716

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL INFORMATICS, VOL. 12, NO. 2, APRIL 2016

Harmonic Elimination in Multilevel Inverters

Under Unbalanced Voltages and Switching
Deviation Using a New Stochastic Strategy
Hamid Reza Massrur, Taher Niknam, Member, IEEE, Mohammad Mardaneh,
and Amir Hossein Rajaei, Member, IEEE

AbstractA new approach for minimization of total harmonic distortion (THD) of a multilevel flying capacitor
inverter (MFCI) based on the selective harmonic elimination named stochastic THD (STHD) strategy is proposed.
In the STHD strategy, the step voltage levels of multilevel
inverter are considered to be varying due to unbalanced
capacitor voltages. Moreover, this paper improves modeling of harmonic elimination by considering the effects
of dissipative snubbers, blanking time, gate-drive circuits,
and computation time in microcontrollers on the THD calculation. Switching instants are deviated from the desired
moments by regarding the mentioned effects. In the proposed strategy, the switching angle variations and unbalancing of flying capacitor voltages are evaluated by 2 m +
1 point estimate strategy. Then, the formulation is combined with new modified cuckoo search algorithm and a
self-adaptive mutation tactic for the establishment of new
robust algorithm for minimization of the THD. The proposed
STHD strategy is capable of determining the best switching
angles pattern in low switching frequency without measuring current and capacitor voltages, as well as not using any
controller. The proposed strategy is applied on three MFCIs
and the results show that the proposed method effectively
minimizes specific harmonics with low THD.
Index TermsEvolutionary algorithm, flying capacitor
inverter, harmonic elimination, multilevel inverter, total harmonic distortion (THD).

I. I NTRODUCTION

ECENTLY, much consideration has been specifically

allocated to multilevel inverters by researchers and industries. The multilevel inverters are recently applied in many
medium-/high-voltage industrial applications such as ac power
supplies and high-voltage active power filters, static VAR
compensators, adjustable speed for induction motor drive systems, etc. Multilevel inverters are powerful enough to handle
the high-/minimum-voltage stress on the switching devices,
and have low dv/dt and generate lower common-mode voltage in drive applications, which results in reducing stress
on motor bearing [1]. The topologies, such as neutral-point
Manuscript received June 01, 2015; revised November 26, 2015;
accepted January 04, 2016. Date of publication February 10, 2016; date
of current version March 29, 2016. Paper no. TII-15-0865.
The authors are with the Department of Electronics and Electrical
Engineering, Shiraz University of Technology, Shiraz 7155713961, Iran
(e-mail: h.massrur@sutech.ac.ir; niknam@sutech.ac.ir; mardaneh@
sutech.ac.ir; a.rajaei@sutech.ac.ir).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available
online at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TII.2016.2529589

clamped [2], cascaded H-Bridge [3], and flying capacitor [4]

are some of the popular multilevel schemes. One of the disadvantages of neutral-point clamped is that with increasing the
number of voltage levels, the number of diodes increases in a
quadratic manner. In comparison with neutral-point clamped,
cascaded H-Bridge, and flying capacitor, inverters have higher
modularity, lower control intricacy, and higher flexibility in the
multilevel voltage synthesis [5].
Moreover, the flying capacitor inverter does not require
increasing the number of isolated dc sources when the number
of output levels increases.
The key issue in designing an effective multilevel inverter
is to ensure that the output voltage and current waveform are
generated with low harmonic distortion. Hence, to accede to
this principle and ability to provide voltage and frequency control at one stage as well as control the fundamental component,
the pulsewidth modulation techniques have been proposed [6].
Performance characteristics of a multilevel inverter specially
depend on the choice of the applied pulsewidth modulation
strategy. Among the presented pulsewidth modulation techniques, the selected harmonic elimination (SHE) technique is
able to provide lower switching losses and to entirely efface
the low-order harmonics [7]. References [8][10] use the SHEpulsewidth modulation technique to eliminate harmonic with
equal and unequal dc sources. The main challenge of SHEpulsewidth modulation techniques is to gain the analytical exact
solution of the nonlinear transcendental equations, which has
multiple sets of solutions.
Numerical iterative methods, such as NewtonRaphson, are
employed to solve the SHE-pulsewidth modulation problem
[11]. However, these techniques require a good initial guess
that should be very near to the exact solution of the problem.
Reference [12] proposes the analytical solutions of this problem using the theory of symmetric polynomials for unipolar
and bipolar switching patterns. Also, [13] has offered SHEpulsewidth modulation control for ac chopper based on genetic
algorithm. However, there was no utter trustiness that the
genetic algorithm finds the global optimum solution because it
usually trapped in the local minima. An active harmonic elimination technique was introduced based on generating opposite
of harmonics [14].
Another technique is proposed to acquire optimized pulse
patterns that do not entirely eliminate harmonics, but attempts
to gain switching angles with a minimized total harmonic

1551-3203 2016 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.

