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Copyright 2012 American Scientic Publishers
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
Journal of
Bioinformatics and Intelligent Control
Vol. 1, 16, 2012
Cuckoo Search: A New Optimization Algorithm for
Harmonic Elimination in Multilevel Inverter
Suman Debnath

and Dr. Rup Narayan Ray

Department of Electrical Engineering, National Institute of Technology, Agartala 799055, India
In this paper, a new optimization algorithm, called the cuckoo search (CS) algorithm, is introduced
for solving nonlinear transcendental equation derived from SHE-PWM. This research is the rst
application of CS algorithm to the optimization of Total Harmonic Distortion (THD) of Multilevel
Inverter. In order to demonstrate the effectiveness of the CS algorithm, a THD optimization problem
was solved and the results were compared with those obtained using other well-known optimization
technique particle swarm (PSO) algorithm. The results demonstrate that the CS algorithm is a very
effective and robust approach for the optimization of THD optimization problems.
Keywords: SHE-PWM, Cuckoo Search Algorithm, Multilevel Inverter.
1. INTRODUCTION
Minimum Total Harmonic Distortion (THD) is one of the
most important requirements from multilevel inverter con-
cerning good Power Quality.
1
The switching strategies of
Multilevel Inverter are mainly classied in two categories.
(1) High switching strategy (Sine Triangle Carrier Pulse
Width Modulation (SPWM),
2, 3
Space Vector Pulse Width
Modulation (SVPWM)
4
etc.) and
(2) Low Switching strategy (Selective Harmonic Elimi-
nation Pulse Width Modulation (SHE-PWM),
57
Optimal
Minimization of Total Harmonic Distortion (OMTHD),
Optimized Harmonic Stepped Waveform (OHSW)
8
etc.).
Among these two strategies low switching strategy has
been widely used due to low switching losses. In OMTHD
without any emphasis on special harmonics, all harmonics
in the same weight (i.e., THD) are minimized.
9, 10
SHE-
PWM technique offers a tight control of the harmonic
spectrum of a given voltage waveform generated by a
power electronic converter along with a low number of
switching transitions.
7, 11
The selected lower order harmon-
ics are either zero (in SHE-PWM) or controlled within
allowable limit (in Selective Harmonic Controlled Pulse
Width Modulation (SHC-PWM)). It involves the solution
of non-linear transcendental equation sets representing the
relation between the amplitude of the fundamental wave,
harmonic components and the switching angles.
11
Many optimization techniques have been reported in
literature for the solution of non-linear transcendental
equation derived form SHE-PWM and minimize THD.

Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.

Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO),
5, 6, 12
Genetic algo-
rithm (GA),
1, 11, 13
Harmony Search Algorithm (HSA),
14
Bacterial Forgoing Algorithm (BFA)
15
etc. has been
applied for the minimization of THD in Multilevel
Inverter.
Population based algorithms are working with a set of
solutions and trying to improve them. By the nature of
phenomenon simulated by the algorithm, population based
algorithms can be divided into two groups: evolutionary
algorithms (EA) and swarm intelligence based algorithms.
The most prominent representative of the rst group is
genetic algorithms (GA). GA is a method for moving a
population of candidate solutions through tness landscape
using nature inspired operators: selection, crossover and
mutation. But, second group of algorithms is of our par-
ticular interest in this paper.
A conceptual comparison of the cuckoo search with
PSO, Differential Evolution (DE) and Articial Bee
Colony (ABC) suggest that CS and DE algorithms pro-
vide more robust results than PSO and ABC.
16, 17
The
applications of Cuckoo Search into engineering optimiza-
tion problems have shown there promising efciency. For
example, for both spring design and welded beam design
problems, CS obtained better solutions than existing solu-
tions in literature. A promising discrete cuckoo search
algorithm is recently proposed to solve nurse scheduling
problem,
18
data fusion in wireless sensor networks
19
and
structural software testing.
20
In this paper, a new optimization algorithm, called the
cuckoo search algorithm (CS) algorithm
21
is used to min-
imize the overall THD of the output voltage of a multi-
level inverter. The objective function derived from the SHE
J. Bioinf. Intell. Control 2012, Vol. 1, No. 1 xxxx-xxxx/2012/1/001/006 doi:10.1166/jbic.2012.1013 1
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Cuckoo Search: A New Optimization Algorithm for Harmonic Elimination in Multilevel Inverter Debnath and Ray
problem is minimized, to compute the switching angles
while lower order harmonics are controlled within allow-
able limits.
This paper is organized as follows. The proposed
scheme is described in Section 2. Simulation results and
comparison are presented in Section 3 and nally conclu-
sion in Section 4.
2. PROPOSED SCHEME
A higher level ac voltage can be synthesized by cascad-
ing several lower level inverters supplied from equal or
unequal dc sources. This conguration is known as mul-
tilevel conguration of inverters. A single-phase structure
of a cascaded multilevel inverter is shown in Figure 1.
In case of equal dc sources. V
dc1
= V
dc2
. . . = V
dcn
= V
dc
.
The synthesized ac output voltage waveform is the sum
of all the individual inverter outputs. The number of out-
put phase voltage levels of cascade multilevel inverter is,
where N is the number of dc source. An output voltage
waveform of an 11-level cascade multilevel inverter with
three dc sources is shown in Figure 2.
2.1. Conventional Method
The output voltage waveform V(t) of the multilevel
inverter as shown in Figure 2 can be represented by (1)
V(t) =

