Electr Eng (2010) 92:239244

DOI 10.1007/s00202-010-0181-3

ORIGINAL PAPER

A novel approach for a sinusoidal output inverter

Mehmed elebi Irfan

Alan

Received: 30 June 2009 / Accepted: 28 September 2010 / Published online: 16 October 2010
Springer-Verlag 2010

Abstract Minimization of the total harmonic distortion

(THD) at the output of an inverter is essential to reach the
ideal case, i.e. a pure sinusoidal. So far, very intensive studies about this topic have been carried out. In this study, a
fully rectified version of a sinusoidal voltage waveform at an
utility amplitude and frequency obtained from a well-known
buckboost regulator has been converted to a sinusoidal AC
voltage waveform with a simple inverter operation. The purpose of this innovative circuit is to generate an approximate
sinusoidal voltage waveform with a quite low THD at the
inverter output without invoking the harmonic elimination
techniques. Since distortions in the AC link voltage in this
circuit fully depend on how well the capacitor current is regulated to its reference, the value of the load current is a critical
component in this regulation.
Keywords

PWM Inverter Sinusoidal Buckboost

1 Introduction
Various pulse-width modulation (PWM) methods and strategies to obtain quasi-sinusoidal voltage or current waveforms at the output of a DC/AC inverter are intensely studied
with the aim of eliminating dominant harmonics. These harmonic components are at the integer multiples of the output
fundamental frequency. Minimization of the total harmonic
M. elebi (B)
Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering,
Atatrk University, Erzurum, Turkey
e-mail: mcelebi@atauni.edu.tr
I. Alan
Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Ege University,
Bornova, Izmir, Turkey

distortion (THD) at the output is important to obtain a quasisinusoidal case. One of the harmonic elimination methods is
the waveform analysis in the Fourier domain that results in
nonlinear equations solved by the Newton-Raphson iteration
technique. There are other methods that use Walsh functions
as well.
Out of the many harmonic elimination applications of
PWM inverters, we provide here only a few of them. Specific
harmonic elimination (SHE-PWM) technique and the elimination of specific harmonics using single-carrier sinusoidal
PWM (SPWM-SC) are compared in [1], where multi-level
inverter designs are used. With the help of a microprocessor-based control, the dominant harmonics of a currentfed inverter are eliminated in [2]. A space vector PWM
(SVPWM) inverter controller is proposed to drive a 3-phase,
1-Hp induction motor, and thus the voltage and current THD
of 2.46% and 1.48% are obtained at the load side, respectively
[3]. A multi- carrier comparison of the SVPWM technique
and harmonic analysis that depend on phase voltages in multilevel inverter systems is also reported [4]. To minimize harmonic values, further application of voltage injection method
into the reference signal using SVPWM technique is investigated by Hyung-Sun Ryu et al. [5], and THD values between
3 and 8% are obtained. The pre-calculated PWM switching frequency technique and the inverter model are given in
[6]. The current harmonics of a three-phase multi-cell cascade inverter are reported to be eliminated [7]. A harmonic
elimination method is also applied using a microprocessor in
three-phase and single-phase inverter [8]. In addition, a novel
centroid PWM approach and switching strategy is proposed,
and a repetitive control technique is used to eliminate harmonics in a voltage source inverter for harmonic elimination
in [911].
Special inverters are required to obtain a voltage signal at the utility frequency and amplitude determined by a

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12 or 24 V DC source, especially in uninterruptible power

supplies. A disadvantage of PWM methods and strategies is
the requirement of eliminating the harmonic content of the
output. Among the commercially available 1224 V DC to
220 V AC converters, some produce pure square waves (the
most primitive ones), or some others use PWM techniques
that eliminate only a few of the dominant harmonics.
In this study, a novel method to obtain quasi-sinusoidal
waveforms at the output of an inverter is proposed without
the need of high- inverter switching frequencies and special
PWM methods to eliminate harmonics. Thus, a fully rectified
form of a quasi-sinusoidal voltage waveform is obtained at
the output of a DC/DC converter block, and then the output
voltage is generated by a simple inverter operation requiring only a single switching in every half of the output period.
Here, high-frequency switching is needed only in the DC/DC
converter block to be able to generate fully rectified form of
the quasi-sinusoidal voltage waveform.

