Abstract
Ultracapacitors have recently received great attention for energy storage due to their small pollution, high power density, and long lifetime. In many applications, ultracapacitors need to be charged with a high current, where a multi-module charging system is typically adopted. Although the classical decentralized control method can control the charging process of ultracapacitors, there exists a problem that the charging current may be imbalanced among charging modules. In this paper, a cooperative cascade charging method is proposed for the multi-module charging system to reduce the current imbalance among charging modules. First, the state-space averaging method and graph theory are used to model the multiple-module charging system. Second, an effective cooperative cascade control is proposed, where the outer voltage loop stabilizes the output voltage to the desired voltage and the inner current loop guarantees the current of each charger to follow the target current. The block diagram is used to establish the closed-loop model of the charging system. In order to evaluate the proposed charging method, a laboratory prototype was established. Compared with the classical decentralized method, this method can effectively suppress the current imbalance, which is proved by simulation and experimental results.
Highlights
As an emerging energy storage device, ultracapacitors have been widely used in many high-power applications, including catenary-free trams [1,2], elevators [3], and electric vehicles [4,5,6]
By selecting the corresponding module in Simulink, connecting each module with reference to the mathematical model, and adjusting the parameters, we build the Simulink block diagram, where the reference voltage is set to 2.7 V, and the three charging modules charge the capacitor with a total current of 3 A [24]
The total current and the charging voltage of the ultracapacitor are shown in the Figure 5
Summary
As an emerging energy storage device, ultracapacitors have been widely used in many high-power applications, including catenary-free trams [1,2], elevators [3], and electric vehicles [4,5,6]. A decentralized control method is applied to manage the multi-module charging system, which means that charging modules work independently [14,15,16]. Extensive centralized control methods have been proposed to manage multiple modules, i.e., the currents of all modules are collected and processed in a central node [17]. The cooperative cascade control of multiple charging modules is proposed [19]. We propose the cooperative cascade control for multiple charging modules to restrain the current imbalance and increase the life of charging modules. Extensive simulation and experiment results verify the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed method in the charging of ultracapacitors.
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