A new control method of a resonant switched-capacitor converter and the application for balancing of the split DC voltages in a multilevel inverter

This paper proposes a new voltage‐balancing circuit for the split DC voltages in a diode‐clamped five‐level inverter. The proposed circuit is based on a resonant switched‐capacitor converter (RSCC), which consists of two half‐bridge inverters, a resonant inductor, and a resonant capacitor. A new phase‐shift control of the RSCC is proposed to improve voltage balancing performance. Theoretical analysis reveals the rating of the RSCC and stored energy in the resonant inductor. Experimental results confirm the reduction of the inductor to one‐tenth in volume compared to a conventional voltage‐balancing circuit based on buck‐boost topology. Moreover, the proposed phase‐shift control has demonstrated that it is possible to eliminate the voltage deviation between the DC capacitors. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 168(2): 69–79, 2009; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/eej.20719