• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.70-76
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• 2013

For high power high step-down dc-dc conversion applications, conventional three-level dc-dc converters are subject to extreme duty cycles or increased volume and cost due to the use of transformers. In this paper, a transformerless three-level dc-dc buck converter with a high step-down conversion ratio is proposed. The converter comprises two asymmetrical half bridges, which are of the neutral point clamped structures. Therefore, the output pulse voltage of the converter can be obtained in terms of the voltage difference between the two half bridges. In order to realize harmonious switching of the converter, a modulation strategy with capacitor voltages self balance is presented. According to the deduced output dc voltage function, transformerless operation without extreme duty cycles can be implemented. Experimental results from a 1kW prototype verify the validity of the proposed converter. It is suitable for ship electric power distribution systems.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.356-363
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• 2018

The combination of a buck converter and a forward converter can be considered to accomplish a high step-down non-isolated converter. To decrease the insufficient step-down ratio of a regular buck converter and to distribute switch voltage stress, a forward-integrated buck (FIB) converter is proposed in this paper. The proposed interleaved DC-DC converter provides an additional step-down gain with the help of a forward converter. In addition to its simple structure, the transformer flux reset problem is solved and an additional magnetic core reset winding is not required. The operational principle and an analysis of the proposed FIB converter are presented and verified by experimental results obtained with a 240 W, 150 V/24 V prototype.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.343-355
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• 2018

A wide-voltage-conversion range bidirectional DC-DC converter is proposed in this paper. The topology is comprised of one typical LC energy storage component and a special common grounded asymmetric H-bridge with four active power switches/anti-parallel diodes. The narrow output PWM voltage is generated from the voltage difference between two normal (wider) output PWM voltages from the asymmetric H-bridge with duty cycles close to 0.5. The equivalent switching frequency of the output PWM voltage is double the actual switching frequency, and a wide step-down/step-up ratio range is achieved. A 300W prototype has been constructed to validate the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed bidirectional converter between the variable low voltage side (24V~48V) and the constant high voltage side (200V). The slave active power switches allow ZVS turn-on and turn-off without requiring any extra hardware. The maximum conversion efficiency is 94.7% in the step-down mode and 93.5% in the step-up mode. Therefore, the proposed bidirectional topology with a common ground is suitable for energy storage systems such as renewable power generation systems and electric vehicles with a hybrid energy source.

• The Transactions of The Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers
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• v.64 no.3
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• pp.433-437
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• 2015

We have designed and fabricated a low power and high linearity up down convertor for wireless repeaters using $0.35{\mu}m$ SiGe Bipolar CMOS technology. Repeater is composed of a wideband up/down converting mixer, programmable gain amplifiers (PGA), input buffer, LO buffer, filter driver amplifier and integer-N phase locked loop (PLL). As of the measurement results, OIP3 of the down conversion mixer and up conversion mixer are 32 dBm and 17.8 dBm, respectively. The total dynamic gain range is 31 dB with 1 dB gain step resolution. The adjacent channel leakage ratio (ACLR) is 59.9 dBc. The total power consumption is 240 mA at 3.3 V.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.846-857
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• 2019

Voltage step-down converters are very popular in distributed power systems, voltage regular modules, electric vehicles, etc. However, a high step-down voltage ratio is required in many applications to prevent the traditional buck converter from operating at extreme duty cycles. In this paper, a series capacitor interleaved buck converter with a soft switching technique is proposed. The DC voltage ratio of the proposed converter is half that of the traditional buck converter and the voltage stress across the one main switch and the diodes is reduced. Moreover, by paralleling the series connected auxiliary switch and the auxiliary inductor with the main inductor, zero voltage transition (ZVT) of the main switches can be obtained without increasing the voltage or current stress of the main power switches. In addition, zero current turned-on and zero current switching (ZCS) of the auxiliary switches can be achieved. Furthermore, owing to the presence of the auxiliary inductor, the turned-off rate of the output diodes can be limited and the reverse-recovery switching losses of the diodes can be reduced. Thus, the efficiency of the proposed converter can be improved. The DC voltage gain ratio, soft switching conditions and a design guideline for the critical parameters are given in this paper. A loss analysis of the proposed converter is shown to demonstrate its advantages over traditional converter topologies. Finally, experimental results obtained from a 100V/10V prototype are presented to verify the analysis of the proposed converter.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.16 no.5
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• pp.1629-1638
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• 2016

