• Journal of Power Electronics
• /
• v.17 no.4
• /
• pp.849-859
• /
• 2017

This paper illustrates the analysis and design of a multi-resonant converter applied to an electric vehicle (EV) charger. Thanks to the notch resonant characteristic, the multi-resonant converter achieve soft switching and operate with a narrowed switching frequency range even with a wide output voltage range. These advantages make it suitable for battery charging applications. With two more resonant elements, the design of the chosen converter is more complex than the conventional LLC resonant converter. However, there is not a distinct design outline for the multi-resonant converters in existing articles. According to the analysis in this paper, the normalized notch frequency $f_{r2n}$ and the second series resonant frequency $f_{r3n}$ are more sensitive to the notch capacitor ratio q than the notch inductor ratio k. Then resonant capacitors should be well-designed before the other resonant elements. The peak gain of the converter depends mainly on the magnetizing inductor ratio $L_n$ and the normalized load Q. And it requires a smaller $L_n$ and Q to provide a sufficient voltage gain $M_{max}$ at ($V_{o\_max}$, $P_{o\_max}$). However, the primary current increases with $(L_nQ)^{-1}$, and results in a low efficiency. Then a detailed design procedure for the multi-resonant converter has been provided. A 3.3kW prototype with an output voltage range of 50V to 500V dc and a peak efficiency of 97.3 % is built to verify the design and effectiveness of the converter.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
• /
• v.22 no.1
• /
• pp.768-776
• /
• 2021

Current protection-coordination methods use the reverse time characteristics of the T-C curve, which is not effective for a LVDC distribution system because the protective operation time of converters and DC circuit breakers is much faster than AC protection devices. Therefore, an algorithm is proposed for fault-section isolation using the fault current slope to minimize the blackout region and coordinate between converters and protection devices in a rapid and accurate manner. The method deals with the slope characteristics of a fault current, which may depend on the fault location in an LVDC distribution system. Thus, an LVDC distribution system can be operated in a stable manner by isolating the fault section selectively before the shutdown of the main converter using slope characteristics, which change in proportion to the line impedance and fault location. A 1.5-kV LVDC distribution system was modeled to verify the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm using PSCAD/EMTDC. The system is composed of a distribution substation, LVDC converter, and distribution lines. The simulation results confirm that the proposed algorithm is a useful tool for minimizing the fault section in an LVDC distribution system.

• Journal of Power Electronics
• /
• v.16 no.4
• /
• pp.1483-1493
• /
• 2016

Multiple parallel inverters have multiple resonant frequencies that are influenced by many factors. This often results in stability and power quality problems. This paper develops a multiple input multiple output model of grid-connected inverter systems using a closed-loop transfer function. The influence factors of the resonant characteristics are analyzed with the developed model. The analysis results show that the resonant frequency is closely related to the number, type and composition ratio of the parallel inverters. To suppress resonance, a scheme based on virtual impedance is presented, where the virtual impedance is emulated in the vicinity of the resonance frequency. The proposed scheme needs one inverter with virtual impedance control, which reduces the design complexity of the other inverter controllers. Simulation and experimental tests are carried out on two single phase converter-based setups. The results validate the correctness of the model, the analytical results and the resonant suppressing scheme.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Power Electronics
• /
• v.20 no.2
• /
• pp.122-129
• /
• 2015

In this study, we propose a low voltage stress and cost-effective light emitting diode (LED) driver capable of multi-channel current balancing. Conventional LED drivers require as many boost converters as the number of LED channels, whereas the proposed LED driver requires only one buck converter and several balancing capacitors instead of several expensive boost converters. Additionally, while the components of the boost converter have high voltage stress and depend on the LED driving voltage, components of the proposed driver have about one-half of the voltage stress across all components. The proposed driver exhibits high reliability and cost effectiveness because it only uses few DC blocking capacitors with no additional active devices to balance the current of multi-channel LEDs. The proposed driver exhibits high reliability and cost effectiveness. The validity of the proposed driver is confirmed through a theoretical analysis. An explanation of the design considerations and experimental results were obtained using a prototype applicable to a 46" LED-TV.

