IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER ELECTRONICS, VOL. 24, NO.

2, FEBRUARY 2009

553

A Nonisolated Bidirectional ZVS-PWM Active Clamped DCDC Converter

AbstractPower electronic converter systems for applications such as telecom, automotive, and space can have dc voltage buses that are backed up with batteries or supercapacitors. These batteries or supercapacitors are connected to the buses with bidirectional dcdc converters that allow them to be discharged or charged, depending on the operating conditions. Bidirectional dcdc converters may be isolated or nonisolated depending on the application. A new soft-switched bidirectional dcdc converter will be proposed in this letter. The proposed converter can operate with soft switching, a continuous inductor current, xed switching frequency, and the switch stresses of a conventional pulsewidth modulation converter regardless of the direction of power ow. These features are due to a very simple auxiliary active clamp circuit that is operational regardless of the direction of power ow. In the letter, the operation of the converter will be discussed and its feasibility will be conrmed with experimental results obtained from a prototype. Index TermsDCDC power conversion, dc power systems, energy conversion, energy management, power conversion, power electronics, switched-mode power supplies.

Fig. 1. Standard boost/buck converter structure for bidirectional dcdc power conversion.

I. INTRODUCTION OWER electronic converter systems for applications such as telecom, automotive, and space can have dc voltage buses that are backed up with batteries or supercapacitors. These batteries or supercapacitors are connected to the buses with bidirectional dcdc converters that allow them to be discharged or charged, depending on the operating conditions. Bidirectional dcdc converters may be isolated [1][6] or nonisolated [7][16], depending on the application. Nonisolated bidirectional dcdc converters, which will be the main focus of the letter, are typically (but not always) based on the boost/buck converter structure shown in Fig. 1. S1 operates like a boost switch and S2 operates as a boost diode when energy is transferred from the low-side source Vlo to the high-side source Vhi , and S1 operates like a buck diode and S2 like a boost diode when energy is transferred from Vhi to Vlo . It is not difcult to implement soft switching in isolated bidirectional dcdc converters as they tend to be based on conventional half-bridge and full-bridge structures that can use inductive energy stored in the main power transformer to discharge the capacitance across the converter switches. It is more challenging to do so for nonisolated converters as there is no such

Manuscript received April 04, 2008; revised July 30, 2008. Current version published February 6, 2009. This work was supported by the National Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC), Canada. Recommended for publication by Associate Editor B. Tamyurek. The authors are with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Western Ontario, London, ON N6A 5B9, Canada. Color versions of one or more of the gures in this paper are available online at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org. Digital Object Identier 10.1109/TPEL.2008.2006897

transformer. Previously proposed techniques to implement soft switching in nonisolated bidirectional dcdc converter can be categorized as follows. 1) Converters such as the ones proposed in [8] and [9] and based on the topology in Fig. 1 that are made to operate with an inductor (Lin ) current that ows in both directions during each switching cycle. Both converter switches are on (never simultaneously) sometime during each cycle so that the energy stored in the inductor when one switch is on is used to turn on the other switch with zerovoltage switching (ZVS) after the switch is turned off. The main drawback of this technique is that the inductor current has a lot of ripple with a very high peak as it must ow in both directions during each switching cycle. This results in very high turn-off losses that take away from the improvement in efciency due to the ZVS turnon and additional ltering is needed to reduce voltage ripple. 2) Another approach to implementing soft switching in a nonisolated bidirectional dcdc converter is to use quasiresonant or multiresonant techniques. Doing so, however, results in the converter having high peak voltage and/or current stresses, and forces the converter to be operated with variable-switching-frequency control, which complicates the design of the converterespecially the design of the magnetic and ltering elements as the converter must be able to operate under a wide range of switching frequencies. In the case of a converter such as the one proposed in [10], the converter can be made to operate with constant switching frequency, but the switch stresses remain. A xed-frequency resonant-type bidirectional converter was proposed in [11], but this converter was very costly and sophisticated as it required two half-bridge converters in series. 3) A third approach has been to use auxiliary circuits to assist the switches to operate with soft switching as is done in

0885-8993/$25.00 2009 IEEE

554

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER ELECTRONICS, VOL. 24, NO. 2, FEBRUARY 2009

Fig. 2.

