2011 2nd Power Electronics, Drive Systems and Technologies Conference

A Method Based on Imperialist Competitive Algorithm (ICA), Aiming to Mitigate Harmonics in Multilevel Inverters
M. H. Etesami, N. Farokhnia and S. H. Fathi
Department of Electrical Engineering Amirkabir University of Technology (Tehran Polytechnic), Tehran, Iran Etesami@aut.ac.ir Farokhnia@aut.ac.ir Fathi@aut.ac.ir Abstract Selective Harmonic Elimination Pulse Width Modulation (SHEPWM) is a well-known Switching Strategy which is applied in multilevel Inverters. The aim of this strategy is eliminating low order harmonics. Basically, harmonic equations are nonlinear and solving them is a major problem for researchers. Evolutionary Algorithms have shown an effective ability for this aim, because they find solution for all operating points of Modulation Indices. Recently, Continuous Genetic Algorithm (CGA) has been widely used in this area. In a research, it has been shown that Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) has a better performance in comparison with CGA. In this paper, a new method, called Imperialist Competitive Algorithm (ICA), is introduced for this goal. The results of comparison between these methods show an appropriate privilege of ICA over other methods. The comparisons are based on probability of converging to global minimum. Effect of number of runs is investigated. The comparisons are done for 13 and 17 level inverters as case studies. Index Terms Selective Harmonic Elimination Pulse Width Modulation (SHEPWM); Imperialist Competitive Algorithm (ICA); Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO); Continuous Genetic Algorithm (CGA). I. INTRODUCTION In recent years, industry has begun to demand higher power equipment, which now reaches the megawatt level. Today, it is hard to connect a single power semiconductor switch directly to medium voltage grids (2.3, 3.3, 4.16, or 6.9 kV) [1]. For these reasons, new family of inverters named multi-level inverters have received more and more attention because of their capability of high voltage operation, high efficiency, lower switching losses, low Electromagnetic Interference (EMI) and superior power quality when compared to traditional (2-level) inverters [2-3]. The extensive application of them has been observed in some works such as: medium voltage drives [4], Flexible AC Transmission System (FACTS) equipments [5] and Distributed Generation (DG) [6]. With respect to the switching frequency of multi-level inverters, the switching strategies can be classified into two categories; methods that work with high switching frequencies including classic carrier based Sinusoidal Pulse Width modulation (SPWM) and the Space Vector Modulation (SVM) strategy and methods that work with low switching frequencies, generally equal to fundamental component frequency, and generate a staircase waveform [8]. Representatives of this family are Space Vector Control (SVC), Optimal Minimization of the Total Harmonic Distortion (OMTHD) [7, 9] and SHEPWM [10]. SHEPWM offers controllable low order harmonics and the possibility of the producing sinusoidal waveform by using a filter. The major problem of SHEPWM is to find a method to solve a set of non-linear equations. However, these equations are not soluble for some operating points, associated with Modulation indices (M). In this regard, presented techniques, published in literatures, can be categorized into two general groups. The first group solves equations. In [10-12] NewtonRaphson (N-R) method is exploited to solve equations. Iterative methods mainly depend on the initial guess and divergence problems are likely to occur, especially for high numbers of inverter levels. Although N-R method is fast, it only can find one set of solutions. In addition, [13] have used the mathematical theory of resultants. Although this method is complicated and time consuming [8], it finds all possible solutions with the exact range of the M, where solutions exist. Additionally, it should be noted that, for any changes in the voltage level or input dc voltage, new expressions are required [14]. Also by increasing the levels of multi-level inverters, equation set tends to a high order polynomial, which not only has a narrow feasible solution space, but also it is difficult to solve it [16]. Homotopy algorithm is another approach, applied in [14-15], to find one set of solutions. All methods, included in this group, do not suggest any optimum solutions for infeasible Ms (i.e. Modulation indices which there is no solution, naturally), while in many applications working in a continuous range of M is inevitable. In second group, the problem of selective harmonic elimination, together with output voltage regulation, is redrafted as an optimization problem, and the solution is sought through the novel concept. The second group methods not only can find solution when it is possible to completely eliminate low order harmonics, but also, when there is no feasible solution, introduces optimum angles. In these cases, all Evolutionary Search Algorithms can be regarded as suitable choices. They are simple and applicable to such a problem with any number of levels, without extensive derivation of analytical expressions, for both eliminating and minimizing harmonics. Furthermore, they can be simply used for multi-level inverter with non-equal DC sources. However, these methods are not as fast as first group methods. In this way, GA as a well-known

