2016 International Conference on Advances in Electrical, Electronic and System Engineering, 14-16 Nov 2016, Putrajaya,
Malaysia
Design and Analysis of Single Phase Voltage Source
Inverter Using Unipolar and Bipolar Pulse Width
Modulation Techniques
Jahangeer Soomro
*Post Graduate Student,
Institute of Information & Communication Technologies (IICT),
Mehran University of Engineering and Technology,
Jamshoro, Pakistan.
**Department of Electrical Engineering,
Sukkur Institute of Business Administration,
Sindh, Pakistan 65200.
Jahangir.soomro@iba-suk.edu.pk
Abstract— This research work is organized in two sections.
Performance comparison of single phase half bridge inverter and
single phase full bridge inverter is done in the first section. It is
observed the output current and output voltage of full bridge
inverter is twice and generates less total harmonic distortion as
compared to half bridge inverter. In the second section,
performance comparison of Unipolar and Bipolar PWM is
presented for single phase full bridge inverter with and without
filter in MATLAB SIMULINK. The proper choice of Frequency
Modulation Ratio (mf) is discussed in detail for bipolar and
unipolar PWM scheme. Non integer value of mf results in sub-
harmonics which are nearly unfilterable and cause significant
losses in any power system application. It is observed that
Unipolar PWM has an advantage in terms of efficiency; it offers
less switching losses and generates less EMI. Also, the switching
frequency becomes twice and voltage amplitude is reduced to half
in case of unipolar PWM. Therefore, total harmonic distortion
(THD) content of output current and output voltage is decreased,
thus improving the power quality and making filter easier.
Index Terms—Half Bridge Inverter, Full Bridge Inverter, Pulse
Width Modulation, Power Total Harmonic Distortion, Bipolar
PWM, Unipolar PWM.
I. INTRODUCTION
Inverter is basically a power electronic converter that converts
dc power supply into AC waveform. The input d.c can be
taken from battery or rectifiers. The inverters may be
classified into square wave, quasi-square wave or low
distorted sine wave according to their output waveform.
Square wave and quasi square have high value of Total
Harmonic Distortion, therefore, they are restricted for low and
medium power applications but for high power application
better quality waveform is desired [1]. Power quality of sine
978-1-5090-2889-4/16/$31.00 ©2016 IEEE
Tayab D Memon
Department of Electronic Engineering,
Mehran University of Engineering and Technology,
Jamshoro, Pakistan
tayabuddin.memon@faculty.muet.edu.pk
M. A. SHAH
Department of Electrical Engineering,
Sukkur Institute of Business Administration,
Sindh, Pakistan 65200.
madad@iba-suk.edu.pk
wave is sometimes more important than quantity. Proper
PWM Control Schemes can minimize the harmonic distortion.
They are applied in applications like adjustable speed drivers
(ASDs), standby power supply (UPS), induction heating and
high voltage direct current transmission systems. PWM
techniques control inverter output voltage. Such inverters are
named as PWM Inverters.
A. Pulse Width Modulation Techniques (PWM)
PWM is a method in which pulse width is changed with
respect to time to control electricity. Digital signals have only
two states, on and off. So it can easily control LED’s on and
off state. Similarly, electrical devices on/off can be easily
controlled by using proper drivers like transistors, IGBT,
relays, triac etc. But PWM techniques smartly handles
situations where you require more than on and off control just
like controlling brightness of LED or speed of the motor.
PWM techniques are widely accepted and have been the
subject of intensive research during past few years [2].
PWM techniques play a vital role in controlling power
electronic controllers such as choppers, dc to ac converters,
rectifiers, cycloconverter and motor drives. PWM techniques
offer many advantages
• Power loss is very low in the switching devices and
less generated noise.
• Minimization of harmonics and output voltage can be
easily controlled [3].
PWM techniques are classified into two basic types-Analog
and Digital Techniques. Analog techniques and analog
controllers have disadvantages like
• They are sensitive to noise and are affected by
temperature change or due to component variation
[4].
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 • They are fixed and less flexible as compared to Fig. 2 and Fig. 3 shows the output current and output voltage
digital techniques. of half bridge and full bridge inverter respectively with RL
• Analog controllers require many interconnected load, R=1 Ÿ and L=5e-03 H
discrete components which increases inventory cost
and complexity of manufacturing process. Also they
require many power supplies for numerous discrete
components [5].

