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A Single DC Source Multilevel Inverter with Novel PWM Technique for Induction Motor Drives in Electric Vehicle Applications

Year : 2026

Publisher : Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.

Source Title : 2026 5th International Conference on Power, Control and Computing Technologies, ICPC2T 2026

Document Type :

Abstract

In this study, a customized multilevel inverter architecture is proposed for driving an induction motor with multiple pole pair (P-P)’s. The design ensures that each P-P winding coil spaced 3 6 0° apart, experiences an identical voltage profile. In the proposed configuration, 2-windings of a four-pole (4-P) Induction motor (IM) are intentionally separated. Since each half of the winding is powered by a dual two-level (2-L) inverter, these inverters supply the entire stator, functioning as separate P-P windings. Both inverters are powered from a single DC source with a magnitude of Vdc/4, corresponding to just 25% of the DC bus voltage typically required for a conventional neutral-point-clamped (NPC) five-level (5-L) inverter. The novel pulse-width-modulation (PWM) strategy applied here regulates the inverter output voltage while cancelling harmonics in the first central band, thereby reducing current ripple and subsequently minimizing torque ripple. Moreover, supplying the entire topology from a single DC source eliminates powerbalancing concerns, and the use of only 2-L inverters avoids the capacitor voltage balancing issues commonly encountered in multilevel structures. The key design adaptation is the deliberate separation of winding coils that share the same voltage profile. Simulation results obtained using a 5-hp, 4-P induction motor in MATLAB/Simulink validate the accuracy of the novel PWM method and the suggested inverter arrangement in the linear modulation area.