Small-signal modeling comparison of dual active bridge converter

Abstract

The dual active bridge (DAB) converter is a versatile DC-DC converter, which has AC components in the high-frequency transformer within the converter topology as well as DC components at the input and output sides. These AC components are constructed from infinite sinusoids of multiples of the converter's switching frequency. Different approaches have been proposed to model the DAB converter. The generalized averaging modeling (GAM) includes only the first order harmonic of the inductor current with the DC components of the input and output voltages and currents. For better model accuracy, harmonic-domain models have been employed, where the model includes all the harmonics of all the model state variables up to an arbitrary harmonic index. While the harmonic model provides a systematic approach to include the harmonics, this increases the model complexity. To avoid this complexity, the flexible harmonic model is used where harmonics can be selected per each state variable without needing to be in successive order. The aforementioned modeling approaches have been implemented on the DAB converter. This paper aims to compare between the dynamic performance of GAM and the harmonic modeling approaches under different disturbances, where the GAM approach provided a simple model with acceptable results that can be used for controller design, while the LTP model provided a more complex model with better accuracy that is suitable for harmonic studies. The models have been validated and compared using simulations executed on MATLAB /Simulink environment.