Capacitor balancing circuit and control method for an electronic device such as a multilevel power inverter

A circuit for regulating voltages in an electronic device, the circuit comprising:

• a plurality of capacitors;
• an energy storage element;
• a control unit communicatively coupled to the capacitors and to the energy storage element, the control unit being configured to (i) balance a selected capacitor from among the plurality of capacitors and (ii) regulate a current of the energy storage element;
• wherein the control unit is configured to balance the selected capacitor by performing one of (i) injecting energy from the energy storage element into the selected capacitor and (ii) extracting energy from the selected capacitor and storing the extracted energy into the energy storage element;
• wherein the control unit is configured to balance the selected capacitor based on a voltage across the selected capacitor and an average voltage, the average voltage being an average of voltages across capacitors of a set of capacitors from the plurality of capacitors;
• and
• wherein the control unit is configured to regulate the current of the energy storage element by periodically monitoring the current and applying a voltage across a combination of capacitors from among the plurality of capacitors to the energy storage element based on a comparison of the current with a threshold current.