2 Novel application of a buckboost regulator

The operating principle of a buckboost regulator is to
increase or decrease the output voltage or current by means of
the duty cycle controlled by a regulator. It provides a reverse
output voltage which may be less or greater than the input
voltage. The basic circuit is shown in Fig. 1. When the switch
is ON, the energy is stored in the inductor, and when it is OFF,
the stored energy is dumped into the output providing voltage fall or boost depending on the duty cycle. Inputoutput
voltage and current equations of the buckboost converter
are given by Eqs. 1 and 2.
VS d
1d
IS d
I0 =
1d

V0 =

(1)
(2)

where V0 , VS and I0 , IS are the output and source average voltages and currents, respectively, and d is the duty
cycle [12].

Fig. 1 Buckboost regulator

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source
+

dc/dc
buckboost

i*
>
iC

iL
>
load

_
_

pwm
ref

Fig. 2 Block diagram of the control system

The information about the buckboost converter provided

here is well-known. However, a sensitive question is whether
it is possible to generate a fully rectified sinusoidal waveform
through an adjustable duty cycle. The aim of the switching
method proposed here is to generate a fully rectified sinusoidal waveform. For each value of the rectified sinusoidal
reference voltage to be generated within the considered
switching period, an appropriate duty cycle is generated and
applied. Then, an approximate actual rectified sinusoidal
voltage can be obtained as it can be deduced from Eq. 1.
To achieve this, a PWM switching method employing a PID
regulator is used, as shown in the block diagram in Fig. 2. The
operation of the system is simulated in MATLAB. The capacitor current reference that dictates the capacitor reference
voltage is given by Eq. 3. A buckboost converter current
reference is generated by adding the measured load current
into the capacitor current reference, as shown by Eq. 4.
i C = |CVm cos t|

(3)

i =

(4)

i loadmeasured + i C

As a switching transistor, a MOSFET is preferred in the circuit given in Fig. 3. The circuit parameters with a 20 kHz
PWM carrier signal used in the MATLAB simulations are
given in Table 1. With a source voltage of 48 V DC, an
approximately 218 Vrms of a fully rectified sine-wave is
obtained for a resistive load of 40  which corresponds to
1 kW load approximately, in which a maximum performance
is observed. This rectified sinusoidal waveform is converted
to AC voltage by a simple inverter with an operating period
of 20 ms. A disadvantage of the use of 48 V DC supply
voltage is that high level of inductance currents and losses
occur. According to the simulation results in Fig. 4, the inductance current has very large peak values up to 160 A. It is
important to note that the efficiency given in Table 1 varies
between 82 and 93% depending on the load. Operating with
high level of currents affects the efficiency of the system and
imposes high current ratings for the inductor used in the system. Inductive or capacitive loads are not influential on the
THD value of the output voltage while they are effective on
the output current, as shown in Fig. 5. For these reasons, one
solution is to employ a fly-back converter in the system to
increase the input DC voltage level at the expense of extra
cost, volume, complexity and loss. Another solution is to

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241

Fig. 3 Buckboost inverter

with 48 V DC supply

Table 1 Circuit parameters

DC source

48 V

Load

40 

RLC (1 kVA)

RLC (0.5 kVA)

Dynamic load (0.9 kVA)

Efficiency (%)

82

87

89

84

Output voltage (rms)

218.4

220.4

226

221.8

THD (%)

5.5

4.8

11

4.75

L, C

9H, 28F

PID values
Kp

0.04

Ki

Kd

1e 5

Td

4e 3

utilize a fully rectified DC voltage from a multi-phase AC/DC

rectifier.
The load current dependence and tight current regulation
requirements of the circuit affect the functionality of the system. To be able to obtain quasi-sinusoidal voltage waveforms
at the output of the inverter, fully rectified sinusoidal voltage waveforms should see zero levels. This requires that
the capacitor voltage should be discharged by operating at
least at some minimum load levels; otherwise fully rectified
sinusoidal voltage waveforms cannot be obtained. Another
important criterion at this point is that the capacitor must
ensure the performance requirements for efficient regulation.
Although the capacitor and inductance ensure the requirements in simulation, good ventilation is needed for capacitor
and inductance to prevent reduction in efficiency in hardware
application. As seen from Fig. 5, the load voltage hardly
reaches zero values due to insufficient load currents and
capacitor discharge problem at various resistive loads. The
variation in the THD and the efficiency at different loads is
shown in Table 1. The disturbance increases especially in the
THD values due to the discharge problem. In fact, this is a
growing problem with much lower loads.

