• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.19 no.5
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• pp.1099-1107
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• 2019

A soft switching converter with wide voltage range operation is investigated in this paper. A series resonant converter is implemented to achieve a high circuit efficiency with soft switching characteristics on power switches and rectifier diodes. To improve the weakness of the narrow voltage range in LLC converters, an alternating current (ac) power switch is used on the primary side to select a half-bridge or full-bridge resonant circuit to implement 4:1 voltage range operation. On the secondary-side, another ac power switch is adopted to select a full-wave rectifier or voltage-doubler rectifier to achiever an additional 2:1 output voltage range. Therefore, the proposed resonant converter has the capacity for 8:1 (320V~40V) wide output voltage operation. A single-stage hybrid resonant converter is employed in the study circuit instead of a two-stage dc converter to achiever wide voltage range operation. As a result, the study converter has better converter efficiency. The theoretical analysis and circuit characteristics are verified by experiments with a prototype circuit.

• ETRI Journal
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• v.35 no.5
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• pp.797-807
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• 2013

In this paper, an input receiver with a hysteresis characteristic that can work at voltage levels between 0.9 V and 5 V is proposed. The input receiver can be used as a wide voltage range Schmitt trigger also. At the same time, reliable circuit operation is ensured. According to the research findings, this is the first time a wide voltage range Schmitt trigger is being reported. The proposed circuit is compared with previously reported input receivers, and it is shown that the circuit has better noise immunity. The proposed input receiver ends the need for a separate Schmitt trigger and input buffer. The frequency of operation is also higher than that of the previously reported receiver. The circuit is simulated using HSPICE at 0.35-${\mu}m$ standard thin oxide technology. Monte Carlo analysis is conducted at different process conditions, showing that the proposed circuit works well for different process conditions at different voltage levels of operation. A noise impulse of ($V_{CC}/2$) magnitude is added to the input voltage to show that the receiver receives the correct logic level even in the presence of noise. Here, $V_{CC}$ is the fixed voltage supply of 3.3 V.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.975-984
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• 2018

This work presents a high efficiency phase shifted full bridge (PSFB) DC-DC converter for use in the second stage of a battery charger for neighborhood electrical vehicle (EV) applications. In the design of the converter, Lithium-ion battery cells are preferred due to their high voltage and current rates, which provide a high power density. This requires wide range output voltage regulation for PSFB converter operation. In addition, the battery charger works with a light load when the battery charge voltage reaches its maximum value. The soft switching of the PSFB converter depends on the dead time optimization and load condition. As a result, the converter has to work with soft switching at a wide range output voltage and under light conditions to reach high efficiency. The operation principles of the PSFB converter for the continuous current mode (CCM) and the discontinuous current mode (DCM) are defined. The performance of the PSFB converter is analyzed in detail based on wide range output voltage and load conditions in terms of high efficiency. In order to validate performance analysis, a prototype is built with 42-54 V / 15 A output values at a 200 kHz switching frequency. The measured maximum efficiency values are obtained as 94.4% and 76.6% at full and at 2% load conditions, respectively.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.11-22
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• 2018

This paper presents a single switch, high step-up, non-isolated dc-dc converter suitable for renewable energy applications. The proposed converter is composed of a coupled inductor, a passive clamp circuit, a switched capacitor and voltage lift circuits. The passive clamp recovers the leakage inductance energy of the coupled inductor and limits the voltage spike on the switch. The configuration of the passive clamp and switched capacitor circuit increases the voltage gain. A wide continuous conduction mode (CCM) operation range, a low turn ratio for the coupled inductor, low voltage stress on the switch, switch turn on under almost zero current switching (ZCS), low voltage stress on the diodes, leakage inductance energy recovery, high efficiency and a high voltage gain without a large duty cycle are the benefits of this converter. The steady state operation of the converter in the continuous conduction mode (CCM) and discontinuous conduction mode (DCM) is discussed and analyzed. A 200W prototype converter with a 28V input and a 380V output voltage is implemented and tested to verify the theoretical analysis.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Power Electronics
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.313-320
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• 2015

This study deals with a bidirectional interleaved soft switching DC-DC converter for a wide range of input voltages. The proposed converter operates in complementary switching with the purpose of inductor size reduction and zero-voltage switching (ZVS) operation. The current ripple related to complementary switching is minimized by three-phase interleaved operation. The main characteristics of the proposed topology are its soft-switching method of operation and its simple structure. The soft-switching operation and the system efficiency of the proposed converter are verified by experimental results.

