For the applications related to the medium/high-power/voltage, Multilevel inverters (MLI) are widely accepted and commercially used. The performance of MLI compare to the conventional two-level inverters is significantly superior due to the insignificant amount of harmonic distortion, lower filter size, requirement of low voltage rating devices, lower electromagnetic interference, etc. However, there are a few disadvantages such as an increased number of components, a complex modulation and control strategy, and issues related to the voltage balancing of capacitors. The present paper proposes a new topology with a lower voltage rating component to improve the performance by remedying the mentioned disadvantages. Compared with existing inverter topologies, (especially higher levels), this topology requires fewer components, fewer dc sources, and gate drives. Further, voltage stress is also low. The overall costs and complexity are therefore greatly reduced, especially for higher voltage levels. The proposed topology has been compared with other similar topologies and the comparison proves the better structure of the proposed topology. To show the working of the proposed topology, a prototype has been developed and tested for a different operating condition with two different modulation techniques. All the results show the adequate performance of the inverter topology at the different real-time environment.

中文翻译：

---

具有减少的开关数量和电压应力的扩展多电平逆变器拓扑结构

对于与中/大功率/电压相关的应用，多电平逆变器（MLI）被广泛接受和商业使用。由于谐波失真小、滤波器尺寸小、需要低额定电压设备、电磁干扰低等，MLI 的性能与传统的两电平逆变器相比具有显着优势，但也存在一些缺点，例如组件数量增加、复杂的调制和控制策略以及与电容器电压平衡相关的问题。本文提出了一种具有较低额定电压组件的新拓扑，以通过弥补上述缺点来提高性能。与现有的逆变器拓扑（尤其是更高级别）相比，这种拓扑需要更少的组件、更少的直流电源、和栅极驱动器。此外，电压应力也低。因此，总体成本和复杂性大大降低，特别是对于更高的电压水平。所提出的拓扑结构已经与其他类似的拓扑结构进行了比较，比较证明所提出的拓扑结构更好。为了展示所提出的拓扑的工作原理，我们开发了一个原型，并使用两种不同的调制技术针对不同的操作条件进行了测试。所有结果都表明逆变器拓扑在不同的实时环境下具有足够的性能。所提出的拓扑结构已经与其他类似的拓扑结构进行了比较，比较证明所提出的拓扑结构更好。为了展示所提出的拓扑的工作原理，我们开发了一个原型，并使用两种不同的调制技术针对不同的工作条件进行了测试。所有结果都表明逆变器拓扑在不同的实时环境下具有足够的性能。所提出的拓扑结构已经与其他类似的拓扑结构进行了比较，比较证明了所提出的拓扑结构更好。为了展示所提出的拓扑的工作原理，我们开发了一个原型，并使用两种不同的调制技术针对不同的工作条件进行了测试。所有结果都表明逆变器拓扑在不同的实时环境下具有足够的性能。