• Journal of the Institute of Electronics and Information Engineers
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• v.52 no.5
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• pp.58-65
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• 2015

This paper presents the design of an implantable stimulation IC intended for neural prosthetic devices using $0.18-{\mu}m$ standard CMOS technology. The proposed single-channel biphasic current stimulator prototype is designed to deliver up to 1 mA of current to the tissue-equivalent $10-k{\Omega}$ load using 12.8-V supply voltage. To utilize only low-voltage standard CMOS transistors in the design, transistor stacking with dynamic gate biasing technique is used for reliable operation at high-voltage. In addition, active charge balancing circuit is used to maintain zero net charge at the stimulation site over the complete stimulation cycle. The area of the total stimulator IC consisting of DAC, current stimulation output driver, level-shifters, digital logic, and active charge balancer is $0.13mm^2$ and is suitable to be applied for multi-channel neural prosthetic devices.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Power Electronics
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.66-73
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• 2021

This study presents a novel four-channel light-emitting diode (LED) current balancing topology using a current-fed hybrid quasi-Z-source converter. With the proposed structure, currents flowing through four LED strings are automatically balanced owing to the charge (amp-sec) balance condition on capacitors. Thus, automatic current balancing of the proposed driver is simple and precise. In addition, the proposed LED driver uses only one active switch and three diodes. The operating principle and characteristics of the proposed four-channel LED driver are analyzed in detail. To verify the operation of the proposed LED driver, a prototype is built and tested with different numbers of LEDs.

• Journal of Electrical Engineering and Technology
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.29-38
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• 2017

This paper presents a study on the state-of-charge (SOC) reference based active cell balancing in real-time. The optimal references of SOC are determined by using the proposed active cell balancing system with the bidirectional DC/DC converters via the dual active bridge (DAB) type. Then, the energies between cells can be balanced by the power flow control of DAB based bidirectional DC/DC converters. That is, it provides the effective management of battery by transferring energy from the strong cell to the weak one until the cell voltages are equalized to the same level and therefore improving the additional charging capacity of battery. In particular, the cell aging of battery and power loss caused from energy transfer are considered. The performances of proposed active cell balancing system are evaluated by an electromagnetic transient program (EMTP) simulation. Then, the experimental prototype is implemented in hardware to verify the usefulness of proposed system.

• Proceedings of the KIPE Conference
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• 2007.07a
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• pp.347-349
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• 2007

Charge equalization scheme for HEV lithium-ion battery system is proposed in this paper, where all the primary windings with in parallel bi-directional switches are coupled in series to provide the equalizing energy from the whole battery string to the specific under charged cells. Moreover, to realize minimized size of equalization circuit employing the proposed cell balancing scheme, the optimal power rating design rule according to equalization time and SOC distribution of imbalance is proposed. A prototype of HEV lithium-ion battery system of four cells shows the outstanding charge equalization performance while maintaining greatly reduced size of cell balancing circuit.

• Proceedings of the KIPE Conference
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• 2007.07a
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• pp.241-243
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• 2007

Two-stage charge equalization scheme for HEV lithium-ion battery string is proposed with the optimal power rating design rule in this paper, where in the first stage the over charged energy of higher voltage cells is drawn out to the single common output capacitor and then, that discharged energy is recovered into the overall battery stack in the second stage. To achieve charge equalization of sort, the conventional flyback DC/DC converters of low power and minimized size are employed. The industrial sample employing both the proposed two-stage cell balancing scheme and the optimal power rating design rule shows good cell balancing performance with reduced size as well as low voltage stresses of the electronic devices.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Illuminating and Electrical Installation Engineers
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• v.28 no.12
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• pp.74-83
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• 2014

This paper proposes a study on the configuration of balancing of plant(BOP) and implementation of battery management system(BMS) functions for vanadium redox flow battery(VRFB) and propose a method consists of sensor and required design specifications BOP system configuration. And it proposes an method of the functions implementation and control algorithm of the BMS for flow battery. Functions of BMS include temperature control, the charge and discharge control, flow control, level control, state of charge(SOC) estimation and a battery protection through the sensor signal of BOP. Functions of BMS is implemented by the sensor signal, so it is recognized as a very important factor measurement accuracy of the data. Therefore, measuring a mechanical signal(flow rate, temperature, level) through the BOP test model, and the measuring an electrical signal(cell voltage, stack voltage and stack current) through the VRFB charge-discharge system and analyzes the precision of data in this paper. Also it shows a good charge-discharge test results by the SOC estimation algorithm of VRFB. Proposed BOP configuration and BMS functions implementation can be used as a reference indicator for VRFB system design.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.1037-1047
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• 2017

