Kristian Skorpen

Home › Courses › PWM Strategies for Full-Bridge Inverter

PWM Strategies for Full-Bridge Inverter (Free Mini-Course)

Explanation and comparison of three PWM strategies for a full-bridge inverter - bipolar, standard unipolar, and fast-slow leg - with analytical equations and Python examples.

Go to course
PWM Strategies for Full-Bridge Inverter (Free Mini-Course)

This mini-course comes as a PDF. The Python examples shown in the PDF are also provided as a Jupyter notebook so you can run and modify them yourself.

A playlist with video walkthroughs of the PWM strategies is available on YouTube.

Table of contents

  1. How a Full-Bridge Inverter Works
    • Topology with two legs and four switches
    • Gate-signal logic per leg
    • Output voltage as the difference of leg voltages
  2. How PWM Works
    • Carrier and reference signals
    • Block diagram of a PWM
    • Average output voltage
  3. 1. Bipolar PWM
    • Gate-signal relationship across both legs
    • Analytical expressions
    • Numerical example in Python
  4. 2. Standard Unipolar PWM
    • Each leg modulated independently
    • Analytical expressions
    • Numerical example in Python
    • Pros and cons relative to bipolar
  5. 3. Fast-Slow Leg PWM (variant of unipolar)
    • One leg at switching frequency, the other at line frequency
    • Analytical expressions
    • Numerical example in Python
    • Pros and cons relative to standard unipolar
  6. Overall Comparison
    • Feature-by-feature table of the three strategies
    • Switching-activity differences
    • When to pick which

Go to course