THDv Reduction in Multilevel Three-Phase Inverters Using the SHE-PWM Technique with a Hybrid Optimization Algorithm

The following article aims to implement a hybrid modulation methodology based on the Selective Harmonic Elimination Pulse Width Modulation (SHE-PWM) technique to work with the fundamental frequency of the system and find the optimal firing angles using the PSO optimization algorithm, capable of reducing the voltage THDv present in the output signals of three-phase multilevel inverters. To develop this approach, three case studies are proposed, developed in MATLAB/Simulink software, which feature three-phase inverters with five, seven, and nine levels, respectively, of the CHB topology. The impact of adequate modulation is assessed, resulting in a voltage output signal with reduced distortion. The national regulation ARCERNNR 002/20 will be used as a reference point to evaluate the results before and after implementing the methodology. It was verified that the developed methodology can effectively eliminate the selected harmonics, especially those of lower order (3rd, 5th, 7th, 9th, 11th, 13th, and 15th), achieving an improvement of up to 17.93% in the voltage THDv concerning the standard S-PWM modulation present in the CHB-MLI.