MASSRUR et al.: HARMONIC ELIMINATION IN MULTILEVEL INVERTERS UNDER UNBALANCED VOLTAGES AND SWITCHING DEVIATION

distortion (THD). The reason for this effort is that it could be

advantageous to leave a slight part of every harmonic in order
to attain a minimal THD. Reference [15] reports an analytical
solution for THD minimization where the switching angles can
be calculated online for the equal voltage sources. Also, [16]
calculates the line-voltage THD in a cascaded H-Bridge inverter
with unequal voltage.
It is noteworthy to say that in the THD minimization model,
none of the previous papers had considered the all effects of
practical switching (such as dissipative snubbers, finite turn
ON / OFF and consequent blanking time, and different gate-drive
circuits for upper/lower switches and computation time in processors or micro-controllers) in a proposed model. Taking these
effects in practical applications into account, the switching
angles applied to inverter are deviated from nominal values and
are not the optimal switching angles that are obtained based on
conventional THD (CTHD) minimization. Consequently, due
to variation of switching angles (VSAs) from optimal points in
the practical applications, the THD and fundamental component are changed. This paper purposes to indicate the practical
mentioned effects on the THD calculation of multilevel flying
capacitor inverter (MFCI) without measuring load current and
capacitor voltages.
On the other hand, one of the other most crucial issues related
to the MFCI is the stability of the clamping-capacitor voltages. The flying capacitors are charged and discharged when
the flying capacitor inverter is used in practical application. If
the magnitude of voltage capacitor oscillates intensively due to
unbalancing of flying capacitor voltages (UFCVs), it will not
only generate undesired low-order harmonics, but may even
impair the power switches due to the uneven voltages across
them. Many studies have indicated that a simple open-loop
method undertakes the natural balancing of the flying capacitor voltages under certain conditions [17], [18]. Nonetheless,
in these control techniques, the transient balancing depends on
the impedance of load at the switching frequency. The high
impedance of the load at the switching frequency causes that
natural balancing to be very slow. In addition, unbalancing may
occur using such an open-loop control in applications with low
switching frequencies or if the reference waveform includes
harmonics that are close to the switching frequency [19].
Uncertainties about the VSAs and UFCVs can cause the
weak performance of MFCI in terms of THD and amplitude
of fundamental component. Therefore, in order to overcome
the difficulties pertaining to the uncertainties in operation of
MFCI without measuring load current and capacitor voltages, it
becomes essential to estimate the values of VSAs and UFCVs
in a probability and stochastic manner. One of the most powerful uncertainty analyses is the point estimate method (PEM)
[20]. Point estimate strategy includes the value evaluation of
the diverse sources of the uncertainty and the quantification
of their effects on the outcomes. Concisely, the idea behind
using 2 m + 1 point estimate strategy (accurate schemes of
point estimate strategy) in this paper is to efficiently estimate
the values of VSAs and UFCVs in order to effectively minimize the THD value. The switching angles yielded based on
stochastic total harmonic distortion (STHD) minimization guarantees the minimum THD in the practical application. Using the

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Fig. 1. Diagram of the process of (a) CTHD minimization, to attain (b)

STHD-NSA value using NSA, of the (c) proposed STHD minimization by
regarding VSA and UFCV.

proposed STHD minimization, the practical switching angles,

which result to the minimum THD value, are obtained with
regard to the VSAs and UFCVs uncertainty. By adjusting
the practical switching angles, the proposed STHD strategy is
capable to reach the minimum practical THD in the economic
manner with low switching frequency and without measuring
current and capacitor voltages as well without using any controller. According to above discussion, the overall issues that
this paper will answer are as follows.
Problem 1Finding the optimal switching angles with
optimum THD value without regarding the VSAs
and UFCVs uncertainty named CTHD minimization
[Fig. 1(a)].
Problem 2The THD value is how much if the switching
angles attained by CTHD minimization are practically
applied to multilevel capacitor inverter based on uncertainty analysis and stochastic process [Fig. 1(b)].
Problem 3Finding the switching angles with optimum practical THD regarding the VSAs and UFCVs effects and
without measuring load current and capacitor voltages,
which is named STHD minimization [Fig. 1(c)].
The THD minimization problem under uncertainty is commonly a large-scale, nonlinear, and mixed integer combinatorial
problem. Therefore, in this study, modified cuckoo search algorithm (MCSA) is proposed to solve the CTHD and STHD
minimization problems. The cuckoo search algorithm (CSA)
is a new metaheuristic optimization algorithm that is based on

