10:Three phase PWM waveforms.

In summary, selecting mf values, in order to eliminate even harmonics, a synchronized
PWM should be used and mf should be an odd integer. Moreover, mf should be a
multiple of 3 to cancel out the most dominant harmonics in the line to line voltage.
Effect of Blanking Time on Voltage in PWM Inverters
This is described by means of one leg of a single phase or full bridge inverter as shown
in figure 11(a).
In previous discussion, switches were assumed to be ideal, which allowed the status of
two switches in an inverter leg to change simultaneously from ON to OFF and vice

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versa.
For one switching time period, Vcontrol is a constant dc voltage were its comparison with
a triangular waveform Vtri determines the switching instant.
The switch control signals Vcontrol as shown in figure 11(b) are ideal assuming they are
ideal switches.
Because of the finite turn-OFF and turn-ON times associated with any type of switch, a
switch is turned OFF at the switching time instant determined in figure 11(b).
However, the turn-ON of the other switch in that inverter leg is delayed by a blanking
time 𝑡Δ , which is chosen to avoid a “shoot-through” or cross conduction current through
the leg.
Blanking time is chosen to be just a few microseconds for fast switching devices like
MOSFETs and larger for slower switching devices.
For a sinusoidal Vcontrol in a single phase full bridge PWM, the instantaneous average
output is shown in figure 12 for a load current i0 which is assumed to be sinusoidal and
lagging behind V0(t). the distortion in V0(t) at the current zero crossings results in low
order harmonics such as third, fifth, seventh and so on, of the fundamental frequency
in the inverter output. Similar distortions occur in the line to line voltages at the output
of a 3 phase PWM inverter, where the low order harmonics are of the order 6m±1
(m=1,2,3,.,.,.) of the fundamental frequency.

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Figure 11: Effect of blanking time.

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Figure 12: Effect of blanking time on the sinusoidal output.

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