• Transactions on Electrical and Electronic Materials
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• v.18 no.5
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• pp.279-286
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• 2017

In this paper, an optimal approach for the wide-area regulation of control devices in a transmission network is proposed. In order to realize an improved voltage profile and reduced power loss, existing devices such as tap-changing transformers, synchronous machines, and capacitor banks should be controlled in a coordinated and on-line manner. It is well-understood that phasor measurement units in transmission substations allow the system operators to access the on-line loading and operation status of the network. Accordingly, this study proposes efficient software applications that can be employed in area operation centers. Thus, the implanted control devices can be regulated in an on-line and wide-area coordinated approach. In this process, efficient objective functions are devised for both voltage profile improvement and power loss reduction. Subsequently, sensitivity analysis is carried out to determine the best weighting factors for these objectives. Extensive numerical studies are conducted on an IEEE 14-bus test system and a real-world system named the Azarbayjan Regional Transmission Network. The obtained results are discussed in detail to highlight the promising improvements.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.9 no.5
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• pp.736-747
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• 2009

A new type of single-phase Z-source AC/AC converter based on a single-phase matrix converter is proposed in this paper. The proposed single-phase Z-source AC/AC converter has unique features; namely that the output voltage can be bucked and in-phase/out-of-phase with the input voltage; that the output voltage can be boosted and in-phase/out-of-phase with the input voltage. The converter employs a safe-commutation strategy to conduct along a continuous current path, which results in the elimination of voltage spikes on switches without the need for a snubber circuit. The operating principles of the proposed single-phase Z-source AC/AC converter are described, and a circuit analysis is provided. To verify the performance of the proposed converter, a laboratory prototype based on a TMS320F2812 DSP was constructed. The simulation and the experimental results verified that the output voltage can be bucked-boosted and in-phase with the input voltage, and that the output voltage can be bucked-boosted and out-of-phase with the input voltage.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.18 no.6
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• pp.1619-1626
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• 2018

The output power of most facilities for renewable energy generation is unstable due to external environmental conditions. In distributed power systems with two or more sources, a stable output can be achieved with the complementary power supply among the different input sources. In this paper, a double-input DC-DC converter with a wide-input-voltage-range is proposed for renewable energy generation. This converter has the following advantages: the circuit is simple, and the input voltage range is wide and the fault tolerance is excellent. The operation modes and the steady-state analysis are examined. Finally, experimental results are illustrated to verify the correctness of the analysis and the feasibility of the proposed converter.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Power Electronics
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.142-151
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• 2020

This paper presents a DC/DC LLC resonant converter with wide input/output voltage gain characteristics and its control method for efficiency improvement. For a wide input/output voltage gain characteristics without designing small transformer magnetization inductance, the proposed converter changes the topology into three modes of operation according to the main switch switching pattern. In each operating mode, variable LINK voltage modulation and frequency modulation were performed to control output voltage and improve operating efficiency. A prototype of a 5-kW DC/DC LLC resonant converter was built and tested to verify the validity and applicability of the proposed converter.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Power Electronics
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.165-173
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• 2022

The electrification trend of mobility increases every year due to the development of power semiconductor and battery technology. Accordingly, the development and distribution of fast chargers for electric vehicles (EVs) are in demand. In this study, we propose a design and implementation method of an LLC converter for fast chargers. Two 15 kW LLC converters are configured in parallel to have 30 kW rated output power, and the control algorithm and driving sequence are designed accordingly and verified. In addition, the improved power conversion efficiency is confirmed through zero-voltage switching (ZVS) of the LLC converter and reduction of turn-off loss through snubber capacitors. The implemented 30 kW LLC converters show a wide output voltage range of 200-950 V. Experiments applying various load conditions verify the converter performance.