Equation 5 is used at dynamic analysis with the parameters np = 1.3, nq = 2 and Vmin = 0.7 pu in the Simulink. This
routine runs when V > Vmin , otherwise it becomes a constant impedance load with np = nq = 2. The transient state
exists at the first two periods for the dynamic load (PA =
0.8 kW, Q L = 300 Var, Q C = 50 Var), then the system
becomes stable as seen in Fig. 6. Since the dynamic response
of the system is acceptable at the load current, it gives a poor
result at the load voltage. The load voltage rises to 1 kV in
a short time range. So a damping circuit is added to the load
side to reduce high peak values.
 np


V
Q nq
, Q = Q0
(5)
P = P0
V0
Q0
A considerable increase in efficiency is observed in Table 1
at lower loads. Operating with low currents reduces the operational losses of the switching elements used in the circuit.
This fact increases the applicability of the circuit, but it causes
higher THD values. The semiconductor specifications used
in both the systems are given in Table 2. The distortions in
the AC link voltage in the both circuits fully depend on how
well the capacitor current is regulated to its reference, and in

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Electr Eng (2010) 92:239244

Fig. 4 The simulation results

of buckboost inverter with
48 V DC supply

this respect, the load current value is also a critical component in this regulation. The main advantage of these circuits
is that it does not require any harmonic elimination method.
On the other hand, the source currents in both the systems
have quite high distortion levels.
3 Conclusion and discussion
In this study, a fully rectified version of a sinusoidal voltage waveform at a utility amplitude and frequency obtained

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from a well-known buckboost regulator has been converted

to a sinusoidal AC voltage waveform with a simple inverter
operation. A MATLAB simulation for alternative loads is
also carried out. The purpose of this innovative circuit is to
generate an approximate sinusoidal voltage waveform with a
quite low THD at the inverter output without using harmonic
elimination techniques.
Low power losses are observed in the circuit at 48 V
DC supply voltage due to high peak currents of inductance.
Besides, the system provides almost sinusoidal inverter

Electr Eng (2010) 92:239244

243

Fig. 5 The simulation results for various resistive and inductive/capacitive loads with 48 V DC supply. a RLC load, PA = 1 kW, Q L =
200 Var, Q C = 100 Var. b PA = 0.5 kW, Q L = 100 Var, Q C = 50 Var
Fig. 6 The dynamic response
of the circuit (PA = 0.8 kW,
Q L = 300 Var, Q C = 50 Var)

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Table 2 Semiconductor specifications used in the simulation

DC source

48 V DC

Name of the device

AP80N30W-3

V(BR)DSS (volts)

300

rDS(on) (ohm)

0.066

IDSS (amps)

88

PD (watts)

150

output voltage. In the system, highly distorted currents are

drawn from the source. Decreasing the number of switching
in the inverter by employing only a single switching in every
half output cycle reduces drastically not only the inverter
switching losses but also the control complexity of PWM
techniques. On the other hand, high switching frequencies up
to 20 kHz required for DC/DC buckboost converter block
increases the switching losses. It should be noted that the
DC/DC buckboost converter block is required anyhow in
the systems not utilizing transformers to boost the inverter
output voltage.
Since the distortions in the AC link voltage in this innovative circuit fully depend on how well the capacitor current is regulated to its reference, the load current is a critical
component in this regulation. A dynamic PID control will
improve the performance of the system especially for variable
loads at the expense of system complexity and cost. Here, the
dynamic response of the system is poor in a short time range
with respect to the load voltage. Different PWM techniques to
be utilized in the DC/DC buckboost converter are expected
to increase system efficiency and/or performance. The objective at this point is to design a DC/DC converter with a lower
switching frequency that will yield lower switching losses.
The innovative inverter approach presented here can be easily applied to almost every kind of DC/AC inverter used in
industry for generating a specified voltage and frequency.
This approach has many advantages that look promising for
the inverter technology, and is expected to raise a high interest
for the researchers in this field.

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