n1
(o
n
sin no
n
+l
n
cos no
n
) (1)
The even harmonics are absent (l
n
= 0) due to quarter
wave symmetry of the output voltage.
4
The n-th harmonic
o
n
is expressed with the rst quadrant switching angles
o
1
, o
2
, . . . o
m
.
o
n
=

4V
Jc
nr

k=1
cos(no
k
) (2)
and
0 - o
1
- o
2
- . . . o
k
- (r,2) (3)
For any odd harmonics, (2) can be expanded up to the k-th
term where m is the number of variables corresponding to
switching angles o
1
through o
m
of the rst quadrant. In
selected harmonic elimination, o
n
is assigned the desired
value for fundamental component and equated to zero for
the harmonics to be eliminated.
7
o1 =

4V
Jc
r

k=1
cos(o
k
) =M
o5 =

4V
Jc
5r

k=1
cos(5o
k
) =0 (4)
.
.
.
on =

4V
Jc
nr

k=1
cos(no
k
) =0
Fig. 1. Single-phase conguration of a multilevel inverter.
where M is the amplitude of the fundamental component.
Nonlinear transcendental equations are thus formed and
after solving these equations, o
1
through o
k
are computed.
Triplen harmonics are eliminated in three-phase balanced
system and these are not considered in (4). It is evident
that (m1) harmonics can be eliminated with m number
of switching angles. These nonlinear equations show mul-
tiple solutions and the main difculty is its discontinuity
at certain points where no set of solution is available.
5, 6
This limitation is addressed in the present method to ease
the online application at these points of discontinuity.
2.2. Proposed CS Method
Cuckoo Search (CS) was in its day a reasonably new meta-
heuristic that imitates the breeding behavior of the cuckoo
birds.
21
When the breeding time has come, the cuckoo
birds tend to lay their eggs in the nest of other birds. The
host birds would either throw the eggs left by the cuckoo
out of the nest or decide to leave the nest and build a
new home at another place. Further to confuse the host
birds, some cuckoo birds were able to produce eggs that
Fig. 2. Output voltage waveform of a 11-level multilevel inverter.
2 J. Bioinf. Intell. Control 1, 16, 2012
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Debnath and Ray Cuckoo Search: A New Optimization Algorithm for Harmonic Elimination in Multilevel Inverter
look similar to the eggs of chosen host birds. This imita-
tion would ensure that these eggs would be cared for by
the host birds and thus increase the cuckoos productivity.
Once the cuckoo eggs hatched, the cuckoo chick would
throw out the host birds eggs of the nest, which were
hatched slightly later than cuckoo eggs. Consequently, the
cuckoo birds got more chance to be fed as the number of
chicks in the nest became less.
The CS adopted three rules from the breeding behavior
of cuckoo birds, which were:
Each cuckoo laid one egg at a time. The eggs were left
in random nests.
The nest with a high quality of eggs (solutions) would
be carried to the next iterations.
The number of potential hosts was xed, and the cuckoo
eggs could be found with a probability P
o
o
[0, 1]. If the
host bird discovered that the eggs were not hers, the alien
eggs could be thrown away or the host birds simply aban-
don the nest.
The capability of CS was veried by testing it on a set
of mathematical benchmarks and a few engineering design
problems. In spite of using only two parameters, which
were the population size of the cuckoo and P
o
, the exper-
imental results showed that the CS produced better solu-
tions compared to the GA and PSO.
At a rst glance, it seems that there are some similari-
ties between CS and hill-climbing
22
in respect with some
large scale randomization. But, these two algorithms are
in essence very different. Firstly, CS is population-based
algorithm in a way similar to GA and PSO, but it uses
some sort of elitism and/or selection similar to that used in
harmony search. Secondly, the randomization is more ef-
cient as the step length is heavy-tailed, and any large step
is possible. And nally, the number of tuning parameters
is less than in GA and PSO, and thus CS can be much
easier adapted to a wider class of optimization problems.
The conventional SHE technique for multilevel inverter
has the disadvantage of complexity to solve the nonlinear
transcendental equations that have multiple solutions.
5, 6
Moreover, at certain points, no solutions are available to
satisfy these equations. In the proposed PSO method, the
complexity of nding the solution of these nonlinear equa-
tions is avoided by converting the SHE problem to an opti-
mization problem. The %THD of the output voltage can
be computed using.
5
%THD =

