**6. Conclusions**

This paper proposed an advanced PWM strategy applied to a five-level H-Bridge Neutral Point Clamped inverter. This modulation strategy optimizes the number of commutations without any degradation of the conventional PWM control performance. Both simulations and experimental tests were performed to confirm the validity of the proposed method. The results obtained with conventional PWM control (LS-PWM) and the proposed OPT-PWM control present similar output voltages for the HB-5L-NPC. The OPT-PWM results confirm that unnecessary commutations were removed.

By considering the number of commutations for each switch in simulations and experimental tests for two cases, thanks to the OPT-PWM control, the efficiency of the converter was improved. We note again that this advanced modulation strategy with reduced complexity can be applied to any modulation technique because its implementation uses an additional block.

**Author Contributions:** Investigation, F.B., P.P.; Resources, F.B., E.J. and P.P.; Writing—review and editing, F.B., E.J., P.P. and S.S.

**Funding:** This research received no external funding.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflict of interest.