978-1-61284-421-3/11/$26.00 2011 IEEE

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evolutionary algorithm has been widely used in literature [8] and [16-17]. A hybrid method has been presented in [18], that has combined GA with Levenberg-Marquardt method to reach all sets of solutions. In [19-20], a novel powerful optimization algorithm, namely PSO, has been introduced which shows significant privileges over CGA in both precision and rate of convergence. Also, [21] has utilized GA and PSO to find a suitable initial guess for N-R. In fact, N-R enhances the GA and PSOs precisions in reducing the fitness value. In this paper, an advanced variation of ICA is applied to minimize some specific low order harmonics subject to satisfying desirable fundamental component. Results, including the effect of running times on the probability of reaching to global solution for some low level inverters, are compared with results obtained by CGA and PSO. The results confirm the effectiveness of the proposed method and its superiority over other methods. II. MULTI-LEVEL INVERTERS

S1

Va
S
3

Vdc1
S
4

S1

Vdc 2
S3 S
4

S1

Vn
( n = 3)
Voltage 3V
dc
S3 S
4

Vdc 3

A. Multi-level inverter topologies Multi-level inverters are categorized into three general topologies: Diode clamped multi-level inverter (DCMI), Flying-capacitor multi-level inverter (FCMI) and Cascaded multi-level inverter with separate DC sources (Fig. 1(a)) [23]. The last multi-level inverter is shown in Fig. 1(a). However, all three multi-level inverters can produce staircase waveform as shown in Fig. 1(b). The number of output phase (lineneutral) voltage levels in a cascade multi-level inverter is 2S+1, where S is number of dc sources. An example phase voltage waveform for a 7-level cascaded multi-level inverter with three DC sources (S=3) is shown in Fig. 1(b). Each active device of the H-bridges switches only at the fundamental frequency. Also, each H-bridge unit generates a quasi-square waveform by phase-shifting its positive and negative phase legs switching timings. B. Selective Harmonic Elimination PWM (SHEPWM) A 7-level inverter waveform shown in Fig. 1(b) has three variables, 1, 2 and 3, where, Vdc1, Vdc2 and Vdc3 are assumed to be equal. Considering equal amplitude of all dc sources, the Fourier series expansion of the output voltage waveform, shown in Fig. 1(b), will be written:
V (t ) =

Phase(Rad )
/2

3 /2

dc1
1

dc2

dc3

2 3

Figure 1.

Top) Cascaded multi-level inverter with separate DC sources, Down) Output voltage waveform of a 7-level inverter.

The objective of SHEPWM is to eliminate the lower order harmonics while remaining harmonics are removed with filter. In this paper, without loss of generality, a 13-level inverter is chosen as the case study to eliminate its low order harmonics, i.e. from 5 to 17. It is needles to take the triplen harmonics into consideration, since they will vanish in three phase applications. Thus, according to Eq. (2), for a 13-level inverter the goal is to solve following equation set:
1 [cos (1 ) + cos ( 2 ) + ... + cos ( 6 )] S 0 = cos (51 ) + cos (5 2 ) + ... + cos (5 6 ) M = 0 = cos (171 ) + cos (17 2 ) + ... + cos (17 6 )

Vn sin (nt ) n =1

(3)

(1)

