Abstract—A serious constraint in multilevel inverters is the capacitor voltage-balancing problem. The unbalance of the different DC voltage sources of the three-level Neutral Point Clamping Voltage Source Inverter (NPC-VSI) constituted the major limitation for the use of this power converter. To remedy to this problem, a new control solution to compensate the unbalanced DC voltages for the three-level NPC VSI is presented. It provides a fast and flexible control of the inverter capacitor voltages, leads to a simpler implementation, and present high equalization efficiency. Simulation results show the effectiveness of our methods.

Index Terms—Clamping bridge, Multilevel inverter, NPC VSI, Sliding mode control.

R. CHIBANI is with the Process Control Laboratory of the National Polytechnic School of Algiers, 10, Rue Hassen BADI. ELHarrach BP182 Algiers ALGERIA (corresponding author to provide; fax: 213 21522973;e-mail: redha29@yahoo.fr).
EM BERKOUK, is with the Process Control Laboratory of the National Polytechnic School of Algiers, 10, Rue Hassen BADI. ELHarrach BP182 Algiers ALGERIA ( fax: 213 21522973; e-mail: emberkouk@yahoo.fr).
M. S. BOUCHERIT is with the Process Control Laboratory of the National Polytechnic School of Algiers, 10, Rue Hassen BADI. ELHarrachBP182 Algiers ALGERIA ( fax: 213 21522973; e-mail:ms_Boucherit@yahoo.fr).

Cite: R. Chibani, E.M. Berkouk and M.S. Boucherit, "Input DC Voltages of Three-level Neutral Point Clamped Voltage Source Inverter Balancing Using a New Kind of Clamping Bridge," International  Journal  of  Computer
and Electrical Engineering vol. 2, no. 5, pp. 879-886, 2010.