The Differential Power Processing (DPP) converter is a promising multi-module photovoltaic inverter architecture recently proposed for photovoltaic systems. In this paper, a DPP converter architecture, in which each PV-panel has its own DPP converter in shunt, performs distributed maximum power point tracking (DMPPT) control. It maintains a high energy conversion efficiency, even under partial shading conditions. The system architecture only deals with the power differences among the PV panels, which reduces the power capacity of the converters. Therefore, the DPP systems can easily overcome the conventional disadvantages of PCS such as centralized, string, and module integrated converter (MIC) topologies. Among the various types of the DPP systems, the feed-forward method has been selected for both its voltage balancing and power transfer to a modified H-bridge inverter that needs charge balancing of the input capacitors. The modified H-bridge multi-level inverter had some advantages such as a low part count and cost competitiveness when compared to conventional multi-level inverters. Therefore, it is frequently used in photovoltaic (PV) power conditioning system (PCS). However, its simplified switching network draws input current asymmetrically. Therefore, input capacitors in series suffer from a problem due to a charge imbalance. This paper validates the operating principle and feasibility of the proposed topology through the simulation and experimental results. They show that the input-capacitor voltages maintain the voltage balance with the PV MPPT control operating with a 140-W hardware prototype.

• Proceedings of the KIPE Conference
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• 2008.06a
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• pp.274-276
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• 2008

This paper proposes an individual charge equalization converter using selective two current paths for series connected lithium-ion battery strings. In the proposed equalizer, a central equalization converter acting as a controllable current source is sequentially connected in parallel with individual batteries through an array of cell selection switches. A flyback converter with a modified rectifier realizes a controllable current source. A central equalization converter is shared by every battery cells through the cell selection switch, instead of a dedicated charge equalizer for each cell. With this configuration, although the proposed equalizer has one dc-dc converter, individual charge equalization can be effectively achieved for the each cell in the strings. Furthermore, since the proposed equalizer would not allocate the separated dc-dc converter to each cell, such that the implementation of great size reduction and low cost can be allowed. In this paper, an optimal power rating design guide is also employed to obtain a minimal balancing size while satisfying equalization requirements. A prototype for eight lithium-ion battery cells is optimally designed and implemented. Experimental results verify that the proposed equalization method has good cell balancing performance showing small size, and low cost.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Power Electronics
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.335-342
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• 2016

This paper proposes an energy storage-assisted, series-connected module-integrated power conversion system that integrates a photovoltaic power conditioner and a charge balancing circuit. In conventional methods, a photovoltaic power conditioner and a cell-balancing circuit are needed for photovoltaic systems with energy storage devices, but they cause a complex configuration and high cost. Moreover, an imbalanced output voltage of the module-integrated converter for PV panels can be a result of partial shading. Partial shading can lead to the fault condition of the boost converter in shaded modules and high voltage stresses on the devices in other modules. To overcome these problems, a bidirectional buck-boost converter with an integrated magnetic device operating for a charge-balancing circuit is proposed. The proposed circuit has multiple secondary rectifiers with inductors sharing a single magnetic core, which works as an inductor for the main bidirectional charger/discharger of the energy storage. The secondary rectifiers operate as a cell-balancing circuit for both energy storage and the series-connected multiple outputs of the module-integrated converter. The operating principle of the cell-balancing power conversion circuit and the power stage design are presented and validated by PSIM simulation for analysis. A hardware prototype with equivalent photovoltaic modules is implemented for verification. The results verify that the modularized photovoltaic power conversion system in the output series with an energy storage successfully works with the proposed low-cost bidirectional buck-boost converter comprising a single magnetic device.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.569-583
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• 2013

In this study, the simultaneous use of a multi-level converter (MLC) as a DC-motor drive and as an active battery cell balancer is investigated. MLCs allow each battery cell in a battery pack to be independently switched on and off, thereby enabling the potential non-uniform use of battery cells. By exploiting this property and the brake regeneration phases in the drive cycle, MLCs can balance both the state of charge (SoC) and temperature differences between cells, which are two known causes of battery wear, even without reciprocating the coolant flow inside the pack. The optimal control policy (OP) that considers both battery pack temperature and SoC dynamics is studied in detail based on the assumption that information on the state of each cell, the schedule of reciprocating air flow and the future driving profile are perfectly known. Results show that OP provides significant reductions in temperature and in SoC deviations compared with the uniform use of all cells even with uni-directional coolant flow. Thus, reciprocating coolant flow is a redundant function for a MLC-based cell balancer. A specific contribution of this paper is the derivation of a state-space electro-thermal model of a battery submodule for both uni-directional and reciprocating coolant flows under the switching action of MLC, resulting in OP being derived by the solution of a convex optimization problem.