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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL INFORMATICS, VOL. 12, NO. 2, APRIL 2016

where r is the number of the switching angles in the first

quadrant. In (3), the effects of the VSAs and the voltages
unbalancing capacitor are disregarded. Therefore, in order to
consider these effects in the SHE problem, (3) should be
changed as follows:
An = (4Vdc /n)
Fig. 2. Generalized output waveform and switching angles for an MFCI.

the exceptional lifestyle of cuckoo birds and their characteristics in the egg laying and breeding [21]. The performance of
the original CSA depends on its parameters, such as maximum
distance from their habitat for laying and the migrate factors.
These dependencies cause the algorithm to be trapped in local
optima. Hence, self-adaptive mutation (SAM) tactic is proposed to effectively improve the performance of the CSA and
increases the robustness of the algorithm to solve the CTHD and
STHD minimization problems. The SAM causes that MCSA is
the intelligence search and impedes the algorithm to fall in the
local optima.
The main contributions of this paper can be briefed as
follows.
1) Proposing the STHD approach in order to improve the
strategy of the SHE by considering the effects of practical
switching of devices and UFCVs on the practical THD
calculation of MFCI.
2) Indicating the probable THD value for nominal switching
angles (NSAs) when the effects of the VSAs and UFCVs
are taken into account simultaneously.
3) Proposing a new mutation tactic for modifying the original CSA to attain an efficient MCSA.
4) The performance and the potential of the proposed
method are successfully validated with the numerical
simulations and the experimental results.
II. P ROBLEM F ORMULATION
A generalized quarter-wave symmetry output waveform of
MFCI is displayed in Fig. 2. Since the output waveform of
MFCI is nonsinusoidal, thereupon, it may be expressed in the
following Fourier series expansion:
V (t) =

(An sin (n t) + Bn cos (n t)).

V (t) =

An sin(nt)

(2)

n=1

The amplitude of the nth harmonic An is represented by

An = (4Vdc /n)

r

k=1

cos (nk )

(3)

Vk cos (nk )

(4)

V1 cos (n1 ) + V2 cos (n2 ) + + Vr cos (nr ) = 0

(5)
where M is equal to modulation index. These nonlinear equations contain trigonometric terms that exhibit multiple solutions. Moreover, at certain points, no set of solution is available
to convince these equations. Due to these reasons, the conventional numerical SHE techniques have the disadvantage of
complexity in solving (5). These techniques need the initial
values close to the exact solution. However, in the THD minimization method, the complexity of finding the solution to
these nonlinear equations is surmounted by transforming the
SHE problem to an optimization problem. Hence, the THD is
considered as the objective function and it will be minimized,
while the fundamental component is maintained at a predetermined value. In this method, the harmonics are not entirely
eliminated, but the switching angles are obtained with a minimized THD. The formulation of the THD for the output voltage
can be computed using the following equation:

%STHD =

Due to the quarter waveform of the output is symmetric, the

even harmonics are hidden and only the sinusoidal terms with
odd harmonics remain in the expansion. Therefore, the output
voltage can be reduced to the following form:

k=1

where Vk and k are the step of the kth voltage level and kth
switching angle by regarding the VSAs and UFCVs effects,
respectively, which are estimated by 2 m + 1 point estimate
strategy. Due to that, the inverters are mainly employed in threephase medium/high voltages; all the triple harmonics are absent
in three-phase voltage. Hence, only the low-order nontriple
odd harmonics in the line-to-neutral voltage are considered to
be eliminated. Consequently, the optimal switching angles are
computed by solving the following equations:



V1 cos (1 ) + V2 cos (2 ) + + Vr cos (r ) = M r

4Vdc
V1 cos (31 ) + V2 cos (32 ) + + Vr cos (3r ) = 0
V1 cos (51 ) + V2 cos (52 ) + + Vr cos (5r ) = 0
..
..
..
.
.
.

(1)

n=1

r


1 
2
(An )
A21 n=5

1/2
100.

(6)

In the proposed STHD minimization method, the switching

angles are calculated at the each iteration of MCSA. In the each
iteration of algorithm, the VSAs and UFCVs effects obtained
by 2 m + 1 strategy is applied to STHD minimization. Next,
the results of STHD values are employed in the next iteration of cuckoo algorithm. As the time passes, in the STHD
minimization process, the THD value by regarding the VSAs
and UFCVs effects is minimized. After STHD minimization
is ended, the best switching angles attained by MCSA and
2 m + 1 strategy are applied on the multilevel inverter in the
experiment.

