• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.323-331
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• 2018

Buck power factor correction (PFC) converters, compared with conventional boost PFC converters, exhibit high efficiency performance in the entire range of universal line voltage. This feature has gotten more attention for eliminating the zero crossing dead angle of buck PFC rectifiers. Furthermore, bridgeless structures for the reduction of conduction losses have been proposed. The aim of this paper is to introduce a single-phase buck rectifier that simultaneously has unity power factor (PF) and bridgeless structure while operating in the continuous conduction mode (CCM). For this purpose, two auxiliary flyback converters without any active switches are applied to a bridgeless buck rectifier to eliminate the zero crossing dead angle and achieve unity power factor, low total harmonic distortion (THD) and high efficiency. The operation and design considerations of the proposed rectifier are verified on a 150W, 48V prototype using a conventional peak-current-mode control. The measurement results show that the proposed rectifier has nearly unity power factor, THD less than 7% and high efficiency.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.712-721
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• 2014

This paper introduces a simple grid-voltage-sensorless control scheme for single-phase power factor correction (PFC) boost converters. The grid voltage waveform is obtained based on the dc output voltage, the switching duty ratio, and a phase-lead compensator. In addition, the duty ratio feedback is utilized to obtain the unity input power factor and the zero harmonic current. The proposed control scheme is designed and mathematically analyzed based on a small-signal model of PFC boost converters. To verify the effectiveness of the proposed control scheme, several simulations and experiments are carried out in two applications: an industrial power system with a 60 Hz grid frequency and a commercial aircraft application with a 400 Hz grid frequency.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.374-381
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• 2010

Typical power electronic converters employ only pulse width modulation (PWM) to generate specific switching patterns. In this paper, a novel control strategy combining both pulse-width and amplitude modulation strategies (PWAM) has been proposed for power converters. The Pulse Amplitude Modulation (PAM), used in communication systems, has been applied to power electronic converters. This increases the degrees of freedom in eliminating or mitigating harmonics when compared to the conventional PWM strategies. The role of PAM in the novel PWAM strategy is based on the control of the converter's dc sources values. Software implementation of the conventional PWM and the PWAM control strategies has been applied to a five-level inverter for mitigating selective harmonics. Results show the superiority of the proposed strategy from the THD point of view along with a reduction in the inverter power dissipation.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.577-586
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• 2015

The combination of voltage feedforward and feedback control is a conventional approach for correcting the power factor in single-phase ac-dc boost converters. The feedback duty ratio increases significantly with an increase of the line frequency and input inductance. Therefore, the performance of the conventional approach is highly dependent on the bandwidth of the feedback controller. As a result, the input power quality can be significantly exacerbated due to uncompensated duty ratios if the feedback controller is limited. This paper proposes an input impedance and current feedforward control method to reduce the control portion of the feedback controller. The findings in this paper are 1) the theoretical derivation and analysis of variations of line frequency and input inductance on a power factor correction approach, 2) guaranteed consistent performance in a wide range of conditions, and 3) that a low switching frequency can be utilized by the proposed method. A MATLAB/Simulink model and a 1.2kW dual boost converter are built to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.652-659
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• 2015

This paper presents a new hybrid soft switching dc-dc converter with a low circulating current and high circuit efficiency. The proposed hybrid converter includes two sub-converters sharing two power switches. One is a three-level PWM converter and the other is a LLC converter. The LLC converter and the three-level converter share the lagging-leg switches and extend the zero-voltage switching (ZVS) range of the lagging-leg switches from nearly zero to full load since the LLC converter can be operated at f_sw (switching frequency) $\approx$ f_r (series resonant frequency). A passive snubber is used on the secondary side of the three-level converter to decrease the circulating current on the primary side, especially at high input voltage and full load conditions. Thus, the conduction losses due to the circulating current are reduced. The output sides of the two converters are connected in series. Energy can be transferred from the input voltage to the output load within the whole switching period. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed converter is verified by experiments with a 1.44kW prototype circuit.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Power Electronics
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.263-269
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• 2013

The flyback converter has been applied widely in isolated DC/DC power converters because this converters employ a single MOSFET switch. The leakage inductance should be minimized for high efficiency of flyback converter. but in reality, it is very difficult. Namely, The Snubber circuit is essential to recover the leakage inductance stored energy when the switch is turn off. Flyback Converter typically operates in DCM mode and when switch is turn off in hard switching, this hard switching action results in a high power losses and switching stresses. In order to overcome these problems, a novel soft switching flyback converter using resonant snubber circuit is proposed in this paper. The resonant snubber circuit is composed of the transformer leakage inductance and a capacitor. To verify and confirm the proposed resonant snubber circuit, PSIM simulation and hardware prototype are implemented. Simulation and Experimental results indicate that the proposed resonant snubber circuit is effective.