Where, M, i.e. Modulation Index, is defined as: Where, Vn is the amplitude of nth harmonic. Switching angles are limited between zero and /2 (0i/2). Because of odd quarter-wave symmetric characteristic, harmonics with even order become zero. Consequently, Vn becomes:
S 4V dc cos(ni ) Vn = n i =1 0 for odd ns

M=

V1 4SVdc

(0 M

1)

(4)

It is desirable to find six switching angles, namely 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6, satisfying above non-linear equation set. In this paper ICA is used for solving the equation set. III. ICA The imperialist competitive algorithm is a new sociopolitically motivated global search strategy that has recently been introduced for dealing with different optimization tasks.

(2)
for even ns

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This evolutionary optimization strategy has shown great performance in both convergence rate and better global optima achievement. It initials population consist of individuals named country as the beginning of the algorithm and then the population are separated to two different sorts based on their cost and defined as imperialist and colony, respectively. In an Nvar-dimentional optimisation problem, a country is a 1Nvar array. This array is defined as following:

c o u n tr y = [ p 1 , p 2 , p 3 , ..., p N

]
va r

(5)

Where pis are the variables to be optimized. Each variable in the country can be interpreted as a socio-political characteristic of a country. From this point of view, all the algorithm does is to search for the best country that is the country with the best combination of socio-political characteristics such as culture and language. From optimisation point of view, this leads to find the optimal solution of the problem and solution with the least cost value. The cost of a country is found by evaluation of the cost function f at variables (p1, p2, p3, ... pNvar). So we have

imperialist by x units. The direction of the movement is the vector from the colony to the imperialist. x is a random variable with uniform distribution. Then x~ U (0, d ) (10) where is a number greater than 1 and d is the distance between the colony and the imperialist state. > 1 causes the colonies to get closer to the imperialist state from both sides. To increase the ability of searching more area around the imperialist, a random amount of deviation is added to the direction of movement. Figure 2 shows the new direction. In this figure is a parameter with uniform distribution. Then ~ U ( , ) (11) where is a parameter that adjusts the deviation from the original direction. Nevertheless the values of and are arbitrary, in most of implementations a value of about 2 for and about /4 (Rad) for results in good convergence of countries to the global minimum.

cos t = f (country ) = f ( p1 , p2 , p3 ,..., pN var )

(6)

To start the optimisation algorithm, initial countries of size NCountry is produced. We select Nimp of the most powerful countries to form the empires. The remaining Ncol of the initial countries will be the colonies each of which belongs to an empire. To form the initial empires, the colonies are divided among imperialists based on their power. That is, the initial number of colonies of an empire should be directly proportionate to its power. To proportionally divide the colonies among imperialists, the normalized cost of an imperialist is defined by

Figure 2. Movement of colonies toward their relevant imperialist.

Cn = max Cn
i{ci }
th

(7)

where cn is the cost of the n imperialist and Cn is its normalized cost. Having the normalized cost of all imperialists, the normalized power of each imperialist is defined by:

Moving toward the imperialist, a colony might reach to a position with lower cost than the imperialist. In this case, the imperialist and the colony change their positions. Then the algorithm will continue by the imperialist in the new position and the colonies will be assimilated by the imperialist in its new position. The total power of an empire depends on both the power of the imperialist country and the power of its colonies. This fact is modelled by defining the total power of an empire as the power of imperialist country plus a percentage of mean power of its colonies. Where T.C.n is the total cost of the nth empire and is a positive small number. The value of 0.1 for has shown good results in most of the implementations. All empires try to take the possession of colonies of other empires and control them. The imperialistic competition is modelled by just picking some (usually one) of the weakest colonies of the weakest empire and making a competition among all empires to possess these (this) colonies. Based on their total power, in this competition, each of empires will have a likelihood of taking possession of the mentioned colonies. To start the competition, first a colony of the weakest empire is chosen and then the possession probability of each empire is found. The possession probability PP is proportionate to the total power of the empire. The normalized total cost of an empire is simply obtained by
T .C . = C ost ( im orialist n ) + mean{C ost ( colonies of empire n )} (12)