Previously proposed bidirectional converters. (a) Converter proposed in [14]. (b) Converter proposed in [15].

conrm the feasibility of the proposed converter will be presented. II. CONVERTER OPERATION The modes of converter operation that the proposed converter goes through when it is operating as a boost or buck converter are given next along with equivalent circuit diagrams in Figs. 4 and 5. Typical converter waveforms for the boost mode of operation are shown in Fig. 6. The current owing through S2 is shown as a negative current waveform. It should be noted that the waveforms in Fig. 6 also describe the buck mode of operation as the waveforms for both modes are identicalthe waveforms for S1 in the boost mode are the waveforms of S2 in the buck mode and vice versa. Referring to Fig. 3, the inductor current IL r 1 is positive if it enters the inductor through its positive terminal, the currents through switches S1 and S2 are considered positive if they ow into a switch through its drain, and the current through Sa is considered positive if it ows through the switch source. Any current owing into the positive terminal of the capacitor Cr is considered to be positive. A. Boost Mode of Operation (Fig. 4) Mode 0 (t < t0 ): Before time t = t0 , the converter operates as a standard PWM boost converter with switch S1 on and the current through Lin , IL i n IL i n , rising. Mode 1 (t0 < t < t1 ): At t = t0 , switch S1 is turned off and the rise in voltage across it is limited by Cs 1 . The current through Lr 1 charges up Cs 1 and begins to ow through Cr . Also, during this mode, input current begins to be diverted to Lr 2 and the capacitance across S2 , Cs 2 , begins to be discharged. Mode 2 (t1 < t < t2 ): This mode is a continuation of Mode 1 except that Cs 2 is completely discharged at t = t1 and current ows through the antiparallel diode across S2 . Mode 3 (t2 < t < t3 ): At t = t2 , current stops owing through the auxiliary active clamp circuit and the converter operates as a standard PWM boost converter. The current through Lin decreases during this mode as a negative voltage is impressed across Lin . Mode 4 (t3 < t < t4 ): Some time before switch S1 is to be turned on, at t = t3 , switch Sa is turned on with zero-current

Fig. 3.

Proposed soft-switched nonisolated dcdc PWM converter.

zero-voltage transition (ZVT) converters. This has been done with converters such as the ones proposed in [12][ 16]. Although this approach is an improvement over the other two approaches, it can be costly and complex. This is because a separate independent auxiliary circuit is needed for each main power switch so that the converter must be implemented with four active switches. Converters such as the ones shown in Fig. 2 do have a single auxiliary circuit, but require two auxiliary switches to make the circuit bidirectional. Due to the problems associated with each of these approacheshigh stresses, variable-frequency control, cost, and complexitynonisolated ZVS bidirectional dcdc converters are not as widely used as they might be. In this letter, a new soft-switched bidirectional dcdc converter with a simple active auxiliary circuit will be proposed. The proposed converter, shown in Fig. 3, is very similar to the conventional converter in Fig. 1 except that auxiliary switch Sa , capacitor Cr , and inductors Lr 1 and Lr 2 have been added. These four components make up a simple circuit that is based on well-established active clamp technology [17][19] and that can be used to ensure that the main power switches S1 and S2 operate with ZVS regardless of whether the converter is operating in a boost or buck mode. The proposed converter can operate with a continuous inductor current, xed switching frequency, and the switch stresses of a conventional PWM converter regardless of the direction of power ow. In this letter, the converters operation will be discussed and experimental results, obtained from a prototype, that

Authorized licensed use limited to: Malaiyappan Maruthamuthu. Downloaded on October 6, 2009 at 07:29 from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER ELECTRONICS, VOL. 24, NO. 2, FEBRUARY 2009

555

Fig. 4. Equivalent circuit diagrams for boost mode of operation. (a) Mode 0 (t < t0 ). (b) Mode 1 (t0 < 1 < t1 ). (c) Mode 2 (t1 < t < t2 ). (d) Mode 3 (t2 < t < t3 ). (e) Mode 4 (t3 < t < t4 ). (f) Mode 5 (t4 < t < t5 ). (g) Mode 6 (t5 < t < t6 ). (h) Mode 7 (t6 < t < t7 ).