MASSRUR et al.: HARMONIC ELIMINATION IN MULTILEVEL INVERTERS UNDER UNBALANCED VOLTAGES AND SWITCHING DEVIATION

III. A SSESSMENT OF THE VSA S AND UFCV S B ASED

ON 2 m + 1 P OINT E STIMATE S TRATEGY
The point estimate strategy [20][21] is a numerical
method applied to solve the probabilistic nonlinear problems.
Concisely, the idea behind using point estimate strategy in this
paper is to efficiently and accurately estimate the VSAs and
voltages unbalancing values. Point estimate strategy estimates
the moments of a random variable S, which is a function (F ) of
m uncertain input variables (zd )
S = F (z1 , z2 , . . . zd , . . . zm ) .

(7)

It is worthy to mention that in the STHD minimization problem, the variable S is equal to THD of output voltage and the
random variable m is the values of Vk and k and function
F related to (6). The 2 m + 1 point estimate strategy utilizes
three probability concentration locations to replace probability distribution function of input random variables by matching
the first four moments of the input random variables containing
the mean, variance, coefficients of skewness, and kurtosis. Each
concentration location contains two pairs (zd,p , d,p ) , k = 1, 2,
where zd,p and d,p are the location and the weighting factor,
respectively. The weighting factor ascertains the influence of
the corresponding location in estimating the statistical moments
of the THD. The three concentration locations for each random
variable are calculated as follows:
zd,p = zd + zd,p .zd ,

p = 1, 2, 3

(8)

where zd,p is the standard location and computed as

zd,p

zd,3
zd,p
zd,3

z
3p
= d,3 +(1)
2

3
zd,4 2zd,3 , p = 1, 2, zd,3 =0
4
(9)

3
4
E (zd zd )
E (zd zd )
=
, zd,4 =
(10)
3
(zd )
(zd ) 4
3p

(1)

,
=
zd,p zd,1 zd,2
1
1

=
m zd,4 2zd,3

p = 1, 2

Finally, the expected STHD is computed as

E (STHD) =

m 
3

d=1 p=1



zd,p STHD(d,p)

m 
2




zd,p STHD(d,p)

d=1 p=1

+ [F (z1 , z2 , . . . , zd , . . . , zm ) ]

m


zd,3 .

d=1

(13)
Accordingly, for each variation of the switching angles
and unbalancing voltages, three concentration locations are
achieved by (8)(10). In these equations, three concentration
locations for the VSAs and unbalancing voltages are yielded by
employing respect mean and standard deviations (SDs) of them.
Moreover, (11) acquires the weighing factors for concentration
locations. After the uncertainties are fully found, the practical
STHD utilizing (13) and three concentration locations for each
variation of the switching angles and unbalancing voltages is
acquired.
IV. M ODIFIED CSA
A. SAM Tactic
In this paper, a SAM tactic is proposed for increasing the
robustness of original CSA [22] to STHD minimization problem and improving the convergence characteristics to achieve
the optimal solution. In this strategy, four mutation methods
are applied in MCSA to optimize the STHD problem. SAM
utilizes a probabilistic updating procedure that is based on
the feedback of solution quality that methods generated previously. In the probability model, the one mutation method, which
more successfully behaved in the previous iterations to generate favorable solutions, has the more probability to be selected
by agents in the current iteration to generate new solutions. The
happening of mutation methods is followed from the necessities
of the MCSA.
Mutation technique 1
Xmut,i = Xi + rand (XBest Mean)
= round(1 + rand).

(14)
(15)

Mutation technique 2
(11)

where E is the expectation operator. The STHD is calculated

for each achieved point. In each calculation of STHD, one of the
random variables Vk and k is fixed to one of its concentration
locations and the other input variables are assumed to be fixed
to their mean as follows:
STHD(d,p) = F (z1 , z2 , . . . , zd,p , . . . , zm ) ,

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p = 1, 2, 3.
(12)

Xmut,i = Xn1 + rand (Xn2 Xn3 ) ,

n1 = n2 = n3 = i.
(16)

Mutation technique 3
Xmut,i = XBest + rand (Xn1 Xn2 ) ,

n1 = n2 = i. (17)

Mutation technique 4
Xmut,i = Xi + rand (XBest XWorst )

(18)

where XBest and XWorst are the best and worst solutions that are
found by the algorithm up to now, respectively. For the mutation
techniques 2, 3, and 4, a mutant cuckoo is achieved using the
following equation:

Xmut,i , if (rand rand)
(19)
Xmut,i =
else.
Xi ,

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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL INFORMATICS, VOL. 12, NO. 2, APRIL 2016

For the replacement operation, the fitness value of the mutant

cuckoo (Fit (Xmut,i )) should be compared with the fitness value
of the existing vector Fit (Xi )

Xmut,i , if Fit (Xmut,i ) Fit (Xi )
Xi =
(20)
otherwise.
Xi ,
Initially, the probability for all mutation methods are
assumed to be Ptec = 0.25(tec = 1, 2, 3, 4) and a parameter
named accumulator is set to acumtec = 0(tec = 1,2,3,4). In each
iteration, all cuckoos would gain a weighting factor according
to its rank in the population after sorting the population cuckoos based on their fitness s values. j = 1 represents the agent
with best fitness value and the j = NP stands for the agent with
the worst fitness value. It is perspicuous that the larger weight
factor assign to better solutions. Weight factors are obtained as
follows:
wj =

log (N P i + 1)
,
log (1) + + log (N P )

i = 1, . . . , NP.