pn =

Cn
Nimp i =1

(8)
i

The initial colonies are divided among empires based on their power. Then the initial number of colonies of the nth empire will be N .C.n = round{ pn .N col } (9) where N.C.n is the initial number of colonies of the nth empire and Ncol is the total number of initial colonies. To divide the colonies, N.C.n of the colonies are randomly chosen and given to the nth imperialist. These colonies along with the nth imperialist form the nth empire. After forming initial empires, the colonies in each of them start moving toward their relevant imperialist country. In the ICA, the assimilation policy is modelled by moving all the colonies toward the imperialist. A colony moves toward the

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N .T .Cn = max T .Cn

i{TCi }

(13)

Where, T.C.n and N.T.Cn are the total cost and the normalized total cost of nth empire, respectively. Having the normalized total cost, the possession probability of each empire is given by

to face the problem as an optimization aiming to reduce low order harmonics to their minimum possible values. According to Eq. (2), for a multi-level inverter, a proper objective function can be defined as:
4 S V * V 1 Vh f = min 100 1 * 1 + 50 s i V1 s = 2 hs V1

; i = 1,2,..., S

(18)

p pn =

N .T .Cn
N imp i =1

(14)
i

Subject to:

N .T .C

0 i

(19)

To divide the mentioned colonies among empires vector P is formed as following

P = p p1 , p p 2 , p p 3 ,..., p pN imp

(15)

Where, V1* is desired fundamental harmonic and hs is the order of sth viable harmonic at the output of a three phase multilevel inverter, e.g. h2=5 and h6=17. The main objective is to find the switching angles such that magnitude of fundamental harmonic reaches to its desirable value, i.e. V1*. Whenever fundamental harmonic violates its set point by more than 1%, the first term of Eq. (18) fines it by power of 4 which is a heavy penalty indeed! Because of using power of 4, corresponding penalties for any deviations under 1% get a negligible value. Regarding to the Standard IEEE-519 [24], it is recommended to limit the magnitude of each individual harmonic to 3% of the fundamental. Therefore, second term of Eq. (18) neglects harmonics under 2% of fundamental. But, when any harmonic exceeds this limit, objective function is subject to a penalty by power of 2. Finally, each harmonic ratio is weighted by reciprocal of its harmonic order, i.e. 1/hs. By this weighting method, reducing the low order harmonics gets higher importance. Note that, not only low order harmonics are more harmful, but also their filtering is more troublesome. In the followings, ICA will be implemented to harmonic optimization problem, defined by Eqs. (18) and (19). Moreover, the results will be compared to optimal switching angles which are provided by CGA and PSO. Results will testify to the effectiveness and flexibility of ICA, in both elimination and optimization of low order harmonics. A. Base case In this study, a 13-level inverter is investigated as the base case. Consequently, this section makes all the efforts to eliminate the 5th to 17th harmonics, and when it is not possible, it attempts to find the optimum switching angles according to Eqs. (18) and (19). In this way, the problem is optimized for 600 Ms, uniformly distributed between 0 and 1. As it was mentioned, since ICA is a stochastic-intelligent search algorithm, sometimes it may get stuck in local minima, therefore, literature often recommends running the algorithm for several times and choosing the least objective value as the global minimum. Fig. 3 shows the obtained objective functions for 1 and 10 times running the program. It is evident that the probability of converging to global minima, after 10 times running is much more than the probability of a single run. For clarity, all objective amounts below 10-5 are set equal to 10-5. The values of vertical axis are shown as logarithm of real ones.

