Multilevel inverter switching controller using a field programmable gate array (FPGA)

Abstract

This paper presents the design and development of a switching controller using a field programmable gate array (FPGA)for a multilevel inverter application. SHE with PSO switching strategy was chosen and pre-calculated offline to obtain optimized switching angles for the power switches in the 5-level transistor-clamped H-bridge (TCHB) multilevel inverter. The designed switching controller produced 5-bit control signals, which connected to the power switches of the 5-level TCHB multilevel inverter. The switching controller utilized less than 1% of the total FPGA logic elements (LEs), which was equivalent to 96 out of 114,480 LEs. The execution speed of the switching controller using the FPGA chip was found to be 99.9% faster than microcontroller (PIC16F877A). Conducted simulation and measurement results verified and validated the switching controller design functionality and requirement.

Keywords: multilevel inverter, switching controller; FPGA, general purpose processor
(GPP);digital signal processing (DSP); IGBT; Verilog, power consumption;
harmonic elimination (SHE).