IMIT: Improved Multilevel Inverter Topology with Reduced Number of Components and Low Total Harmonic Distortion

Multilevel inverters (MLIs) play a vital role in renewable energy systems, electric vehicles (EVs), and high-voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission. Higher levels of MLIs enhance output waveform quality, decrease total harmonic distortion (THD), and increase voltage and power capacity, but they also add complexity, increase losses, and raise the component count. Current solutions focus only on the reduction of THD, power switches, or DC sources separately. We propose a modular Improved Multilevel Inverter Topology (IMIT) that simultaneously reduces the number of DC sources, minimizes THD, and decreases the switch count. IMIT's cascaded, asymmetrical design is well suited for solar and wind systems with diverse DC sources. Our simulation results show that compared to classical topologies, the proposed IMIT topology uses a smaller number of switching components, gate drivers, and DC sources, also has smaller THD, and higher component count per level (CCPL).