Then the vector R with the same size as P whose elements are uniformly distributed random numbers is created,

R = [r1 , r2 , r3 ,..., rNimp ]

r1 , r2 , r3 ,..., rNimp U (0,1)
Then vector D is formed by subtracting R from P D = P R = [ D1 , D2 , D3 ,..., DNimp ] =

(16)

[ p p1 r1 , p p 2 r2 , p p 3 r3 ,..., p pN

imp

rNimp ]

(17)

Referring to vector D the mentioned colony (colonies) is handed to an empire whose relevant index in D is maximized. This method of selection is much faster than the conventional roulette wheel. Because it is not required to calculate the cumulative distribution function and the selection is based on only the values of probabilities. The continuation of the mentioned steps will hopefully cause the countries to converge to the global minimum of the cost function. Different criteria can be used to stop the algorithm. One idea is to use a number of maximum iteration of the algorithm, called maximum decades, to stop the algorithm. Also the end of imperialistic competition when there is only one empire can be considered as the stop criterion of the ICA. On the other hand, the algorithm can be stopped when its best solution in different decades cannot be improved for some consecutive decades. IV. IMPLEMENTATION As mentioned in section I, there are a variety of methods which are utilized to find the optimum switching angles of multi-level inverters. Depending on the working point of the inverter, which is determined by corresponding M, the equation set shown in Eq. (3) may have or may not have feasible solution(s), analytically. For a given M, if there is any feasible solution it can be obtained by some famous numerical methods such as N-R and Gauss-Siedel or using some stranger ones like resultant theory. But, for some working points, i.e. for some Ms, equation set (3) does not have any solution, or if there is a solution, it does not exist in feasible region between 0 and /2. For these Ms, instead of trying to solve an insoluble equation set, it is better

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1 run 10 runs

O ptim umO bjective Function (LO ) G

-1

-2

problems that exploits a population of individuals to probe promising region of the search space. Generally, the population is called swarm and the individuals are called particles. Each particle moves with an adaptable velocity within the search space and retains in its memory the best position it ever encountered. The global variant of PSO the best position ever attained by all individuals of the swarm is communicated to all the particles [22]. Fig. 5 illustrates the advantages of ICA over both CGA and PSO. It is obvious that, for all number of levels and running times, ICA outperforms CGA and PSO. Also, comparing to CGA and PSO, ICA finds the solution of the Eq. (3) with a higher probability. This advantage is more significant in first running of the algorithm. However, for objective functions greater than 10-1, PSO performs as well as ICA. Noticeably, calculation time of finding optimal solution for ICA is approximately more than 3 times less than PSO algorithm. In addition, it should be mentioned that the most powerful advantage of ICA is the number of references to fitness function in its searching process that is less than other two algorithms. This character will be more important when we have massive problems with so many parameters that referring to fitness function not only needs more time, but also occupies much more spaces in processor, so more powerful processors will be required. In practice, it has been proven that performs a major role in the optimization process. VI. CONCLUSION A fair judgment between ICA, PSO and CGA methods leads to: ICA method is much faster (about 10 to 12 times) than CGA, and has a better performance. Its implementation is much simpler than PSO, and it converges to global optima with higher probability. Also, in this application, i.e. low order harmonics elimination and optimization, ICA is about 3 to 4 times faster than PSO. For future works, it might be interesting to exploit ICA in THD minimization applications. VII. REFERENCES
[1] Rodriguez, J, Jih-Sheng Lai, Fang Zheng Peng. "Multilevel inverters: a survey of topologies, controls, and applications" IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics, Volume 49, Issue 4, Aug. 2002 Page(s): 724 738. Zhong Du, Tolbert L.M, Chiasson, J.N. "Active harmonic elimination for multilevel converters" IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics, Volume 21, Issue 2, March 2006 Page(s): 459 469. S. Kouro, M. Malinowski, K. Gopakumar, J. Pou, L.G. Franquelo, B. Wu, J. Rodriguez, M.A. Perez, J.I. Leon, J. I. Recent Advances and Industrial Applications of Multilevel Converters IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics, vol 57, no 8, 2010, Page(s): 2553 - 2580 Sivakumar, K. Das, A. Ramchand, R. Patel, C. Gopakumar, K.; A Five-Level Inverter Scheme for a Four-Pole Induction Motor Drive by Feeding the Identical Voltage-Profile Windings From Both Sides IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics, Volume: 57, Issue: 8, Publication Year: 2010, Page(s): 2776 - 2784 N. Farokhnia, S.H. Fathi, H. R. Toodeji, Direct Nonlinear Control for Individual DC Voltage Balancing in Cascaded Multilevel DSTATCOM IEEE International Conference on Electric Power and Energy Conversion Systems (EPECS) 2009, Publication Year: 2009, Page(s): 18 Cecati, C; Ciancetta, F; Siano, P; A Multilevel Inverter for PV Systems with Fuzzy Logic Control IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics, Volume: PP, Issue: 99, Publication Year: 2010, Page(s): 1 1

