Harmonics elimination in multilevel inverter with unequal DC sources by fuzzy-ABC algorithm

The harmonious appearance in multilevel inverter output voltage is more for the case of unequal DC sources. In this paper, a hybrid technique incorporating fuzzy inference system (FIS) and artificial bee's colony (ABC) algorithm is proposed. FIS is a rule-based artificial intelligent technique which is used for generating the data set in terms of switching angle, harmonic voltage and harmonic distortion. The data set is generated as per the behaviour of the multilevel inverter without using any harmonic elimination technique. In the generated data set, the switching angle and the harmonic voltage are categorised as SMALL, MEDIUM and LARGE. Then, the ABC algorithm is used to optimise the selection of switching angles from the training data set. The performance of the proposed hybrid technique is tested on a 7-level cascade H-bridge inverter for different voltage levels of unequal DC sources using MATLAB/SIMULINK platform. The effectiveness and superiority of the proposed technique is evaluated by comparing the reduction capacity of total harmonic distortion for different voltage levels of unequal DC sources with particle swarm optimisation (PSO) algorithm and fuzzy-PSO algorithm.