1
o
2
1

n=5
(o
n
)
2

1,2
100
Where n = 6i 1(i =1, 2, 3, . . .) (5)
In the developed CS algorithm, the same expression of
the voltage THD is considered as the objective function
E (o) and minimized with the constraints of individual har-
monics limits and minimal variations of switching angles.
The formulation of the problem will be as follows:
Minimize
E (o) =E (o
1
, o
2
, . . . o
m
) (6)
Subjected to:
0 - o
1
- o
2
- . . . o
k
-

r
2

o
1
=M
o
5
=a1
o
7
=a2 (7)
.
.
.
o
n
an
where a1, a2, . . . an are the allowable limits of individual
harmonics. With a considerable number of Cuckoo and
large number of iteration, the algorithm searches for all
probable set of solutions and nally computes the angles
o
1
through o
m
to contribute either the lowest THD or next
to the lowest one based on changes in the switching angles,
keeping the individual harmonics within the limits as spec-
ied by (7). Also at the modulation indices of disconti-
nuity, the switching angles o
1
through o
m
are computed
based on possible minimum voltage THD optimizing the
individual harmonics.
Figure 3 shows a owchart of the proposed algorithm.
Like other evolutionary algorithms, the proposed algorithm
starts with an initial population of cuckoos. These initial
cuckoos have some eggs to lay in some host birds nests.
Some of these eggs which are more similar to the host
birds eggs have the opportunity to grow up and become
a mature cuckoo. Other eggs are detected by host birds
and are killed. The grown eggs reveal the suitability of the
nests in that area. The more eggs survive in an area, the
more prot is gained in that area. So the position in which
more eggs survive will be the term that CS algorithm is
going to optimize.
2.3. PSO Method
The PSO methodology is a very powerful tool for opti-
mization of nonlinear functions. The method was discov-
ered through simulation of a simplied social model viz.
bird ocking, sh schooling, etc.
8
and presently being
used in many applications for optimization of nonlinear
equations.
Figure 4 shows a owchart of the PSO algorithm. In the
proposed PSO method, the complexity of nding the solu-
tion of these nonlinear equations is avoided by converting
the SHE problem to an optimization problem. The %THD
of the output voltage can be computed using.
5
In the developed PSO algorithm, the same expression
of the voltage THD is considered as the objective function
J. Bioinf. Intell. Control 1, 16, 2012 3
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Cuckoo Search: A New Optimization Algorithm for Harmonic Elimination in Multilevel Inverter Debnath and Ray
Fig. 3. Flowchart of proposed CS algorithm.
E (o) and minimized with the constraints of individual har-
monics limits and minimal variations of switching angles.
With a considerable number of generations and large
number of population in each generation, the algorithm
searches for all probable set of solutions and nally com-
pute the angles o
1
through o
m
to contribute either the
lowest THD or next to the lowest one based on changes
in the switching angles, keeping the individual harmonics
within the limits as specied by (7). Also at the mod-
ulation indices of discontinuity, the switching angles o
1
through o
m
are computed based on possible minimum
voltage THD optimizing the individual harmonics.
3. SIMULATION RESULTS AND
DISCUSSIONS
The proposed scheme has been simulated in MAT-
LAB/Simulink environment. For three dc sources, the mul-
tiple sets of angles present within the modulation index