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Figure 3. Optimum objective function versus M for 1 and 10 times run

For illustrating the effect of the running times, objective function (18) is optimized for 1, 2, 5, and 10 times. In order to make a better sense, results are shown in Fig. 4 by their cumulative probabilities. This figure shows that, for example, the probability of solving the equation set (3) (in another word, to obtain an objective value below 10-5), after 1, 2, and 5 times run is 30.0%, 31.0%, and 35.0%, respectively. Moreover, Fig. 4 shows that, after 1, 2, and 5 times run, ICA provides values less that 10-3 for objective function with the probabilities of 40.66%, 41.66%, and 43.0%, respectively. However, the objective value, by its own, cannot interpret the exact situation. When the objective function has a value about 10-2 the magnitude of the fundamental harmonic never deviates from its desirable value more than 0.2%, and also, all low order harmonics are maintained well-closed to zero. Thus, from the application point of view, an objective value of 10-2 provides quite satisfactory results.
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Figure 4. Cumulative Distribution Function (CDF) of optimum objective function for a 13-level inverter over its M range.

[2]

V. COMPARISON Finally, in order to verify ICAs results, a comparison is made between ICA, CGA and PSO [22]. CGA is, almost, the most famous intelligent optimization algorithm, and therefore, it is needless to be introduced here. Since, binary GA cannot provide accurate solutions for continuous problems, in this study a continuous version of GA is developed in MATLAB programming environment. It is noteworthy that, for a fair comparison, the number of population and generations of CGA is set equal to number of population and iterations of PSO and ICA, i.e. 100 and 1000, respectively. Also, on the other hand, PSO is one of the most successful population-based methods in optimizing constrained non-linear

[3]

[4]

[5]

[6]

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[8]

[9]

[10]

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[14]

N. Yousefpoor, S.H.Fathi, N.Farokhnia, H.A.Abyaneh, Application of OMTHD on the Line Voltage of Cascaded Multi-Level Inverters with Adjustable DC Sources IEEE 5th International Conference on Industrial Electronics and Applications (ICIEA), Publication Year: 2010, Page(s): 498 - 503 El-Naggar K, Abdelhamid T.H. "Selective harmonic elimination of new family of multilevel inverters using genetic algorithms" Energy Conversion and Management, Volume 49, Issue 1, January 2008, Pages 89-95. N. Yousefpoor, N. Farokhnia, S.H. Fathi, J.Moghani; Developed Single-Phase OMTHD Technique for Cascaded Multi-Level Inverter By Considering Adjustable DC Sources IEEE International Conference on Electric Power and Energy Conversion Systems (EPECS) 2009, Publication Year: 2009 , Page(s): 1 - 6 N. Yousefpoor, S.H. Fathi, N. Farokhnia, S.H.Sadeghi; Application of OHSW Technique in Cascaded Multi-Level Inverter with Adjustable DC Sources IEEE International Conference on Electric Power and Energy Conversion Systems (EPECS) 2009, Publication Year: 2009 , Page(s): 1 6 Tolbert L.A, Fang Zheng Peng, Cunnyngham, T, Chiasson J.N. "Charge balance control schemes for cascade multilevel converter in hybrid electric vehicles" IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics, Volume 49, Issue 5, Oct. 2002 Page(s) :1058 1064. W. Fei, X. Du, B. Wu, A Generalized Half-wave Symmetry SHE-PWM Formulation for Multilevel Voltage Inverters IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics, Volume: 57, Issue: 9, Publication Year: 2010, Page(s): 3030 - 3038 Zhong Du, Tolbert L.M, Chiasson J.N, Ozpineci B. "Reduced Switching-Frequency Active Harmonic Elimination for Multilevel Converters" IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics, Volume 55, Issue 4, April 2008 Page(s): 1761-1770. Eryong Guan, Pinggang Song, Manyuan Ye, Bin Wu, "Selective Harmonic Elimination Techniques for Multilevel Cascaded H-Bridge Inverters" International Conference on Power Electronics and Drives Systems, 2005. PEDS 2005, Volume 2, 28-01 Nov. 2005 Page(s): 14411446.

