AN IMPROVED BIDIRECTIONAL DC-DC CONVERTER

SYNOPSIS of Research work undertaken for the award of Ph.D.

By

Narasimharaju B L

Under Supervision of Dr. S. P. Singh Dr. S. P. Dubey

DEPARTMENT OF ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING INDIAN INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY ROORKEE ROORKEE 247 667 (INDIA) AUGUST, 2011

DESIGN OPTIMIZATION, MODELLING, CONTROL AND IMPROVEMENT OF BIDIRECTIONAL DC-DC CONVERTER

SYNOPSIS Introduction: The subject of Bi-directional DC-DC (BDC) converter to power management with storage devices has been of wide interest in several applications over decades. The battery backup system is very essential for several applications such as DC-UPS systems, automotive power management, telecommunications and renewable energy application. The challenge lies in providing the energy from dependable and sustainable sources while maintaining respect for the environment. Although the renewable energy is available in contrast to other energy resources, it may not be the immediate answer to the problem because renewable energy has major drawbacks. One , its dependency on geographic location and the other is intermittent nature. However, it can certainly provide a solution to the energy needs when used in conjunction with battery energy storage (BES) system. An effective BES system can provide the extra energy needed during the peak energy consumption periods, during failure of grid supply as well as during the loss of production using intermittent renewable energy sources. DC power generation from intermittent energy sources is often attractive because surplus energy generated can be stored and easily recovered using storage batteries. The BDC converters work as a mediator between the DC main source and the energy storage system (ESS). The BDC converters make the effective use of BES systems to meet the peak load demands and the mains failure situations. The backup batteries have to be charged and discharged depending on the bus power demand. The BDC converter is required to transform the low battery voltage to a suitable and much higher DC link voltage. However, the key challenge lies in providing an efficient and scaled down BDC converter with high voltage diversity for such applications where low voltage batteries are used. Therefore, the BDC converters are very efficient for battery backup systems.

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Objective and Scope: The primary goal of the thesis work is to develop an improved BDC converter for discharge/charge application using low cost PWM IC controllers and to validate the performances practically. Also, the objective is to present a cost effective, scaled down and high efficiency BDC converter for the efficient use of ESS. The thesis work proposes an improved BDC converter using coupled inductor (CI) concept, which provides high efficiency with voltage diversity as compared to the conventional buck and boost derived BDC converter. Thesis work mainly addresses the design optimization, modelling, control, stability issues and further improvised version of the proposed CI-BDC converter. On the basis of literature review, the following shortcomings are identified in CI-BDC converters which needs to be addressed carefully: 1. 2. 3. The design optimization of the CI-BDC converter is required for improved To improvise the converter design configuration to reduce the device An accurate mathematical model of the converter is very essential for plant

performance. withstanding high voltages and currents so that overall cost of the system may reduce. transfer function extraction, for stability analysis and to study the parasitics effects on converter performances. 4. It is required to develop a analog and/or digital controller that can dynamically switch between charge and discharge mode depending on the status of the storage device and the load demand . 5. The development of a suitable control approach is required to regulate BDC converter system autonomously in its necessary modes of operation. The objectives for the thesis work are as follows: Simulation and performance analysis of proposed BDC converter and the conventional BDC converter for comparative study. Development of mathematical model of proposed BDC converter for transient and stability analysis. To design and build a laboratory prototype of proposed BDC converter and its performance evaluation for validation. 3|Page

