Integrated Converter Topology Research Articles

Novel Battery-Supercapacitor Hybrid Energy Storage System for Wide Ambient Temperature Electric Vehicles Operation

Electric vehicles (EVs) are gaining popularity in recent days to reduce the dependency on fossil fuels. Batteries are the main power source in EVs. However, the capacity of the battery degrades when it operates in low temperatures (< 0∘C). Hence, it is essential to maintain the battery temperature (> 0∘C) to operate at maximum capacity. Additionally, the battery alone is not suitable to supply the high transient power requirements of EVs. Thus, this paper proposes a novel integrated converter topology, which facilitates battery heating along with power transfer from the hybrid energy storage (battery and supercapacitors). The internal ac heating uses a resonant network for uniform heating of the battery cells in heating mode. The same inductor of the resonant network is also used for power transfer from hybrid energy storage during the driving mode. The Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT) based integrated inductor design ensures effective EV power sharing between battery and supercapacitors and reduces battery heating time. Thus, the proposed integrated converter reduces the number of converters stages, control complexity and overall cost. The detailed analysis and design are included along with the simulation and experiment results. The results show the uniform internal heating of the battery and efficient power transfer from/to the battery and supercapacitors. The experimentation is performed in a 1kW system considering the European driving cycle.

Investigation of integrated converter circuit and enriched error tolerant fuzzy logic controller based control approach for solar powered EV system

PurposeThis study aims to extend the driving range by on-board charging with use of photovoltaic (PV) source, avoiding the dependency on the grid supply and energy storage system in addition to that reduce the conversion complexity influenced on converter section of electric vehicle (EV) system.Design/methodology/approachThis paper proposed a PV fed integrated converter topology called integrated single-input multi-output (I-SIMO) converter with enriched error tolerant fuzzy logic controller (EET-FLC) based control technique to regulate the speed of brushless direct current motor drive. I-SIMO converter provides both direct current (DC) and alternating current (AC) outputs from a single DC input source depending on the operation mode. It comprises two modes of operation, act as DC–DC converter in vehicle standby mode and DC–AC converter in vehicles driving mode.FindingsThe use of PV panels in the vehicle helps to reduce dependence of grid supply as well as vehicle’s batteries. The proposed topology has to remove the multiple power conversion stages in EV system, reduce components count and provide dual outputs for enhancement of performance of EV system.Originality/valueThe proposed topology leads to reduction of switching losses and stresses across the components of the converter and provides reduction in system complexity and overall expenditure. So, it enhances the converter reliability and also improves the efficiency. The converter provides ripple-free output voltage under dynamic load condition. The performance of EET-FLC is studied by taking various performance measures such as rise time, peak time, settling time and peak overshoot and compared with conventional control designs.

An integrated converter topology for torque ripple minimization in BLDC motor using an ITSA technique

This paper proposed an enhanced DC–DC converter structure with hybrid control algorithm to diminish the torque ripple of a Brushless DC (BLDC) motor. Initially, the modeling of BLDC motor is designed with enhanced Cuk converter. Here, the operation and executions of Cuk converter is enhanced with the utilization of switched inductor. At that point, the control mechanism incorporates two controlling loops like speed and torque control loop are used to enhance the BLDC performance. So as to enhance the control loop operation, the Improved Tunicate Swarm optimization algorithm (ITSA) is presented. In this paper, the ITSA algorithm is explored to control the speed and torque error from BLDC motor. Here, the TSA search behavior is improved with crossover and mutation operator. In this paper, the output of proposed strategy is subjected with input of speed and torque controllers. Based on that, the best optimal gain parameters are resolved to upgrade the controller operation with the help of the required objective functions. The proposed controller is performed on the MATLAB/Simulink platform and the torque ripple minimization performance is compared with other existing systems like Particle Swarm Optimization algorithm and Bacterial Foraging algorithm.

Integrated Full-Bridge-Forward DC–DC Converter for a Residential Microgrid Application

This paper proposes a novel integrated converter topology for interfacing between the energy storage system and the dc bus for a residential microgrid application. The proposed integrated full-bridge-forward dc–dc converter presents the following features: low number of active devices compared to the converters usually applied to similar applications, low input and output current ripple, high voltage ratio, bidirectional power flow, and galvanic isolation. A double-ended forward converter with particularities such as no extra transformer demagnetizing circuit is originated from the integration process. This converter is approached in detail in this paper, including three different clamping circuits which are analyzed and compared. The structure, principle of operation, analysis, transformer design methodology, comparison with the dual active bridge converter, and experimental results of the proposed topology are presented.

An Innovative Reconfigurable Integrated Converter Topology Suitable for Distributed Generation

The electricity market and environmental concerns, with wide utilization of renewable sources, have improved the diffusion of distributed generation units changing the operations of distribution grids from passive networks to microgrids. A microgrid includes a cluster of electrical loads, energy storage devices and microsources, which provide both power and heat to their local area. A microgrid has usually one connection point to the utility grid through power electronic converters placed at customers’ sites. This paper analyses a Reconfigurable Integrated Converter (RIC) used for a domestic microgrid with inputs from the AC mains and photovoltaic arrays, and two DC outputs at different voltage levels. A RIC as a dual-boost DC-DC converter is proposed, modelled and analysed in the paper. The advantages of such a topology in comparison with traditional boost converters are outlined. Reported simulations results give evidence on the controllability of this converter and the capability of achieving the desired voltage outputs with reduced ripple.