(21)

The accumulator of each mutation technique is updated as

wjj
acumtec = acumtec +
, jj = 1, ..., Napproachtec
Napproachtec
(22)
where Napproachtec is the number of the particles that select tecth mutation method and wjj (jj = 1, . . . , Napproachtec ) are the
weight factors corresponding to them. The updated probability
is calculated as
acumtec
, (tec = 1, 2, 3, 4)
Ptec = (1 Ie) Ptec + Ie
Itermax
(23)
Ptec
Ptec normalized =
, (tec = 1, 2, 3, 4)
(P1 + P2 + P3 + P4 )
(24)
where Ie is a learning rate to control the learning speed
in the MCSA. Finally, using the roulette wheel mechanism,
each agent selects the tec-th mutation technique based on the
probability values of mutation techniques.
B. Finding Solution Procedure
To solve Problem 1, the proposed MCSA is used to find the
switching angles that are results to optimum THD value. In this
regard, MCSA is started with initial population and random values for switching angles and continues to search in the space of
switching angles to reach lower value of THD in the iterations.
But, in Problem 2, the optimal switching angles, which are
yielded in Problem 1, are implemented to the inverter regarding
VSAs and UFCVs uncertainty. In this problem, for the nominal
value of VSAs and UFCVs, which has uncertainty, the practical
value of VSAs and UFCVs based on the statistical information
of them is evaluated by point estimate strategy. Then, the practical THD value is estimated with evaluated mentioned values of
VSAs and UFCVs by running point estimate strategy ones time
after the CTHD minimization is ended. For solving Problem
3, the proposed MCSA is used to find the optimum switching

TABLE I
A LGORITHM S ETTINGS

angles. In this procedure, MCSA is started with initial population and random values for the switching angles and THD
value is estimated considering the VSAs and UFCVs uncertainty based on stochastic strategy by point estimate strategy.
To clarify the procedure, in the each iteration for the switching angles in the population, the point estimate strategy is run
to evaluate the practical VSAs and UFCVs values. Then, the
practical THD value is estimated with the evaluated mentioned
values of VSAs and unbalancing of flying voltages for respect
iteration and particle of population. This procedure is continued
until the convergence circumstance is satisfied. The best switching angles that result in the lower value of practical THD in the
last iteration is the solution.
V. S IMULATION R ESULTS
In order to verify the usefulness and effectiveness of the new
proposed formulation, simulations and experiments based on
SHE technique are carried out. Simulations were carried out on
MATLAB 7.10 using a Pentium IV, Dual-core 2.21-GHz personal computer with 1 GB of RAM. It is assumed that the Vdc
has the nominal value 1 p.u. in all MFCI. The THD of output
voltage is calculated up to the 55th harmonic. The settings for
parameter of the proposed MCSA and other algorithms are presented in Table I. The simulation results are divided into the
conventional and the stochastic (practical) conditions. In order
to demonstrate the superiority of the proposed STHD minimization, three cases including five-, seven-, and nine-level flying
capacitor inverter are employed in the simulations.
A. Conventional Condition
In the conventional condition, it is supposed that the flying
capacitor voltages do not deviate from their nominal value at the
level transitions and the practical effects of switching angles are
ignored. In the first case, a five-level flying capacitor inverter
with two switching angles in a quarter cycle is scrutinized.
The MCSA is applied to minimize the CTHD. The nonlinear
THD minimization problem for full-range modulation index
M is solved and the best solution is obtained. The optimum
feasible THD for each modulation index found by MCSA is
listed in Table II. It should be emphasized that the proposed
STHD strategy does not need capacitor voltage measurements,
information about load current direction, magnitude, and phase

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TABLE II
T HE R ESULTS OF THE P ROPOSED STHD M INIMIZATION FOR F IVE -, S EVEN -, AND N INE -L EVEL

Fig. 3. Switching angles versus modulation index. (a) Five-level inverter.

