A state of the art of the multilevel inverters with reduced count components

Multilevel inverters (MLIs) have become a trend in the field of DC/AC inverters and one of the main requirements in many of the industrial applications. MLIs spread in the academic research field and replaced the conventional inverters due to the several advantages that these topologies presented over the conventional inverters, as follows. (1) Operate with a high number of steps in the output voltage waveform, which helps in reducing the level of harmonics and presents fine and clear waveforms; furthermore, reduce the voltage stress on the switching devices and gives it a long lifetime and more reliability. (2) MLIs have a low rating of the switching devices, which has a noticeable role in reducing the system cost. (3) MLIs can be operated at both higher and lower switching frequencies, which reduces the level of power losses and enhances the overall efficiency. The main problem that faces the researchers in the multilevel inverters field is to design a topology that uses the optimum number of components to ensure the low cost and obtain a high efficiency. This paper presents a description of different topologies of MLIs that were investigated in the last two decades to show the pros and cons of each topology. Also a set of performance parameters that were used to measure the effectiveness of the MLI topologies have been discussed.