 Development of suitable analog or digital control technique in order to achieve the precise voltage regulations. Also, to achieve dynamic mode change between the charging and discharging mode of operations. The critical review has been carried out on the wide spectrum of BDC converters and their applications. The BDC converters are broadly classified into two categories, nonisolated and isolated BDC converters. These are further sub classified into various circuit configurations which is expected to provide easy selection of an appropriate converter for a particular power rating and application. The broad spectrums of non-isolated and isolated BDC converters suitable for wide range of power applications are discussed. This peer review gives the present scenario of theme area and clear understanding of state-of-the-art BDC converters and helps in finding out the research gaps for future developments. Based on the critical review, the BDC converter is proposed for the thesis work in order to achieve higher efficiency, scaled down size and improved performance. Many researchers have emphasized on conventional non-isolated BDCs for low power ratings and soft-switching BDCs to reduce switching loss and stress problems. However, the soft switching converters have various problems such as design complexity, instability due to high frequency transformer saturation and less utilization of switch etc... The conventional non-isolated BDC topologies require high rated devices to develop relatively low voltages and they lead to high voltage/current stress on the devices. In addition, the major concern is efficiency of BDC converter in backup mode due to large input current, high output voltage and rectifier reverse recovery problem. Therefore, the converter topology with special design is required to adapt different voltage levels to achieve high efficiency and reduction in loss. The coupled-inductor (CI) converters can be a good solution to the above discussed problems of conventional buck/boost converters. Several unidirectional CI DC-DC converters are available in literature which can be used effectively to utilize optimal duty ratio and reduce voltage/current stress on the devices. However, for high power applications, handling of very large input currents from the low input voltage sources remain a practical issue. The thesis work investigates on a relatively high power and high voltage diversity CI-BDC converter for DUPS applications which can eliminate the problems as stated above. The detailed design considerations, loss estimation and efficiency analysis of converter is presented; vis-a-vis 4|Page

compares it with the performance of conventional buck/boost BDC converter. Also, compares it with the performance of the CI converters reported in literature to justify the improvement in performance of the proposed design. Simulation analysis is carried out extensively in Matlab/Simulink environment. The steady state analysis of both conventional BDC and CI-BDC converters is presented. The prototype CI-BDC and conventional BDC converters with identical power ratings are developed using low cost PWM ICs. The validated experimental results are presented and the results comparisons show the benefits of CI-BDC converter as compared to the conventional BDC converter. The newly designed CI-BDC converter shows the following improvements over conventional buck/boost BDC converter and those reported elsewhere;

Significant reductions in loss. Substantial increase in utilization factor of magnetic core. Reduction in voltage/current stress on the switching devices. High efficiency for a wide range of load conditions.

The inherent switching operation of power electronic converters results in the circuit components being connected together in periodically changing configurations, each configuration being described by a separate set of equations. The transient analysis and control system design for converters is therefore difficult, as the number of equations must be solved in sequence. The averaged and small-signal modeling approaches of PWM converters are powerful methods to analyze converters nonlinearity. Also, the converter modelling makes the design of closed loop controller much easier. Therefore, using State-Space (SS) technique, an effort is made to develop an averaged and small-signal model of the proposed CI-BDC converter in continuous conduction mode. Also, the analytic investigation of both steady state and small-signal behaviour of a CI-BDC converter has been made. The PI based voltage mode controller is designed for the verification of converter model in closed loop. The closed loop model has also been developed and simulated in Simulink/MATLAB environment. The transient stability analysis and closed loop voltage regulation have been made extensively. Also, the small-signal model including converter parasitics is developed using the SS averaging technique. The parasitic effects on stability and closed loop voltage regulation have been made extensively. The analysis show that the proper consideration of 5|Page

parasitics is also a very important factor for controller design. The stability analysis of the converter has been extensively studied for wide range of load conditions. Also, the impact of inductor winding resistance on the stability and dynamic performance of the converter model are analyzed. From the analysis, the improvement in the closed loop converter model performance with higher values of inductor winding resistance is well noticed. Thus, the results show the importance to consider the parasitic elements for the design of controller. The control strategy is the heart of DC-DC converters as concern to the output regulation irrespective of the source and the load disturbances. In contrast, quite commonly used control techniques for DC-DC converters are voltage mode control and current mode control. However, each controller has its own merits and demerits. In thesis work, the VMC PWM technique is used due to its simplicity and good performance characteristics. In voltage controllers, usually output voltage is used as a feedback parameter. It is fortunate that, we have the well known PI and PID controller for any control process. However, the proper tuning of the controller parameter is very essential otherwise badly tuned controller leads to deterioration in system performance and hence a reduction in overall competitiveness. In this work PI controller is designed and tuned in frequency domain, bode plots are used throughout the design process. The design guidelines of voltage mode controller for the CIBDC topology is discussed and then validated through simulation in the Matlab/Simulink environment. The steady-state and transient performance analysis in open and closed loop has been evaluated extensively. The closed loop regulation is obtained for wide range of load conditions which shows the excellent performances of PI controller. The simulated results show that the converter output voltage can be satisfactorily controlled by the use of single loop output voltage feedback. Also, it can be noticed that the dynamic mode change from boost to buck, and vice versa. The prototype CI-BDC converter is developed and experimental performances are evaluated. The simulated and experimental results are in close agreement. In recent years, the Fuzzy Logic Control (FLC) has become more popular in many applications. The converter contains non-linear elements making the mathematical model more complex which instigate the use of FLC. These FLCs provides a method of nonlinear control using piece-wise linear functions to apply varying gains depending on the error signal 6|Page