[15] Hosseini Aghdam M.G, Fathi S.H, Gharehpetian G.B, "Elimination of Harmonics in a Multi-Level Inverter with Unequal DC Sources Using the Homotopy Algorithm" IEEE International Symposium on Industrial Electronics, 2007, ISIE 2007, 4-7 June 2007 Page(s): 578583. [16] Ozpineci B, Tolbert L.M, Chiasson J.N. "Harmonic optimization of multilevel converters using genetic algorithms" IEEE Power Electronics Letters, Volume 3, Issue 3, Sept. 2005 Page(s): 9295. [17] Dahidah M.S.A, Agelidis V.G. "Selective Harmonic Elimination PWM Control for Cascaded Multilevel Voltage Source Converters: A Generalized Formula" IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics, Volume: 23, Issue: 4, Publication Year: 2008 , Page(s): 1620 - 1630 [18] Vassallo J, Clare J.C, Wheeler P.W.A "power-equalized harmonicelimination scheme for utility-connected cascaded H-bridge multilevel converters" The 29th Annual Conference of the IEEE, Industrial Electronics Society, 2003, IECON '03, Volume 2, 2-6 Nov. 2003 Page(s): 1185-1190. [19] Kaviani, A. Kashefi; Fathi, S.H.; Farokhnia, N.; Ardakani, A. Jahanbani; PSO, an effective tool for harmonics elimination and optimization in multi-level inverters 4th IEEE Conference on Industrial Electronics and Applications, ICIEA 2009. 25-27 May 2009, Page(s):2902 2907 [20] Taghizadeh, H; Tarafdar Hagh, M; Harmonic Elimination of Cascade Multilevel Inverters with Non-equal DC Sources Using Particle Swarm Optimization IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics, Volume: PP, Issue: 99, Publication Year: 2010, Page(s): 1 - 1 [21] Barkati S, Baghli L, Berkouk E.M, Boucherit M. "Harmonic elimination in diode-clamped multilevel inverter using evolutionary algorithms" Electr. Power Syst. Res. (2008), doi:10.1016/j.epsr.2008.03.010. [22] Parasopoulos K.E, Vrahatis M.N. On the Computation of All Global Minimizers Through Particle Swarm optimization" IEEE Transaction on Evolutionary Computation, Volume. 8, No. 3, June 2004. [23] Abu-Rub, H. Holtz, J. Rodriguez, J. Baoming, G.; Medium-Voltage Multilevel ConvertersState of the Art, Challenges, and Requirements in Industrial Applications IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics, Volume: 57, Issue: 8, Publication Year: 2010, Page(s): 2581 - 2596 [24] IEEE Standard 519-1992, IEEE Recommended Practices and Requirements for Harmonic Control in Electrical Power Systems Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers, 1992.
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Figure 5. Comparing ICA, PSO and CGA for 13 and 17-level inverters, through 1, 2 and 5 times running

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