This paper presents the development of a single-phase ac power source, whic
h is capable of generating high-quality sinusoidal waveforms with adjustabl
e amplitudes and frequencies over a wide range. Moreover,various types of a
rbitrary waveforms can also be generated. The system consists essentially o
f a well-controlled single-phase pulsewidth modulated inverter. To perform
tight closed-loop control of the inverter, a digital controller based on th
e generalized predictive control approach has been developed. The controlle
r gains are determined by minimizing a cost function that reduces both the
tracking error and the control signals. To evaluate the proposed approach,
a digital-signal-processor-based experimental prototype has been constructe
d. Experimental results under various loading conditions have demonstrated
that the system performs well.