Model predictive control of multilevel cascaded converter with boosting capability – a simulation study

This paper presents a multilevel cascaded H-bridge 5-level converter with boosting capability. The standard solution for boosting voltage in power electronic devices is based on a DC-DC converter with a bulky inductor. However, inductor is a problematic component of a power electronic converter because usually it has to be individually designed and produced for every device and also because its size and weight do not allow for compact construction. This paper presents model predictive control (MPC) method that gives boosting capability for the presented converter. A novel contribution of this paper is the development of a predictive model of the converter and cost function enabling output current control and capacitor voltage balancing.