(b) Seven-level inverter. (c) Nine-level inverter.

angle. The trajectories for two switching angles resulting in the

minimization of THD using MCSA are shown in Fig. 3.
The proposed MCSA is applied to minimize the THD for
the seven-level flying capacitor inverter. The optimum feasible
THD for each modulation index is listed in Table II for this case
study. The trajectories of the solutions versus modulation index
M are shown in Fig. 3. As an example, when M = 0.3 and
the fundamental component is 0.9 p.u. Vf = M r = 0.3
3 = 0.9, the optimum values of the switching angles are 1 =
42.47 , 2 = 86.02 , and 3 = 89.48 .
For Case 3, the objective is to minimize the THD of the output voltage waveform for nine-level flying capacitor inverter.
The optimum feasible THD for each modulation index found
by MCSA is shown in Fig. 4(a) for this case. The switching
angle trajectory for three switching angles with varying modulation index M to produce minimum voltage THD are shown
in Fig. 3. For example, condition M = 0.7 and the fundamental component Vf to 2.8 p.u. Vf = M r = 0 .7 4 = 2 .8,
the switching angles are equal to 1 = 35.39 , 2 = 47.42 ,
3 = 59.85 , and 4 = 72.77 . Fig. 4(b) shows the comparison
values of harmonic spectrum up to 55th harmonic at modulation index M = 0.6 for conventional and STHDs. It is evident
from this figure that low-order harmonics including 5th, 7th,
and 11th are effectively disappeared in the output voltage. This

Fig. 4. (a) Comparison of the THD values determined from the CTHD
minimization, the STHD-NSA, and the STHD minimization versus M for
the nine-level MFCI. (b) Harmonics spectra of the output voltage for
nine-level at M = 0.6 for the conventional and STHDs. (c) Mean convergence characteristics of the algorithms for the nine-level case with
M = 0.4 in the CTHD problem.

figure shows the relatively significant content in the lowest harmonics for the optimal THD. The optimum feasible THD for
each modulation index found by MCSA is listed in Table II.
In order to investigate the MCSA proficiency, the original
CSA, teaching learning-based optimization (TLBO) [23], differential evolution (DE), particle swarm optimization (PSO) are
compared with the proposed MCSA on solving the CTHD minimization problem for three cases. The statistical comparative
results of the proposed MCSA versus the other algorithms in
terms of the mean, SD, best, worst solutions and the deviation
of the best (DB), and the deviation of the worst solutions (DW)
are given in Table III. The best results are typed in bold form.
In Table III, the best solution of the MCSA without any
exception is better than the best solution of all other algorithms
in all cases. The mean THD values calculated by the proposed

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TABLE III
S TATISTICAL C OMPARATIVE R ESULTS OF THE A LGORITHMS FOR THE CTHD M INIMIZATION

MCSA are less than other algorithms. Results indicate that the
proposed MCSA effectively minimizes the undesired harmonics in the output voltage with lower THD. Table III shows that
the proposed MCSA attains a lower THD value than CSA with
lower SD, deviation of the best solutions, and deviation of the
worst solutions. Regarding the smaller SD values of MCSA
than other algorithms, perception that the SAM tactic for the
MCSA provides qualitative and stable solutions. These comparisons unveil the capability and superiority of the MCSA to
solve the harmonic elimination problem in different test cases.
Fig. 4(c) represents the mean convergence characteristics of
the proposed MCSA and the other algorithms for the nine-level
case with M = 0.4 in the CTHD minimization problem. As can
be inferred from these figures, it is evident that MCSA has the
capability to relax the stagnation and skip the local optima point
and reach the more optimum THD than the other algorithms.

B. Stochastic Condition
In this part to answer Problem 2, we first reveal that if
angles yielded by CTHD minimization are applied to multilevel inverter, what may occur for the practical THD of output
voltage. Next, to answer Problem 2, the proposed STHD minimization is used to minimize the THD with regard to the VSAs
and UFCVs uncertainty. In this paper, the SDs for switching
angle variations and voltages unbalancing are assumed to be
0.1 and 0.35 p.u., respectively, [24][25].
In the stochastic condition, the most probable values for
the VSAs and UFCVs with regard to the mentioned SDs are
inferred by 2 m + 1 point estimate strategy. In this context, the
NSAs obtained with the CTHD minimization are employed in
the new probabilistic practical situation that is found by point
estimate strategy. Then, THD for NSAs by regarding the VSAs
and UFCVs uncertainties named STHD with NSAs (STHDNSAs) is calculated. The STHD with NSAs results for three
MFCI including five- and seven-level cases are displayed in
Table II. It is obvious that the STHD with NSAs values is higher
than the CTHD values in all test cases which demonstrate the
practical effects of the UFCVs and the VSAs uncertainties for