Fig. 5. Equivalent circuit diagrams for boost mode of operation. (a) Mode 0 (t < t0 ). (b) Mode 1 (t0 < 1 < t1 ). (c) Mode 2 (t1 < t < t2 ). (d) Mode 3 (t2 < t < t3 ). (e) Mode 4 (t3 < t < t4 ). (f) Mode 5 (t4 < t < t5 ). (g) Mode 6 (t5 < t < t6 ). (h) Mode 7 (t6 < t < t7 ).

switching (ZCS). Capacitor Cr begins to discharge through Lr 1 Lr 1 Lr 1 and Lr 2 , as IL i n continues to decrease. Mode 5 (t4 < t < t5 ): At the beginning of this mode, switch Sa is opened so that the current in the inductor Lr 1 starts owing through the output capacitor of switch S1 . The current through S1 discharges the switch capacitor Cs 1 so that the voltage across the switch drops to zero by the end of the mode. Mode 6 (t5 < t < t6 ): At t = t5 , capacitor Cs 1 has been completely discharged and the antiparallel diode across S1 begins to conduct. S1 can be turned on while this diode is conducting. Mode 7 (t6 < t < t7 ): Some time after S1 has been turned on, at t = t6 , the current through Lr 1 will begin to reverse direction and the transfer of current from Lr 2 to S1 will begin. This mode of operation will continue until current has been completely transferred to S1 and the converter enters Mode 0 at t = t7 . B. Buck Mode of Operation (Fig. 5) Mode 0 (t < t0 ): Before time t = t0 , the converter operates as a standard PWM buck converter with switch S2 on and the current through Lin , IL i n , rising.

Fig. 6.

Typical converter waveforms for boost mode operation.

Authorized licensed use limited to: Malaiyappan Maruthamuthu. Downloaded on October 6, 2009 at 07:29 from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.

556

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER ELECTRONICS, VOL. 24, NO. 2, FEBRUARY 2009

Fig. 7. Experimental results. (a) Voltage and current waveforms for S2 with converter working in buck mode (V : 200 V/division, I: 1.25 A/division, t: 2 s/division). (b) Voltage and current waveforms for S1 with converter working in boost mode (V : 200 V/division, I: 5 A/divison, t: 2 s/division).

Fig. 8. (a) Experimental gate voltages for switch S1 and switch S a in boost mode (V : 15 V/division and t: 2 s/division). (b) Experimental gate voltages for switch S 2 and switch S a in buck mode (V : 15 V/division and t: 2 s/division)

Fig. 9. Experimental voltage and current waveforms of auxiliary switch S a in buck mode (V : 100 V/division, I: 5 A/division, t: 0.5 s/division).

Mode 1 (t0 < t < t1 ): At t = t0 , switch S2 is turned off and the rise in voltage across it is limited by Cs 2 . The current through Lr 2 charges up Cs 1 and begins to ow through Cr . Also, during this mode, input current begins to be diverted to Lr 1 and the capacitance across S1 , Cs 1 , begins to be discharged. Mode 2 (t1 < t < t2 ): This mode is a continuation of mode 1 except that Cs 2 is completely charged at t = t1 . Some time during this mode, Cs 1 may be completely discharged and/or current may stop owing through Cr . Mode 3 (t2 < t < t3 ): At t = t2 , current stops owing through the auxiliary active clamp circuit and the converter

operates as a standard PWM buck converter. The current through Lin decreases during this mode as the converter is in a freewheeling mode of operation. Mode 4 (t3 < t < t4 ): Some time before switch S1 is to be turned on, at t = t3 , switch Sa is turned on with ZCS. Capacitor Cr begins to discharge through Lr 1 and Lr 2 , as IL i n continues to decrease. Mode 5 (t4 < t < t5 ): Switch Sa is turned off at t = t4 . The current in Lr 2 is used to discharge Cs 2 . Mode 6 (t5 < t < t6): At t = t5 , capacitor Cs 2 has been completely discharged and the antiparallel diode across S2 begins to conduct. S2 can be turned on while this diode is conducting. Mode 7 (t6 < t < t7 ): Some time after S2 has been turned on, at t = t6 , the current through Lr 2 will begin to reverse direction and the transfer of current from Lr 1 to S2 will begin. This mode of operation will continue until current has been completely transferred to S2 and the converter enters Mode 0 at t = t7 . III. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS An experimental prototype of the proposed converter was built to conrm its feasibility. The converter was designed in a manner similar to the converter proposed in [17], which is also an active clamp converter but one that can only operate unidirectionally. The converter was built to operate with a low-side voltage of Vlo = 100 V, a high-side voltage of Vhi = 400 V, maximum power of 500 W, and a switching frequency of 100 kHz.

