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Design and analysis of single phase voltage source inverter using Unipolar and
Bipolar pulse width modulation techniques

Conference Paper · November 2016

DOI: 10.1109/ICAEES.2016.7888052

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 2016 International Conference on Advances in Electrical, Electronic and System Engineering, 14-16 Nov 2016, Putrajaya,
Malaysia

Design and Analysis of Single Phase Voltage Source

Inverter Using Unipolar and Bipolar Pulse Width
Modulation Techniques
Jahangeer Soomro Tayab D Memon
*Post Graduate Student, Department of Electronic Engineering,
Institute of Information & Communication Technologies (IICT), Mehran University of Engineering and Technology,
Mehran University of Engineering and Technology, Jamshoro, Pakistan
Jamshoro, Pakistan. tayabuddin.memon@faculty.muet.edu.pk
**Department of Electrical Engineering,
Sukkur Institute of Business Administration,
Sindh, Pakistan 65200.
Jahangir.soomro@iba-suk.edu.pk M. A. SHAH
Department of Electrical Engineering,
Sukkur Institute of Business Administration,
Sindh, Pakistan 65200.
madad@iba-suk.edu.pk

Abstract— This research work is organized in two sections. wave is sometimes more important than quantity. Proper
Performance comparison of single phase half bridge inverter and PWM Control Schemes can minimize the harmonic distortion.
single phase full bridge inverter is done in the first section. It is They are applied in applications like adjustable speed drivers
observed the output current and output voltage of full bridge (ASDs), standby power supply (UPS), induction heating and
inverter is twice and generates less total harmonic distortion as high voltage direct current transmission systems. PWM
compared to half bridge inverter. In the second section, techniques control inverter output voltage. Such inverters are
performance comparison of Unipolar and Bipolar PWM is
presented for single phase full bridge inverter with and without
named as PWM Inverters.
filter in MATLAB SIMULINK. The proper choice of Frequency A. Pulse Width Modulation Techniques (PWM)
Modulation Ratio (mf) is discussed in detail for bipolar and
unipolar PWM scheme. Non integer value of mf results in sub- PWM is a method in which pulse width is changed with
harmonics which are nearly unfilterable and cause significant respect to time to control electricity. Digital signals have only
losses in any power system application. It is observed that two states, on and off. So it can easily control LED’s on and
Unipolar PWM has an advantage in terms of efficiency; it offers off state. Similarly, electrical devices on/off can be easily
less switching losses and generates less EMI. Also, the switching controlled by using proper drivers like transistors, IGBT,
frequency becomes twice and voltage amplitude is reduced to half relays, triac etc. But PWM techniques smartly handles
in case of unipolar PWM. Therefore, total harmonic distortion situations where you require more than on and off control just
(THD) content of output current and output voltage is decreased, like controlling brightness of LED or speed of the motor.
thus improving the power quality and making filter easier.
PWM techniques are widely accepted and have been the
subject of intensive research during past few years [2].
Index Terms—Half Bridge Inverter, Full Bridge Inverter, Pulse
Width Modulation, Power Total Harmonic Distortion, Bipolar
PWM techniques play a vital role in controlling power
PWM, Unipolar PWM. electronic controllers such as choppers, dc to ac converters,
rectifiers, cycloconverter and motor drives. PWM techniques
offer many advantages
I. INTRODUCTION • Power loss is very low in the switching devices and
less generated noise.
• Minimization of harmonics and output voltage can be
Inverter is basically a power electronic converter that converts easily controlled [3].
dc power supply into AC waveform. The input d.c can be PWM techniques are classified into two basic types-Analog
taken from battery or rectifiers. The inverters may be and Digital Techniques. Analog techniques and analog
classified into square wave, quasi-square wave or low controllers have disadvantages like
distorted sine wave according to their output waveform.
• They are sensitive to noise and are affected by
Square wave and quasi square have high value of Total
temperature change or due to component variation
Harmonic Distortion, therefore, they are restricted for low and
[4].
medium power applications but for high power application
better quality waveform is desired [1]. Power quality of sine

978-1-5090-2889-4/16/$31.00 ©2016 IEEE 277

 • They are fixed and less flexible as compared to Fig. 2 and Fig. 3 shows the output current and output voltage
digital techniques. of half bridge and full bridge inverter respectively with RL
• Analog controllers require many interconnected load, R=1 Ÿ and L=5e-03 H
discrete components which increases inventory cost
and complexity of manufacturing process. Also they
require many power supplies for numerous discrete
components [5].

