Multilevel Inverter Topology Using Current Path Change for Zero Current Switching

In motor drive applications, a high switching frequency is required to mitigate current harmonics, which cause a copper loss. However, the high switching frequency makes the switching loss large. Hence, some switching loss reduction techniques have been studied in the past. These techniques have some problems. This paper proposes a multilevel inverter topology for switching loss reduction. Because of provision of multiple current paths, the proposed inverter realizes the zero current switching. Consequently, a loss of the whole system including an inverter and motor can be reduced with a higher switching frequency. The switching loss of the proposed inverter is smaller than that of the conventional one. It was verified that the proposed inverter has some advantages at high switching frequency, through calculations.