• Journal of Electrical Engineering and Technology
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.654-664
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• 2017

This paper proposed an unified dual-phase-shift (UDPS) control for dual active bridge (DAB) converters in order to improve efficiency for a wide output power range. Different operating modes of UDPS are characterized with respect to the reactive current distribution. The proposed UDPS has the same output power capability with conventional phase-shift (CPS) method. Furthermore, its implementation is simple since only the change of the leading phase-shift direction is required for different operating power range. The proposed UDPS control can minimize both the inductor rms current and the circulating reactive current for various voltage conversion ratios and load conditions. The optimal phase-shift pairs for two bridges of DAB converter are derived with respect to the comprehensive reactive power loss model, including the reactive components delivered from the load and back to the source. Simulation and experimental results are illustrated and explained with details. The effectiveness of the proposed method is verified in terms of reactive power losses minimization and efficiency improvement.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 2009.07a
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• pp.932_933
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• 2009

A technology based on thyristors will be used to manufacture the super-conducting coil AC/DC converters because of the low ratio of cost over installed power compared to a design based on GTO or similar technology. But phase-controlled converter suffers from fundamental disadvantage. They inject current harmonics into the input ac mains due to their nonlinear characteristics, thereby distort the supply voltage waveform, and demand reactive power from the associated ac power system at retarded angles. To overcome this disadvantage, in the case of two series converters at the DC side, connected to the same step-down transformer, apply for the sequence control. It is the most simple and efficient way to reduce the reactive power consumption at low cost. Analytical sequence control algorithm is suggested, the validity of the proposed scheme has been verified by experimental results with the small-scaled International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) Power Supply to minimize reactive power consumption.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.14 no.6
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• pp.1100-1108
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• 2014

Modular multilevel converters (MMCs) have emerged as the most promising topology for high and medium voltage applications for the coming years. However, one particular negative characteristic of MMCs is the existence of circulating current, which contains a dc component and a series of low-frequency even-order ac harmonics. If not suppressed, these ac harmonics will distort the arm currents, increase the power loses, and cause higher current stresses on the semiconductor devices. Repetitive control (RC) is well known due to its distinctive capabilities in tracking periodic signals and eliminating periodic errors. In this paper, a novel circulating current control scheme base on RC is proposed to effectively track the dc component and to restrain the low-frequency ac harmonics. The integrating function is inherently embedded in the RC controller. Therefore, the proposed circulating current control only parallels the RC controller with a proportional controller. Thus, conflicts between the RC controller and the traditional proportional integral (PI) controller can be avoided. The design methodologies of the RC controller and a stability analysis are also introduced. The validity of the proposed circulating current control approach has been verified by simulation and experimental results based on a three-phase MMC downscaled prototype.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.14 no.6
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• pp.1119-1129
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• 2014

This study proposes a novel five-level three-phase hybrid-clamped converter composed of only six switches and one flying capacitor (FC) per phase. The capacitor-voltage-drift phenomenon of the converter under the classical sinusoidal pulse width modulation (SPWM) strategy is comprehensively analyzed. The average current, which flows into the FC, is a function of power factor and modulation index and does not remain at zero. Thus, a specific modulation strategy based on space vector modulation (SVM) is developed to balance the voltage of DC-link and FCs by injecting a common-mode voltage. This strategy applies the five-segment method to synthesize the voltage vector, such that switching losses are reduced while optional vector sequences are increased. The best vector sequence is then selected on the basis of the minimized cost function to suppress the divergence of the capacitor voltage. This study further proposes a startup method that charges the DC-link and FCs without any additional circuits. Simulation and experimental results verify the validity of the proposed converter, modulation strategy, and precharge method.