Thus digital PWM techniques are better. They are more

flexible and less prone to environmental noise. Digital PWM
techniques can be implemented by using DSPs,
Microcontroller, Microprocessors or ASICs but the arrival of
FPGA brings dramatic change in the digital PWM control
applications [6]. FPGA offers better alternative solution for
digital PWM techniques due to its highest computational
speed as compared to Microcontroller, Microprocessor and Fig. 2 Output Current and output Voltage of Half Bridge
DSPs [7]. Inverter

II. COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS BETWEEN HALF

BRIDGE AND FULL BRIDGE INVERTER

MATLAB/SIMULINK environment is used for simulation.

The converters have been tested using IGBT switches with
gate pulse generated by PWM generator block. Fig. 1 shows
half bridge and full bridge inverter.
The two converters use the same dc voltage (VDC=400V),
carrier frequency (1000 Hz), frequency of output voltage (50
Fig. 3 Output Current and output Voltage of Full Bridge
Hz) and modulation index (m=0.8).
Inverter
Modulation Index (m) is ratio of control signal (Sinusoidal in
bipolar PWM) to the carrier signal (Triangular in bipolar
Fig. 4 and Fig. 5 show the %THD of output current of half
PWM).
bridge and full bridge inverter.
m=Ec/Er (1)
The value of modulation index determines the output voltage
of inverter [8]. It should be noted that decreasing the
modulation index will decrease inverter output voltage and
vice versa.

Fig. 4 Output current FFT analysis of half bridge inverter

Fig. 5 Output current FFT analysis of full bridge inverter

Fig. 1 Half bridge and Full bridge inverter The simulated results verify that for the same dc voltage,
carrier frequency and modulation index, the output current and

278
output voltage of full bridge is twice as compared to half B. Unipolar Switching Scheme
bridge. Also it is observed that %THD is lower in full bridge A unipolar switching scheme implemented on full bridge
and harmonics appear at double of the carrier frequency as inverter is called a two level inverter, due to the fact that
compared to half bridge. Due to this, the output current of full output voltage switches between two states either positive
bridge is smoother and offers better power quality. The table or negative value of applied voltage as shown in fig. 7(d).
shown below concludes the simulated results. In unipolar PWM, two sinusoidal signals having 180°
phase shift are taken having same magnitude and
Table.1: Comparative Analysis between Half Bridge and Full frequency. The two sinusoidal signals are compared with
Bridge Inverter same triangular pulse.
The gate signal for switch S1 is generated by comparing
Inverter Scheme Ffundamental Fswitching M %THD
(Current)
positive reference signal and triangular signal as shown in
Half Bridge 50 1000 0.8 6.83% fig. 7(b) while comparing 180 phase shifted reference
Full Bridge 50 1000 0.8 1.88% signal and triangular signal results in gate signal for
switch S3 as shown in fig. 7(c). The switch S2 has
complementary switching as compared to S1 and
III. BIPOLAR AND UNIPOLAR SINUSOIDAL PULSE WIDTH similarly switch S4 has complementary switching as
MODULATION TECHNIQUES compared to S3.
Unipolar and Bipolar are sinusoidal pulse width modulation
techniques, because in this control signal is sinusoidal signal.
Sinusoidal signal (reference signal) is compared with
triangular signal (carrier signal) using comparator that
produces resulting gate signal for inverter switches. Output
frequency of inverter is determined by frequency of control
signal while the modulation index (m) is controlled by
amplitude of control signal. The switching frequency of the
inverter can be determined by carrier signal switching
frequency. Switching frequency has effect on inverter output
so harmonics are contained at switching frequency [9].
A. Bipolar Switching Scheme
A bipolar switching scheme implemented on full bridge
inverter is called a two level inverter, due to the fact that
output voltage switches between two states either positive or Fig. 7 Unipolar Switching Scheme
negative value of applied voltage as shown in fig. 6(d).
In bipolar switching scheme, carrier and modulating signal are IV. BIPOLAR SPWM INVERTER SIMULATION RESULTS
compared. The inverter switches are turned on whenever the WITHOUT FILTER
reference signal is greater than the carrier signal and vice Fig. 8 shows Bipolar SPWM inverter with dc voltage=
versa. This resulting gate pulse shown in fig. 6(b) is applied to 100V and RL load, R=1 Ÿ and L=5e-03 H
switches S1 and S4 of the inverter while its inverted gate pulse .
is applied to switches S2 and S3 as shown in fig. 6(c).