Thus digital PWM techniques are better. They are more

flexible and less prone to environmental noise. Digital PWM
techniques can be implemented by using DSPs,
Microcontroller, Microprocessors or ASICs but the arrival of
FPGA brings dramatic change in the digital PWM control
applications [6]. FPGA offers better alternative solution for
digital PWM techniques due to its highest computational
speed as compared to Microcontroller, Microprocessor and Fig. 2 Output Current and output Voltage of Half Bridge
DSPs [7]. Inverter

II. COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS BETWEEN HALF

BRIDGE AND FULL BRIDGE INVERTER

MATLAB/SIMULINK environment is used for simulation.

The converters have been tested using IGBT switches with
gate pulse generated by PWM generator block. Fig. 1 shows
half bridge and full bridge inverter.
The two converters use the same dc voltage (VDC=400V),
carrier frequency (1000 Hz), frequency of output voltage (50
Fig. 3 Output Current and output Voltage of Full Bridge
Hz) and modulation index (m=0.8).
Inverter
Modulation Index (m) is ratio of control signal (Sinusoidal in
bipolar PWM) to the carrier signal (Triangular in bipolar
Fig. 4 and Fig. 5 show the %THD of output current of half
PWM).
bridge and full bridge inverter.
m=Ec/Er (1)
The value of modulation index determines the output voltage
of inverter [8]. It should be noted that decreasing the
modulation index will decrease inverter output voltage and
vice versa.

Fig. 4 Output current FFT analysis of half bridge inverter

Fig. 5 Output current FFT analysis of full bridge inverter

Fig. 1 Half bridge and Full bridge inverter The simulated results verify that for the same dc voltage,
carrier frequency and modulation index, the output current and

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output voltage of full bridge is twice as compared to half B. Unipolar Switching Scheme
bridge. Also it is observed that %THD is lower in full bridge A unipolar switching scheme implemented on full bridge
and harmonics appear at double of the carrier frequency as inverter is called a two level inverter, due to the fact that
compared to half bridge. Due to this, the output current of full output voltage switches between two states either positive
bridge is smoother and offers better power quality. The table or negative value of applied voltage as shown in fig. 7(d).
shown below concludes the simulated results. In unipolar PWM, two sinusoidal signals having 180°
phase shift are taken having same magnitude and
Table.1: Comparative Analysis between Half Bridge and Full frequency. The two sinusoidal signals are compared with
Bridge Inverter same triangular pulse.
The gate signal for switch S1 is generated by comparing
Inverter Scheme Ffundamental Fswitching M %THD
(Current)
positive reference signal and triangular signal as shown in
Half Bridge 50 1000 0.8 6.83% fig. 7(b) while comparing 180 phase shifted reference
Full Bridge 50 1000 0.8 1.88% signal and triangular signal results in gate signal for
switch S3 as shown in fig. 7(c). The switch S2 has
complementary switching as compared to S1 and
III. BIPOLAR AND UNIPOLAR SINUSOIDAL PULSE WIDTH similarly switch S4 has complementary switching as
MODULATION TECHNIQUES compared to S3.
Unipolar and Bipolar are sinusoidal pulse width modulation
techniques, because in this control signal is sinusoidal signal.
Sinusoidal signal (reference signal) is compared with
triangular signal (carrier signal) using comparator that
produces resulting gate signal for inverter switches. Output
frequency of inverter is determined by frequency of control
signal while the modulation index (m) is controlled by
amplitude of control signal. The switching frequency of the
inverter can be determined by carrier signal switching
frequency. Switching frequency has effect on inverter output
so harmonics are contained at switching frequency [9].
A. Bipolar Switching Scheme
A bipolar switching scheme implemented on full bridge
inverter is called a two level inverter, due to the fact that
output voltage switches between two states either positive or Fig. 7 Unipolar Switching Scheme
negative value of applied voltage as shown in fig. 6(d).
In bipolar switching scheme, carrier and modulating signal are IV. BIPOLAR SPWM INVERTER SIMULATION RESULTS
compared. The inverter switches are turned on whenever the WITHOUT FILTER
reference signal is greater than the carrier signal and vice Fig. 8 shows Bipolar SPWM inverter with dc voltage=
versa. This resulting gate pulse shown in fig. 6(b) is applied to 100V and RL load, R=1 Ÿ and L=5e-03 H
switches S1 and S4 of the inverter while its inverted gate pulse .
is applied to switches S2 and S3 as shown in fig. 6(c).