Differential power processing (DPP) systems are among the most effective architectures for photovoltaic (PV) power systems because they are highly efficient as a result of their distributed local maximum power point tracking ability, which allows the fractional processing of the total generated power. However, DPP systems require a high-efficiency, high step-up/down bidirectional converter with broad operating ranges and galvanic isolation. This study proposes a single, magnetic, high-efficiency, high step-up/down bidirectional DC-DC converter. The proposed converter is composed of a bidirectional flyback and a bidirectional isolated switched-capacitor cell, which are competitively cheap. The output terminals of the flyback converter and switched-capacitor cell are connected in series to obtain the voltage step-up. In the reverse power flow, the converter reciprocally operates with high efficiency across a broad operating range because it uses hard switching instead of soft switching. The proposed topology achieves a genuine on-off interleaved energy transfer at the transformer core and windings, thus providing an excellent utilization ratio. The dynamic characteristics of the converter are analyzed for the controller design. Finally, a 240 W hardware prototype is constructed to demonstrate the operation of the bidirectional converter under a current feedback control loop. To improve the efficiency of a PV system, the maximum power point tracking method is applied to the proposed converter.

• Journal of Advanced Marine Engineering and Technology
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• v.41 no.1
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• pp.76-82
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• 2017

Since the introduction of electronically controlled engines and electric propulsion ships, the need for an uninterruptible power supply for emergency power supply devices that use batteries has gained importance. The bidirectional converter in such emergency power supply devices is a crucial component. This paper proposes, a topology for an improved DC-DC bidirectional converter that is characterized by a high voltage conversion ratio and low voltage stress of switches. To confirm the performance of the converter, a computer simulation was executed with PSIM software. The conversion ratio of the proposed converter was found to be four times higher than the conventional boost converter in step-up mode and one-fourth that of the conventional buck converter in step-down mode, and the voltage stress of the switches was one-fourth of the high-side voltage. Moreover, the proposed converter was confirmed to be able to distribute equal currents between two interleaved modules without using any extra current-sharing control method because of the charge balance of its blocking capacitors.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.16 no.6
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• pp.2035-2044
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• 2016

In order to match the voltages between high voltage battery stacks and low voltage super-capacitors with a high conversion efficiency in hybrid energy sources electric vehicles (HESEVs), a high ratio bidirectional DC-DC converter with a synchronous rectification H-Bridge is proposed in this paper. The principles of high ratio step-down and step-up operations are analyzed. In terms of the bidirectional characteristic of the H-Bridge, the bidirectional synchronous rectification (SR) operation is presented without any extra hardware. Then the SR power switches can achieve zero voltage switching (ZVS) turn-on and turn-off during dead time, and the power conversion efficiency is improved compared to that of the diode rectification (DR) operation, as well as the utilization of power switches. Experimental results show that the proposed converter can operate bidirectionally in the wide ratio range of 3~10, when the low voltage continuously varies between 15V and 50V. The maximum efficiencies are 94.1% in the Buck mode, and 93.6% in the Boost mode. In addition, the corresponding largest efficiency variations between SR and DR operations are 4.8% and 3.4%. This converter is suitable for use as a power interface between the battery stacks and super-capacitors in HESEVs.

• Proceedings of the KIPE Conference
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• 2016.11a
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• pp.13-14
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• 2016

This paper has introduces a novel Integrated On-board Charger (IOBC) to reduce the size, weight and cost of power conversion stages in Electric Vehicles (EVs). The IOBC is composed of an OBC and a low voltage dc-dc converter (LDC). The IOBC includes a bidirectional ac-dc converter and a bidirectional full-bridge converter with an active clamp circuit. The LDC converter is a hybrid topology combining an active clamped full-bridge converter and a forward converter derived from the Weinburg converter topology. Unlike conventional OBC, the proposed IOBC is compact and the LDC converter of it can achieve a higher efficiency. In addition, the LDC converter of the proposed IOBC can achieve high step-down voltage conversion ratio, no circulating current, no reverse recovery current of the rectifier diodes and small ripple current of output inductor on the auxiliary battery. A 1kW hardware of the LDC converter is implemented to verify the performances of the proposed IOBC.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.592-599
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• 2013

This paper investigates a new isolated single-phase AC-DC converter, which integrates a modified AC-DC buck-boost converter with a DC-DC forward converter. The front semi-stage is operated in discontinuous conduction mode (DCM) to achieve an almost unity power factor and a low total harmonic distortion of the input current. The rear semi-stage is used for step-down voltage conversion and electrical isolation. The front semi-stage uses a coupled inductor with the same winding-turn in the primary and secondary sides, which is charged in series during the switch-on period and is discharged in parallel during the switch-off period. The discharging time can be shortened. In other words, the duty ratio can be extended. This semi-stage can be operated in a larger duty-ratio range than the conventional AC-DC buck-boost converter for DCM operation. Therefore, the proposed converter is suitable for universal input voltage (90~264 $V_{rms}$) and a wide output-power range. Moreover, the voltage stress on the DC-link capacitor is low. Finally, a prototype circuit is implemented to verify the performance of the proposed converter.