Fig. 6 Bipolar Switching Scheme

Fig. 8 Full Bridge Bipolar Inverter without filter

279
An important parameter in SPWM is Frequency Modulation
Ratio (mf) that determines the harmonic distortion of output
voltage and current.
mf=fc/fm (2)
It is easier to filter out harmonics at high frequency; therefore
higher value of frequency modulation ratio is better sometimes
but switching losses of inverter increases with increasing
switching frequency [10]. The choice of this ratio is important
and depends upon application. The reference signal and carrier
signal are synchronized called Synchronous PWM in case
when mf ”21 [11]. It should be noted that to achieve half wave Fig. 12 Output voltage FFT analysis with m=1 and
symmetry (no even harmonics), odd integer value of mf should Fswitching=10*50(500Hz) without filter
be selected as shown in fig. 9 and fig. 10 where mf=9.
It is very important to note that for particularly small values of
mf ”21, Asynchronous PWM (where mf is non integer) results
in harmonics lower than fundamental frequency called sub-
harmonics in output current and output voltage as shown in
fig. 13 and 14. Sub-harmonics are nearly unfilterable and are
mostly undesirable for inverter applications [12].

Fig. 9 Output current FFT analysis with m=1 and

Fswitching=9*50(450Hz) without filter

Fig. 13 Output current FFT analysis with m=1 and

Fswitching=20.3*50(1015Hz) without filter
Fig. 10 Output voltage FFT analysis with m=1 and
Fswitching=9*50(450Hz) without filter

It contains both even and odd harmonics when mf=10 (even

integer) as shown in fig. 11 and 12.

Fig. 14 Output voltage FFT analysis with m=1 and

Fswitching=20.3*50(1015Hz) without filter

Asynchronous PWM can be used for higher values of mf >21

because amplitude of sub-harmonics will become smaller [13].
Nevertheless, smaller sub-harmonics may also cause serious
problems and significant losses for any high power
application. Therefore, it is always advisable to use
Fig. 11 Output current FFT analysis with m=1 and
Synchronous PWM for high power usage [13].
Fswitching=10*50(500Hz) without filter

280
 V. UNIPOLAR SPWM INVERTER SIMULATION RESULTS
WITHOUT FILTER The simulated results verify that for bipolar scheme, output
current contain harmonics centered around fc, 2fc, 3fc, etc and
Fig. 15 shows unipolar PWM implemented on the full bridge its sidebands as shown in fig. 11 but for unipolar scheme,
inverter having same parameters as for bipolar PWM output current does not contain harmonics across switching
technique. frequency as shown in fig. 17. Rather, it appears around 2fc,
4fc, 6fc, etc and its side bands. Due to this filtering becomes
easier in case of unipolar as discussed in section VI

VI. COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF BIPOLAR AND UNIPOLAR

INVERTER WITH FILTER

Bipolar and Unipolar scheme is presented on same full bridge

inverter model but with addition of second order low pass
filter connected across output voltage having cut off frequency
equal to 340 Hz as shown in fig. 18.

Fig. 15 Full Bridge Unipolar Inverter without filter

Fig. 18 Full Bridge Inverter with Filter
Unlike bipolar, mf is selected as even integer to achieve half
wave symmetry in unipolar [14]. So for comparison purpose
Fig. 19 and 20 shows output filtered voltage and %THD of
with bipolar, same value of mf=10 is taken.
filtered voltage for bipolar scheme.

Fig. 19 Output Filtered Voltage of Bipolar Inverter with

mf=10 and m=1

Fig. 16 Output voltage FFT analysis with m=1 and

Fswitching=10*50(500Hz) without filter

Fig. 20 Output Filtered Voltage FFT Analysis of Bipolar

Inverter with mf=10 and m=1

Fig. 21 and 22 shows output filtered voltage and %THD of

filtered voltage for unipolar scheme. Same value mf and m is
Fig. 17 Output current FFT analysis with m=1 and taken for comparison purpose with bipolar.
Fswitching=10*50(500Hz) without filter

281
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[4] Q. Chen, A. Feygenson, AW. Lotfi and KJ. Timm “Programmable

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[6] V. Parkhi, S. Shilaskar, M. Tirmare and M. Jog “FPGA

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[7] RK. Rao, P. Srinivas and MVS. Kumar “Design and analysis of
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Inverter with mf=10 and m=1
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PWM Ffundamental mf M %THD without %THD

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It is concluded from the obtained results that full bridge

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