between the desired output and the actual output. The FLC has adaptive characteristics that can achieve robust response to a system uncertainty, parameter variation and load disturbance. The model of fuzzy logic controlled and classical PI controlled CI-BDC converter with voltage mode control has been developed in Simulink environment. The performance analysis in open loop and closed loop has been evaluated extensively. In order to see the advantages of FLC, classical PI control has applied to the CI-BDC converter under same circumstances and has been compared. Simulation results demonstrate that the converter can be regulated with good dynamic performance irrespective of input voltage disturbance and wide range of load variation. The closed loop results show that the improved dynamic and transient performances of fuzzy logic controller as compared to classical PI controller counterpart. The inexpensive microcontrollers often include a wealth of control and communication functions in hardware, but computational power and memory are limited in general. The popularity of using microcontrollers arises from their immunity to component variations, compatibility with other digital systems and their ability to incorporate advanced control schemes. Therefore, the feature scope of work may also possible to implement using inexpensive microcontrollers. The CI-BDC converter can help for the effective use of storage system due to its low voltage device stress, high-voltage diversity and efficiency in nature. Thus, enables battery module of low voltage to be interfaced with the high-voltage dc bus or the micro grid for subsequent use. The CI-BDC converter has many benefits, including high-voltage diversity factor with effective duty cycle, symmetric transient response, less switching loss and hence the higher efficiency. However, there are two problems limiting its wide applications in practice. The most serious problem still existing for the CI-BDC converter is the leakage energy that leads to a huge voltage spikes across the switches. It is impossible for the coupled inductor to achieve a perfect coupling effect so that leakage inductor exists in the circuit. Some methods have been addressed in the literature as a remedy for the above stated problems, especially the leakage energy problem which involve more circuit complexity. Therefore, the thesis work proposes a simple clamp circuit, which solves the problems existing in the CI-BDC converter. The newly proposed converter circuit offers improvement such as voltage and current stress which reduces significantly on the switching devices . In addition, it also improves the voltage gain and the utility rate of the magnetic core 7|Page

substantially and totally recovering the leakage energy. However, the clamped circuit leads to power loss that is much significant as compared to the leakage energy loss and the loss in other methods addressed in literature. The thesis work also addresses the voltage mode control of voltage clamped CIBDC converter. Simulation and experimental results are given for conceptual proof afforded by the proposed clamp circuit. The proposed simple voltage clamped CI-BDC converter which can effectively clamp the switch turn-off voltage spikes and totally recover the leakage energy. The PI based voltage mode control CI-BDC converter has been developed in Simulink environment. The comparative result analyses of CI-BDC converter with and without clamped circuit are given. The closed loop regulation is analyzed extensively for wide range of load conditions which show the good performances of PI controller. Publication: Following publications have resulted from thesis work, so far:
Journals

1.

Narasimharaju B. L, S. P. Dubey, S.P. Singh, Design and Analysis of Coupled Inductor Bidirectional

DC-DC Convertor for High Voltage Diversity Applications, IET transactions on Power Electronics, July 22 2011, Accepted with revision

2.

Narasimharaju B. L, S. P. Dubey and S. P. Singh, Performance Evaluation of Fuzzy Logic Controlled Bidirectional DC to DC Converter TECHNIAInternational Journal of Computing Science and Communication Technologies, Vol.3, No. 2, pp. 598- 603, January 2011. (ISSN: 0974-3375)

3.

