Methodology to Compare Meta-heuristic Algorithms to Solve Selective Harmonic Elimination-PWM and Optimal Pulse Pattern Formulations

Low switching frequency modulation techniques such as Selective Harmonic Elimination - Pulse Width Modulation (SHE-PWM) or Optimal Pulse Pattern (OPP) are commonly used in medium voltage - high power multilevel converters to improve their efficiency. These techniques require solving non-linear equations in order to calculate the firing angles. These equations can be solved by meta-heuristic optimization algorithms, which depend on a set of hyperparameters that must be properly adjusted to ensure their effectiveness. This paper presents a methodology to tune different meta-heuristic algorithms to fairly compare them and select the best algorithm to solve SHE-PWM/OPP formulation. The methodology is applied considering different meta-heuristic algorithms such as genetic algorithm, differential evolution, harmony search and simulated annealing. It has been validated in SHE-PWM and OPP techniques with different number of firing angles.