Optimum regulation of THD profile in multilevel inverter using parameter-less AI technique for electrical vehicle application

Abstract

This article proposes investigation on harmonic profile improvement using a novel fitness function in the multiphase multilevel inverter. For the proposed study in this paper, three-phase, seven-level cascaded H-bridge (CHB) multilevel inverter (MLI) is considered. Modulation of the stepped waveform output of the MLI is done using selective harmonic elimination (SHE) method. Many algorithms are proposed for solving the set of nonlinear transcendental trigonometric equations for SHE methods. Teaching learning-based optimisation (TLBO) algorithm is a parameter less optimisation technique. Due to the lack of controlling parameters, the proposed algorithm is most robust among the family of artificial intelligence (AI) techniques. In this paper, an investigation is carried out on a novel fitness function proposed for controlling total harmonic distortion (THD) for the proposed inverter. It is observed that the proposed fitness function improves THD profile below IEEE standards. It is also observed that THD profile obtained through this method is far better than THD profile obtained through various proposed methods so far. The results of THD profile from the MATLAB Simulink simulations are verified experimentally using seven-level three-phase hardware controlled by Arduino MEGA 2560 low-cost controller.