• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Power Electronics
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.9-15
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• 2021

In multi-string light-emitting diode (LED) driver system, current balancing is crucial because the brightness of LED is directly related to its forward current. This paper presents a novel LED current balancing topology using current-fed Z-source converter. With the proposed structure, currents flowing through two LED strings are automatically balanced owing to the charge-balance condition on capacitors. Operation of the proposed converter is simple and the proposed converter uses only one active switch and one diode. Moreover, low-side gate driving can be used to operate the active switch. To verify the operation of the proposed LED current balancing converter, a prototype is built and tested with different numbers of LEDs.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Power Electronics
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• v.20 no.5
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• pp.389-394
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• 2015

This paper proposes a series-connected 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, which results in a complex configuration and high cost. To overcome these problems, a series-connected DC-DC power conditioning system that integrates a photovoltaic power conditioner with a charge-balancing circuit is proposed. During the generation, the system operates as power conditioner only, whereas it operates as a cell balancing circuit during the rest time. For the analysis, the operating principle of the circuit and the controller design are done by PSIM simulation. For verification, a hardware prototype with 48-W photovoltaic modules has been implemented. Results verified that the modularized photovoltaic power conversion system with a series-connected storage successfully works with the proposed method.

• 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.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Power Electronics
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.348-355
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• 2022

A bipolar DC distribution system suffers from an imbalance in voltages when asymmetric loads are connected at the outputs. Dedicated voltage balancers are required to address the imbalance in bipolar voltage levels. However, additional components eventually increase the cost and decrease the efficiency and power density of the system. Therefore, to deal with the imbalance in output voltages without adding any extra components, this study presents a coupled inductor-based voltage balancing technique with a dual-output CLL resonant converter. The proposed coupled inductor does not require extra magnetic components to balance the output voltages because it is the result of resonant inductors of the CLL tank circuit. It can also avoid complex control schemes applied to voltage balancing. Moreover, with the proposed coupled inductor, the CLL converter acquires good features including zero voltage and zero current switching. Detailed analysis of the proposed coupled inductor is presented with different load conditions. A 3.6-kW hardware prototype was built and tested to validate the performance of the proposed coupled inductor-based voltage balancing technique.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.585-593
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• 2020

Until now, 29 fire accidents have occurred; 22 of them were caused by the interconnection of renewable energy sources that occurred during the rest period after the lithium-ion battery had been fully charged regardless of the seasons. The fire accidents of ESS were attributed to thermal runaway due to the overcharging of a few cells with the phenomenon of self-energy balancing, which is unintentional current flow from cells with a high SOC to the low cells if the SOC condition of each cell connected in parallel is different. Therefore, this paper proposes a novel configuration and operation algorithm of the BMS to prevent the self-energy balancing of ESS and presents a hybrid SOC estimation algorithm. From the test results of the self-energy balancing phenomenon between aging and normal cells based on the proposed algorithm and BMS, it was confirmed the possibility of self-energy balancing, which is unintentional current flow from cells with a high SOC to cells with a low SOC. In addition, the proposed configuration of the BMS is useful and practical to improve the safety of lithium-ion batteries because the BMS can reliably disconnect a parallel connection of the cells if the self-energy balancing current becomes excessively high.

• The Transactions of The Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers
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• v.66 no.10
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• pp.1474-1480
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• 2017

This paper presents a new LED current balancing scheme using double-step-down dc-dc converter. With the proposed structure, the two channel LED currents are automatically balanced without using any dedicated control or auxiliary circuit. In addition, switching loss of the switching devices in the proposed LED driver is lower than that of the conventional buck LED driver. To verify the operation of the proposed LED driver, a hardware prototype is built and tested with different number of LED.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Power Electronics
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.160-166
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• 2015

This study proposes an improved cell balancing circuit for fast equalization among lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries. A simple voltage sensorless charge balancing circuit has been proposed in the past. This cell balancing circuit automatically transfers energy from high-to low-voltage battery cells. However, the circuit requires a switch with low on-resistance because the balancing speed is limited by the on-resistance of the switch. Balancing speed decreases as the voltage difference among the battery cells decrease. In this study, the balancing speed of the cell balancing circuit is enhanced by using the auxiliary circuit, which boosts the balancing current. The charging current is determined by the nominal battery cell voltage and thus, the balancing speed is almost constant despite the very small voltage differences among the batteries. Simulation results are provided to verify the validity of the proposed cell balancing circuit.

• New & Renewable Energy
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.41-48
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• 2020

This study performed a single hole operation method using a balancing well-cross-mixed underground heat exchanger, and conducted thermal performance studies of an SCW-type underground heat exchanger using a two-well. The study attempted to change the existing operating method of the two adjacent SCW underground heat exchangers with one ball each. The SCW-type geothermal heat exchanger is considered to enable up to 20% of bleed discharge at maximum load, which makes groundwater usage unequal. The efficiency factor of the geothermal system was improved by constructing the discharged water by cross-mixing two balancing wells to prevent the discharge of groundwater sources and keep the temperature of the underground heat exchanger constant. As a result of the cooling and heating operation with the existing SCW heat exchange system and the balancing well-cross-mixed heat exchange system, the measured performance coefficient improved by 23% and 12% in cooling and heating operations, respectively. In addition, when operating with a balanced cross-mixing heat exchange system, it has been confirmed that the initial basement temperature is constant with a standard deviation of 0.08 to 0.12℃.

• 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.

• The Journal of the Institute of Internet, Broadcasting and Communication
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• v.17 no.5
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• pp.199-208
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• 2017

Lithium polymer batteries are used in energy storage systems (ESS), electric vehicles (EVs), etc. due to their high safety, fast charging and long lifecycle, and now they are used in agricultural drones. However, when overcharging and overdischarging, the lithium-polymer battery is destroyed in the gap structure in the lithium-ion battery and the battery life is reduced. In order to prevent overcharge and overdischarge, uneven cell voltage Cell balancing system is needed. In this paper, a fuzzy controller suitable for nonlinear systems is proposed by detecting the unbalanced cells by detecting the voltage difference between charging and discharging of each cell, and suggesting the applied cell balancing algorithm. In this paper, we have designed the cell balancing of the battery pack of agricultural drones by fuzzy control and it is designed for equal control between cells. As a final result, we checked whether cell balancing is good, and when there are two cells, Cell balancing was confirmed. We tested whether it could be used for other products. As a result, we confirmed that cell balancing is good regardless of the number of cells used.