Energy Efficient Output Regulation with Adaptive Behaviour in a DC-DC UPS

Abstract

Abstract This paper presents an embeddable and highly customizable DC to DC UPS module in a novel and lightweight approach comparing to dozens of existing semi-industrial grade AC and DC UPS devices. Majority of them are following nearly the same, less flexible and less energy efficient scheme, operating on fixed battery type, fixed output voltage and having a featureless USB link to the host PC. In our vision energy efficiency is critical to achieve maximum performance at output without even moderate energy losses. This is even more important in case of an embeddable UPS device which needs to act as much “transparent” as it could in terms of energy efficiency reported to the primary energy source. This is mostly the main definition of our research area. Thus the main goal is to increase efficiency even with the cost of output precision but in the allowed domain of accepted input voltage range of the powered system. Our proposal, a combination of a mid range RISC MCU and a customizable AFE, power path controller and coulomb counter could result in a simpler but more efficient power converting device, even using low priced, less performing components (digital potentiometers and MOSFETs) where the control software could overcome many of the performance issues by algorithms.