NSAs. For example in the seven-level case with M = 0.5, the

CTHD is 14.3 and the STHD with NSAs is 16.8.
It is noticed that with the UFCVs and the VSAs, the value
of fundamental component is changed and also small amounts
of lower order harmonics are appeared in the harmonic spectrum of output voltage, which cause higher value of THD.
Therefore, in order to effectively minimize the THD value by
regarding the VSAs and UFCVs effects, we investigate the proposed STHD minimization as an answer to Problem 3. In the
STHD minimization process, the probable values of VSAs and
UFCVs are appraised by 2 m + 1 point estimate strategy and
then the proposed MCSA is implemented to minimize the THD
by regarding the effects of UFCVs and VSAs. The results of the
proposed STHD minimization are addressed in Table II.
It can be clearly realized from Table II that the THD values
determined by the STHD minimization are reasonably lower
than the CTHD values as well as the STHD with NSAs values.
The reason of the lower THD values by STHD minimization
is that in the VSAs and unbalancing voltages conditions, the
algorithm is more flexible than the CTHD method to find the
switching angles that minimize the THD due to the step levels of the output voltage is not equal. The comparison of the
THD values determined by the CTHD minimization, and the
STHD with NSAs and STHD minimization versus M for the
nine-level flying capacitor inverter is shown in Fig. 4(a). It is
obvious that the percentage differences in THD values between
the STHD and CTHD generally increase with the number of
levels for output waveform.
In order to indicate the sensitivity of the THD value to SDs
of the UFCVs and VSAs, STHD minimization is carried out by
changing the SD values. Fig. 5 shows the difference between
the STHD with NSAs values and the CTHD values, while SDs
of the UFCVs and the VSAs are changed in the nine-level flying capacitor inverter. It can be realized by this figure that in
the nine-level flying capacitor inverter with increasing the SD
of VSAs, the difference between the STHD with NSAs values
and CTHD values in the high modulation index is more obvious. However, with increasing the SD of UFCVs, the difference
between the STHD with NSAs values and the CTHD values in
the middle modulation index is more serious.

MASSRUR et al.: HARMONIC ELIMINATION IN MULTILEVEL INVERTERS UNDER UNBALANCED VOLTAGES AND SWITCHING DEVIATION

723

Fig. 7. Output voltage at M = 0.8 for (a) test 1 and (b) test 3.
Fig. 5. Difference between STHD-NSA and CTHD values in the ninelevel MFCI for changing the SD of (a) UFCVs and (b) VSAs.
TABLE IV
PARAMETERS FOR E XPERIMENTAL TESTS

Fig. 6. Electrical schematic for the experimental tests.

Fig. 8. Output voltages for practical MFCI with load = 30 . (a) M = 0.2.
(b) M = 0.5. (c) M = 0.8. (d) FC voltage for M = 0.8 and load = 30 .

C. Experimentation
The CTHD and STHD minimization methods have been
tested on a practical five-level single-phase MFCI to establish
the validity of the proposed STHD minimization method. The
experimental tests are divided into five scenario tests. In these
scenario testes, the effects of UFCVs and the effects, which
cause the delaying time on the switching angles, are investigated on THD value. Accordingly, the scenario tests are as
follows:
1) considering the effects of the dead time;
2) considering the effects of the dead time and the unbalancing capacitor voltages;
3) considering the effects of the dead time and the high
unbalancing capacitor voltages;
4) considering the effects of the dead time and the unbalancing capacitor voltages in the medium load for the practical
MFCI;
5) considering the effects of the dead time and the unbalancing capacitor voltages in the high load for the practical
MFCI.
The flying capacitor is 1 mF and loads are 30 and 15,
respectively, in scenarios 4 and 5 for the practical cases.
The parameters for the experimental tests are represented in
Table IV. The dc-link voltage in all scenario tests is 50 V. The

five-level single-phase flying capacitor inverter has been tested

at three modulation indices M = 0.2, M = 0.5, and M = 0.8
for all scenario tests. Electrical schematic for the experimental
tests is shown in Fig. 6.
At first, it should be proved that the deviation of angles and
unbalanced voltage deteriorate the THD. Hence, these effects
are imposed step-by-step. Since the effects, which cause the
delaying time on the switching angles, are not completely kept
in hand, these effects are considered with the dead time effect
that is implemented on scenarios 13. In other words, to consider the effects of unknown snubber, gate driver, and unknown
blanking time, a dead time is imposed to calculate the switching
angle. Fig. 7 displays the output waveform for this scenario at
M = 0.8 for five-level flying capacitor inverter.
At tests 2 and 3, to assess the effects of the unbalanced voltage of the flying capacitor, the flying capacitors are replaced
by variable dc sources. Based on the various switching patterns
and how dc voltages change, the various waveforms may happen. Fig. 7 displays the output waveform for the scenario test 3
at M = 0.8 for five-level flying capacitor inverter.
In tests 4 and 5, the practical MFCI was used. In these tests,
the effects of the unbalanced voltage of flying capacitor and the
variation switching angles have been tested in high and medium

