DETERMINING SWITCHING ANGLES AND DC VOLTAGES IN CASCADED MULTILEVEL INVERTER FOR OPTIMIZING THD IN DIFFERENT OUTPUT VOLTAGE LEVELS USING GENETIC ALGORITHM

In this paper a Genetic Algorithm based optimization is used to determine switching angles and DC voltage for a cascaded multilevel inverter which minimizes THD (Total Harmonic Distortion) while maintaining required fundamental voltage component. This method can be applied to cascaded multilevel inverter with any number of levels. In this paper a multilevel inverter with 3 and 5 DC sources is considered and optimum switching angles and DC voltages are calculated to minimize THD.