Archimedes Optimization Algorithm Based Selective Harmonic Elimination in a Cascaded H-Bridge Multilevel Inverter

This paper presents the Archimedes optimization algorithm to eliminate selective harmonics in a cascaded H-bridge (CHB) multilevel inverter (MLI). The foremost objective of the selective harmonic elimination (SHE) is to eliminate lower order harmonics by finding the optimal switching angle combination which minimizes the objective function containing Total Harmonic Distortion (THD) and other specific harmonic terms. Consequently, the THD is also reduced. In this study, a recently proposed metaheuristic technique named the Archimedes optimization algorithm (AOA) is used to determine the optimal angles corresponding to the 5, 7 and 9 level CHB-MLI. AOA involves equations related to a physical law, the Archimedes Principle. It is based on the idea of a buoyant force acting upward on a body or object that is partially or completely submerged in a fluid, and the upward force is related to the weight of the fluid displaced. This optimization technique has been implemented on CHB-MLI to generate various level outputs, simulated on MATLAB (TM) R2021a version environment software. The simulation results reveal that AOA is a high-performance optimization technique in terms of convergence speed and exploitation-exploration balance and is well-suited to the solution of the SHE problem. Furthermore, the laboratory validated the simulation result on a hardware setup using DSP-TMS320F28379D.