724

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL INFORMATICS, VOL. 12, NO. 2, APRIL 2016

the analyses and the numerical results presented in this paper,

the following conclusions are discovered.
1) If switching angles yielded by CTHD minimization without regarding the VSAs and UFCVs effects are applied to
MFCI, THD of output voltage is deviated from optimum
value in practical condition. These deviations in the low
modulation indices are beheld and the THDs are more
detoured.
2) Due to the steps of voltage levels are not equal in the
VSAs and UFCVs conditions; the MCSA is more flexible than the CTHD minimization to find switching angles.
Hence, the algorithm can find switching angles with lower
THD value than the CTHD minimization.
3) In the nine-level MFCI with increasing the SDs of VSAs
and UFCVs, the difference between the THD of NSAs
by regarding VSAs and unbalancing voltages approach
and the THD of CTHD minimization in the high and
middle modulation indices is more evident and critical,
respectively.
4) In comparison with the other optimization algorithms, the
MCSA has more efficiency in acquiring optimum switching angles. Solutions that are found by MCSA are more
qualified and stable with the smaller SD.
Fig. 9. Experimental THD results determined by MCSA versus M on
the five-level single-phase MFCI. (a) Scenario test 1. (b) Scenario test
2. (c) Scenario test 3. (d) Scenario test 4. (e) Scenario test 5.

loads for the practical MFCI. In Fig. 8, the output waveform

for scenario test 4 at M = 0.2, 0.5, 0.8 for five-level flying
capacitor inverter is represented. The flying capacitor voltage
for M = 0.8 and load = 30 is displayed in Fig. 8(d).
Fig. 9(a)(e) displays the experimental THD versus M on the
five-level flying capacitor inverter for two minimization methods. As is obvious from this figure, the experimental results of
the STHD minimization correspond well with the simulations
results. Moreover, the experimental results of STHD strategy
are very impressive comparison with the experimental result of
the CTHD minimization in terms of the THD value.

VI. C ONCLUSION
A novel technique for calculating the switching angles based
on the selective harmonic elimination scheme to minimize
the THD has been proposed in this paper. For the first time,
the effects of snubbers, finite turn ON/OFF and blanking time,
the delay due to the gate-drive circuits, computation time in
processors as well as the effects of UFCVs on the THD calculation is considered by the proposed STHD minimization
strategy without any current or voltage measurement. The
STHD minimization strategy is capable to effectively minimize
the practical THD of the MFCI, when the flying capacitor voltages are unbalanced and the switching angles are varied due
to the mentioned effects. In the STHD minimization strategy,
2 m + 1 point estimate strategy is implemented to evaluate the
values of VSAs and UFCVs. A MCSA with a SAM tactic has
been introduced to determine the optimum switching angles of
the MFCI in both conventional and stochastic conditions. From

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Hamid Reza Massrur was born in Shiraz,

Iran. He received the M.Sc. degree in electrical engineering from the Shiraz University of
Technology, Shiraz, Iran, in 2014, where he is
currently pursuing the Ph.D. degree in electronics and electrical engineering.
His research interests include power converters, power system operation and economics,
probabilistic problems, renewable energy systems, and evolutionary optimization algorithms.

725

Taher Niknam (M14) received the B.Sc. degree from Shiraz University,
Shiraz, Iran, in 1998, and the M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees from the Sharif
University of Technology, Tehran, Iran, in 2000 and 2005, respectively,
all in power electrical engineering.
He is a Faculty Member with the Department of Electrical
Engineering, Shiraz University of Technology. His research interests
include power system restructuring, impacts of distributed generations
on power systems, optimization methods, and evolutionary algorithms.

Mohammad Mardaneh received the B.S.

degree in electrical engineering from Shiraz
University, Shiraz, Iran, in 2002, and the M.S.
and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from
the Amirkabir University of Technology, Tehran,
Iran, in 2004 and 2008, respectively.
He has been an Assistant Professor with the
Shiraz University of Technology, Shiraz, since
2008. His research interests include modeling,
design, and control of electrical machines, and
application of power electronics in renewable
energy systems and distribution networks.

Amir Hossein Rajaei (S08M12) was born

in Jahrom, Iran. He received the B.Sc. degree
in electrical engineering from Shiraz University,
Shiraz, Iran, in 2006, and the M.Sc. and Ph.D.
degrees in electrical engineering from Tarbiat
Modares University, Tehran, Iran, in 2009 and
2013, respectively.
He is currently an Assistant Professor with
the Shiraz University of Technology, Shiraz. His
research interests include power converters,
renewable energy resources, electric vehicles,
and motor drive systems.