Abstract

This chapter reviews the cascaded H-bridge (CHB) based on current-source inverter (CSI) topology. First, the description of power topology is presented from the point of view of the current-source single-phase inverter and it connection in series with others inverters. Then, modulation of the single-phase inverter is studied, including the use of multi-level modulation techniques and their use in the proposed power topology are reviewed and simulated. Next, key design guidelines of the output capacitor and the DC inductor are reviewed. Finally, an application example for AC drives simulated in PSIM is presented. From the study, it can be concluded that the main advantage of the topology is the quality of both input currents and load voltage, while its main drawback is the use of a bulky DC inductor because of the use of current-source inverters and the oscillating power drained by the inverter from the DC side. In the same way of classic cascaded H-bridge topologies, the use of the proposal topology allows us to use semiconductors and passive components with lower voltage and current rating than the voltage and current required by the load.