range of 0.451.10, eliminating harmonics are computed.
Cost of tness function versus Cuckoo Iteration at 1 Mod-
ulation Index is shown in Figure 5. Switching angles ver-
sus Modulation Index is shown in Figure 6. Harmonic
Fig. 4. Flowchart of proposed PSO algorithm.
Spectrum for output phase voltage at 1 Modulation Index
is shown in Figure 7. The voltage THD against modula-
tion index is shown in Figure 7 using CS and PSO as an
optimization tool. Percentage magnitude of Fifth and Sev-
enth Harmonics at particular Modulation Index is shown
Fig. 5. Cost of tness function versus cuckoo iteration at modulation
index 1.
4 J. Bioinf. Intell. Control 1, 16, 2012
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Debnath and Ray Cuckoo Search: A New Optimization Algorithm for Harmonic Elimination in Multilevel Inverter
Fig. 6. Switching angle versus modulation index for 7-level multilevel
inverter using CS considering lowest THD.
Fig. 7. Voltage THD versus modulation index for 7-level multilevel
inverter using CS and PSO considering lowest THD.
in Figure 8. In the CS algorithm, 50 cuckoos are initialized
with a minimum of 2 eggs and maximum 4. Algorithm is
congured with motion coefcient as 4, number of clus-
ters as 2, control parameter of egg lying as 0.5, switching
angle range in between 0 to 90
0
. In PSO algorithm the
acceleration factors c1 and c2 are taken as 0.2 and 0.5 for
40 numbers of particles. For 7-Level Multilevel Inverter
the THD is being optimized up to 49th order.
Figure 5 shows the cost value minimization with num-
ber of iterations. Once the near global minimum is reached
the tness growth is saturated. The solution for a 3 vari-
able system is obtained in less than 20 iterations where
the maximum no of iterations is 101. Figure 7 shows a
comparison of THD minimization applying CS algorithm
Fig. 8. Percentage of controlled voltage harmonics versus modulation
index for 7-level multilevel inverter using cuckoo search algorithm.
Fig. 9. Harmonic spectrum of output phase voltage for a 7-level multi-
level inverter at 1 Md up to 49th order having THD 5.1969% using CS.
and PSO algorithm at each Modulation Index (Md). The
results show that CS algorithm gives better performance in
THD minimization than PSO. Figure 8 shows the selected
harmonics (fth and seventh) are within allowable limits
3 percents of fundamental. At the same time other order of
harmonics up to 49th order are minimized using proposed
optimization technique to meet the IEEE 519 harmonic
standard.
4. CONCLUSION
A new optimization algorithm, called the cuckoo search
algorithm (CS) algorithm for THD minimization in Cas-
caded H-Bridge Multilevel Inverter is proposed. Selected
lower order of harmonics are controlled within allowable
limits while the fundamental output voltage is maintained
at desired level, thus resulting in the minimum THD and
the corresponding switching angles are computed. From
the presented case studies it is observed that CS technique
provides superior performance compared to PSO as far as
the minimization of THD is concerned. This method was
applied for 7 level Cascaded Multilevel inverter with equal
input dc voltage sources. This method can be extended to
any number of levels of Multilevel Inverter.
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Cuckoo Search: A New Optimization Algorithm for Harmonic Elimination in Multilevel Inverter Debnath and Ray
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Received: 16 April 2012. Accepted: 21 August 2012.
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