DESIGN AND PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF A DC TO AC INVERTER

This report focuses on DC to AC power inverters, which aim to efficiently transform a DC power source to a high voltage AC source, similar to power that would be available at an electrical wall outlet. Inverters are used for many applications, as in situations where low voltage DC sources such as batteries, solar panels or fuel cells not be converted so that devices can run off of AC power. One example of such a situation would be converting electrical power from a car battery to run a laptop, TV or cell phone. The method, in which the low voltage DC power is inverted, is completed in two steps. The first being the conversion of the low voltage DC power to a high voltage DC source, and the second step being the conversion of the high DC source to an AC waveform using pulse width modulation. Another method to complete the desired outcome would be to first convert the low voltage DC power to AC, and then use a transformer to boost the voltage to 120 volts. This project focused on the first method described and specifically the transformation of a high voltage DC source into an AC output.