Fig. 6 Bipolar Switching Scheme

Fig. 8 Full Bridge Bipolar Inverter without filter

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An important parameter in SPWM is Frequency Modulation
Ratio (mf) that determines the harmonic distortion of output
voltage and current.
mf=fc/fm (2)
It is easier to filter out harmonics at high frequency; therefore
higher value of frequency modulation ratio is better sometimes
but switching losses of inverter increases with increasing
switching frequency [10]. The choice of this ratio is important
and depends upon application. The reference signal and carrier
signal are synchronized called Synchronous PWM in case
when mf ”21 [11]. It should be noted that to achieve half wave Fig. 12 Output voltage FFT analysis with m=1 and
symmetry (no even harmonics), odd integer value of mf should Fswitching=10*50(500Hz) without filter
be selected as shown in fig. 9 and fig. 10 where mf=9.
It is very important to note that for particularly small values of
mf ”21, Asynchronous PWM (where mf is non integer) results
in harmonics lower than fundamental frequency called sub-
harmonics in output current and output voltage as shown in
fig. 13 and 14. Sub-harmonics are nearly unfilterable and are
mostly undesirable for inverter applications [12].

Fig. 9 Output current FFT analysis with m=1 and

Fswitching=9*50(450Hz) without filter

Fig. 13 Output current FFT analysis with m=1 and

Fswitching=20.3*50(1015Hz) without filter
Fig. 10 Output voltage FFT analysis with m=1 and
Fswitching=9*50(450Hz) without filter

It contains both even and odd harmonics when mf=10 (even

integer) as shown in fig. 11 and 12.

Fig. 14 Output voltage FFT analysis with m=1 and

Fswitching=20.3*50(1015Hz) without filter

Asynchronous PWM can be used for higher values of mf >21

because amplitude of sub-harmonics will become smaller [13].
Nevertheless, smaller sub-harmonics may also cause serious
problems and significant losses for any high power
application. Therefore, it is always advisable to use
Fig. 11 Output current FFT analysis with m=1 and
Synchronous PWM for high power usage [13].
Fswitching=10*50(500Hz) without filter

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 V. UNIPOLAR SPWM INVERTER SIMULATION RESULTS
WITHOUT FILTER
Fig. 15 shows unipolar PWM implemented on the full bridge
inverter having same parameters as for bipolar PWM
technique.
Fig. 15 Full Bridge Unipolar Inverter without filter
Unlike bipolar, mf is selected as even integer to achieve half
wave symmetry in unipolar [14]. So for comparison purpose
with bipolar, same value of mf=10 is taken.
Fig. 16 Output voltage FFT analysis with m=1 and
Fswitching=10*50(500Hz) without filter
Fig. 17 Output current FFT analysis with m=1 and
Fswitching=10*50(500Hz) without filter
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The simulated results verify that for bipolar scheme, output
current contain harmonics centered around fc, 2fc, 3fc, etc and
its sidebands as shown in fig. 11 but for unipolar scheme,
output current does not contain harmonics across switching
frequency as shown in fig. 17. Rather, it appears around 2fc,
4fc, 6fc, etc and its side bands. Due to this filtering becomes
easier in case of unipolar as discussed in section VI
VI. COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF BIPOLAR AND UNIPOLAR
INVERTER WITH FILTER
Bipolar and Unipolar scheme is presented on same full bridge
inverter model but with addition of second order low pass
filter connected across output voltage having cut off frequency
equal to 340 Hz as shown in fig. 18.
Fig. 18 Full Bridge Inverter with Filter
Fig. 19 and 20 shows output filtered voltage and %THD of
filtered voltage for bipolar scheme.
Fig. 19 Output Filtered Voltage of Bipolar Inverter with
mf=10 and m=1
Fig. 20 Output Filtered Voltage FFT Analysis of Bipolar
Inverter with mf=10 and m=1
Fig. 21 and 22 shows output filtered voltage and %THD of
filtered voltage for unipolar scheme. Same value mf and m is
taken for comparison purpose with bipolar.
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Fig. 21 Output Filtered Voltage of Unipolar Inverter with December 1999.
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Inverter with mf=10 and m=1
[8] LM. Tolbert and TG. Habetler “Multilevel PWM methods at low
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PWM Inverter (With and without filter) (IJERT), vol, 3, issue 12, December 2014.

PWM Ffundamental mf M %THD without %THD

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Bipolar 50 10 1 99.93% 9.51% 33.28%
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VII. CONCLUSIONS Proc. IEEE Power Electronics and Motion Control Conference,
Ohbrid, September 2010.

It is concluded from the obtained results that full bridge

inverter is better in terms of efficiency and has lower %THD
as compared to half bridge inverter. The proper choice of
Frequency Modulation Ratio (mf) is recommended for
unipolar and bipolar scheme in later section. Also, it has been
deduced that unipolar scheme offers better power quality, low
filtering cost and higher efficiency than bipolar scheme.
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