Inverter in Power-Electronics refers to a class of power conversion circuits that operate from a dc voltage source or a de current source and
convert it into a symmetric ac voltage or current. It does reverse of what ac-to-de ‘converter’ does. The input to the inverter is a direct de
source or dc source derived from an ac source. For example, the primary source of input power may be utility ac voltage supply that is
converted to de by an ac - de rectifier with filter capacitor and then ‘inverted’ back to ac using an inverter. Here, the final ac output may be
ofa different frequency and magnitude than the input ac of the utility supply.
If the input dc is a voltage source, the inverter is called a Voltage Source Inverter (VSI). One can similarly think of a Current Source Inverter
(CSI), where the input to the circuit is a current source. The VSI circuit has direct control aver ‘output (ac) voltage’ whereas the CSI directly
controls ‘output (ac) current’.
‘The simplest de voltage source for a VSI may be a battery bank or a solar photovoltaic cells stack. An ac voltage supply, after rectification into
dc can also serve as a de voltage source. A voltage source is called stiff, if the source voltage magnitude does not depend on load connected
to it. All voltage source inverters assume stiff voltage supply at the input.
Output of voltage waveforms of ideal inverters should be sinusoidal. However practical inverter waveforms are non sinusoidal and contain
certain harmonics. For low and medium power applications square wave or quasi square wave voltages are acceptable.
A variable voltage can be obtained by varying the input de voltage and maintaining the gain of the inverter constant. On the other hand, if
the dc input voltage is fixed then variable output voltage can be obtained by varying the gain of the inverter. This can be accomplished by
Pulse Width Modulation-PWM control within the inverter. PWM means the width of the square pulse in positive and negative halves can be
adjusted according to the rms of the output required. The inverter gain may be defined as ratio of the ac output (rms) voltage to de input
voltage. In Square Wave PWM technique the output ac rms voltage Is fixed when input de voltage is fixed,
Single Phase Bridge VSI
ig 4(a) shows the power circuit diagram for single phase bridge voltage source inverter. In this four switches (in 2 legs) are used to
generate the ac waveform at the output. Any semiconductor switch like IGBT, MOSFET or BJT can be used. Four switches are sufficient for
resistive load because load current jg is in phase with output voltage Vo. However this is not true in case of RL load where the /g Is not in
phase with vo and diodes connected in anti-parallel with switch will allow the conduction of the current when the main switch Is turned off.
‘These diodes are called as Feedback Diodes since the energy is fed back to the dc source,Fig 4(a) IGBT based Single phase bridge voltage source inverter power circuit diagram.
Square Wave PWM.
In full bridge inverter, when T1, T2 conduct the output voltage is Vs and when T3, T4 conducts the output voltage is -Vs. The switches T1,
T2 conducts for period of 0