• Journal of Power Electronics
• /
• v.14 no.6
• /
• pp.1109-1118
• /
• 2014

A Fundamental Frequency Sorting Algorithm (FFSA) is proposed in this paper to balance the voltages of floating dc capacitors for Modular Multilevel Converters (MMCs). The main idea is to change the sequences of the CPS-PWM carriers according to the capacitor voltage increments during the previous fundamental period. Excessive frequent sorting is avoided and many calculating resources are saved for the controller. As a result, more sub-modules can be dealt with. Furthermore, it does not need to measure the arm currents. Therefore, the communication between the controllers can be simplified and the number of current sensors can be reduced. Moreover, the proposed balancing method guarantees that all of the switching frequencies of the sub-modules are equal to each other. This is quite beneficial for the thermal design of the sub-modules and the lifetime of the power switches. Simulation and experimental results acquired from a 9-level prototype verify the viability of the proposed balancing method.

• Journal of Power Electronics
• /
• v.18 no.2
• /
• pp.332-342
• /
• 2018

This paper proposes a parameter design method for multi-element resonant converters (MERCs) with a unique resonant zero point (RZP). This method is mainly composed of four steps. These steps include program filtration, loss comparison, 3D figure fine-tuning and priority compromise. It features easy implementation, effectiveness and universal applicability for almost all of the existing RZP-MERCs. Meanwhile, other design methods are always exclusive for a specific topology. In addition, a novel dual-CTL converter is also proposed here. It belongs to the RZP-MERC family and is designed in detail to explain the process of parameter selection. The performance of the proposed method is verified experimentally on a 500W prototype. The obtained results indicate that with the selected parameters, an extensive dc voltage gain is obtained. It also possesses over-current protection and minimal switching loss. The designed converter achieves high efficiencies among wide load ranges, and the peak efficiency reaches 96.9%.

• The Transactions of The Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers
• /
• v.61 no.11
• /
• pp.1625-1633
• /
• 2012

In the lighting industry, a Lighting Emitting Diode (LED) is increasingly used because of many advantages and a eco-friendly product comparing with the conventional lighting. However, the LED lighting has to include various AC/DC converters because the direct current is used for the LED lighting. Among a lot of power converters, the flyback converter is widely used for the LED lighting and includes some electrolytic capacitors for the voltage regulation. But the electrolytic capacitor has shorter lifetime than the LED element. It makes the expected life-time of the converter having the electrolytic capacitor shorter than the LED element. This paper proposes the single-stage PFC flyback converter without electrolytic capacitors. To verify the performance of the proposed converter, simulated and experimental works were carried out.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers B
• /
• v.51 no.11
• /
• pp.635-644
• /
• 2002

Many generating units can be in parallel connection to one battery and inverter. However, one of the biggest problems we encountered is that wind speed is fluctuated sharply in accordance with the unstable weather conditions. To solve this problem, we need energy storage equipment such as storage lead-acid battery. We design a system and analyze its modeling so that it supplies a stable power to the load through DC-AC inverter part. In this paper, we applied dual step-up/down buck-boost converter and dual high-frequency half-bridge converter to the proposed system. These converters are used to store energy in the battery regardless of the change of the wind speed. The operation process of two proposed types of converters for high-power battery charging is discussed along with simulation and experimental result. We design a charging circuit which is applicable in the actual wind power generation system for 30kw and confirm the circuit's validity.

• Journal of Power Electronics
• /
• v.16 no.3
• /
• pp.1176-1189
• /
• 2016

In this paper, a novel quasi-direct power control (Q-DPC) scheme based on a resonant frequency adaptive proportional-resonant (PR) current controller with a variable frequency resonant phase locked loop (RPLL) is proposed, which can achieve a fast power response with a unity power factor. It can also adapt to variations of the generator frequency in T-type Three-level shaft synchronous generator (SSG) converters. The PR controller under the static α-β frame is designed to track ac signals and to avert the strong cross coupling under the rotating d-q frame. The fundamental frequency can be precisely acquired by a RPLL from the generator terminal voltage which is distorted by harmonics. Thus, the resonant frequency of the PR controller can be confirmed exactly with optimized performance. Based on an instantaneous power balance, the load power feed-forward is added to the power command to improve the anti-disturbance performance of the dc-link. Simulations based on MATLAB/Simulink and experimental results obtained from a 75kW prototype validate the correctness and effectiveness of the proposed control scheme.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Power Electronics
• /
• v.12 no.1
• /
• pp.27-36
• /
• 2007

This paper proposes a current control scheme of the PWM converters under nonideal source voltage conditions such as unbalance and distortion. For the distorted source voltage, the harmonic current controllers are introduced to the conventional current controller. These control loops can eliminate the 5th and 7th order harmonics which are hardly to be done by using filters. For the unbalanced source voltage, a negative sequence current controller is introduced either to reduce the DC-link voltage ripples or to eliminate the source current unbalance. Experimental results show the validity of the proposed control scheme.