Narasimharaju.B.L, Satya Prakash Dubey and S.P.Singh, Analysis of PI controlled Bidirectional Converter for Discharge and Charge Applications International Journal of Recent Trends in Engineering and Technology(IJRTET), Vol. 4, No. 3, pp. 7-11, November 2010. ISSN 2158-5555.

4.

Narasimharaju.B.L, S.P.Dubey, and S.P.Singh, Modelling and Analysis of Voltage Controlled

Bidirectional DC to DC Converter, Taylors & Francis International Journal on Electric Power components and systems UEMP-2010-0253, Under Review

5.

Narasimharaju.B.L, S. P. Dubey, S. P. Singh, A Peer Review of Bi-directional DC-DC Converters for

Efficient Energy Storage Systems, Elsevier International Journal on Energy Conversion and Management., Ref. No.: ECM-D-09-00807, Under Review International Conferences:

1. 2.

Narasimharaju B. L, S. P. Dubey and S. P. Singh, A Review on Bi-directional DC-DC Converters, Proc. International Conference ICAECT2010, MIT Manipal, India, pp. 471-480, January 2010. Narasimharaju B. L, S. P. Dubey and S. P. Singh, Performance Analysis of a Coupled Inductor Bidirectional DC to DC Converter, Proc. 4Th International Conference CERA2009, IIT Roorkee, pp. 1 (26) 5(26), February 2010.

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3.

Narasimharaju B. L, S. P. Dubey and S. P. Singh, Mathematical Modelling and Analysis of Bidirectional DC to DC converter Proc. International Conference ICSDC-2010, MIT Manipal, India, pp .485-490, August 2010.

4.

Narasimharaju B. L, S. P. Dubey and S. P. Singh, Performance Evaluation of Fuzzy Logic Controlled Bidirectional DC to DC Converter Proc. 4Th IEEE conference ICACCT2010, APIIT, Haryana, India, pp. 486-491 Oct 2010.

5.

Narasimharaju B. L, S. P. Dubey and S. P. Singh, Intelligent Technique for Improved Transient and Dynamic Response of Bidirectional DC-DC Converter Power, Control and Embedded Systems (ICPCES), 2010 IEEE International Conference, pp.1-6, Nov. 29 - Dec. 1, 2010. http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=5698687&isnumber=5698599

6.

Narasimharaju B. L, S. P. Dubey and S. P. Singh, Voltage Mode Control of Coupled Inductor Bidirectional DC to DC Converter Electron Devices and Solid-State Circuits (EDSSC), 2010 IEEE International Conference, pp.1-6, 15-17 Dec. 2010. http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=5713792&isnumber=5713670

7.

Narasimharaju B. L, S. P. Dubey and S. P. Singh, Modelling and Stability Analysis of Coupled Inductor Bidirectional DC-DC Converter Electron Devices and Solid-State Circuits (EDSSC), 2010 IEEE International Conference, pp.1-5, 15-17 Dec. 2010. http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=5713707&isnumber=5713670

8.

Narasimharaju B. L, S. P. Dubey and S. P. Singh, Parasitic Effect Considerations in Modeling of CIBDC Converter and its Voltage Controller Power Electronics, Drives and Energy Systems (PEDES) & 2010 Power India, IEEE 2010 Joint International Conference, pp.1-6, 20-23 Dec. 2010. http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=5712381&isnumber=5712370

9.

Narasimharaju B. L, S. P. Dubey and S. P. Singh, A Novel Voltage Clamped CI-BDC Converter and its Control for Battery Storage Applications, Power Electronics, Drives and Energy Systems (PEDES) & 2010 Power India, IEEE 2010 Joint International Conference, pp.1-7, 20-23 Dec. 2010. http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=5712383&isnumber=5712370

10. Narasimharaju B. L, S. P. Dubey and S. P. Singh, Coupled Inductor Bidirectional DC-DC Converter for
Improved Performance, Industrial Electronics, Control & Robotics (IECR), IEEE 2010 International Conference, pp.28-33, 27-29 Dec. 2010. http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=5720135&isnumber=5719843

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