Authorized licensed use limited to: Malaiyappan Maruthamuthu. Downloaded on October 6, 2009 at 07:29 from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER ELECTRONICS, VOL. 24, NO. 2, FEBRUARY 2009

557

Fig. 10. Experimental efciency graphs. (a) Efciency of ZVS and hard-switched converter operating in boost mode. (b) Efciency of ZVS and hard-switched converter operating in buck mode.

The selection of the main power circuit inductor Lin and the main power switches S1 , S2 was done as if the converter was a regular PWM converter since the converter is a PWM converter. For S1 and S2 , STP12NM50FP devices were used and a 700-H inductor was used for Lin . The selection of the active clamp components was done by considering the high- and low-side voltages and the load range (which affects the current owing in the converter). It was determined that the ZVS operation range is not dependent on whether the converter operates in the boost or buck mode of operation as the voltages and the currents to be considered in the design of this range are the same. This is true as long as Lr 1 and Lr 2 are also the same so that the symmetry of the two modes is kept. If the converter is designed to operate with ZVS for the boost mode, it can therefore operate with ZVS for the buck mode. In order to reduce the circulating current losses of the converter under light-load conditions, it was decided to design the ZVS range to be from 40% load to 100% load. With these guidelines, the active clamp components were selected in a manner very similar to what is described in [17] as the proposed converter working in the boost mode is almost identical to the boost converter described in [17] with some very small differences. The component values that were used are Lr 1 = Lr 2 = 12.5 H and Cr = 68 nF. An IRC634 device was used as the auxiliary switch. The control strategy that was used for the switch Sa was the same as the one used in [17]. The duty cycle of Sa was kept xed for all operating conditions. Typical converter waveforms are shown in Fig. 7. Fig. 7(a) shows the voltage and current waveforms of S2 when it is turning on and the converter is operating in buck mode. Fig. 7(b) shows similar waveforms of S1 when the converter is operating in the boost mode. It can be seen that in both cases, the converter switches can operate with a ZVS turn-on. The gating signals of Sa with respect to the main active switch S1 or S2 are shown in Fig. 8. It can be seen that the auxiliary active circuit is ON for a short time and that Sa is off before S1 or S2 is turned on. The turning on of Sa allows energy to be stored in the auxiliary circuit inductors, which is then used to discharge the appropriate switch capacitance. Fig. 9 shows typical Sa voltage and current waveforms. It can be seen that the current in the auxiliary switch

has a positive and a negative hump. The negative hump of the auxiliary switch current signies the discharging current of the active clamp capacitor through the auxiliary switch, while the positive hump shows the charging of the active clamp capacitor in resonance with resonant inductors Lr 1 and Lr 2 . The turn-on of the switch Sa is ZCS due to the presence of the resonant inductors. Graphs of converter efciency when the converter is operating in boost and buck modes are shown in Fig. 10. It can be seen that the efciency curves of the ZVS and the hardswitched converter diverge at heavier loads. This is because the active clamp auxiliary circuit signicantly improves converter efciency regardless of the direction of power ow as it reduces the losses due to switching transitions, which still exist in the hard-switched converter and become more dominant at heavier loads. IV. CONCLUSION A new nonisolated ZVS bidirectional PWM converter was presented in this letter. The outstanding features of the proposed converter are that it can operate with continuous inductor current, xed switching frequency, and the switch stresses of a conventional PWM converter regardless of the direction of power ow. These features are due to a simple and inexpensive auxiliary circuit that is based on well-established active clamp technology. The feasibility of the proposed converter was conrmed with experimental results that showed the effectiveness of the auxiliary circuit in improving efciency. REFERENCES
[1] M. Jain, M. Daniele, and P. K. Jain, A bidirectional DCDC converter topology for low power application, IEEE Trans. Power Electron., vol. 15, no. 4, pp. 595606, Jul. 2000. [2] H. Li, F.-Z. Peng, and J. S. Lawler, A natural ZVS medium-power bidirectional DCDC converter with minimum number of devices, IEEE Trans. Ind. Appl., vol. 39, no. 2, pp. 525535, Mar. 2003. [3] P. Jose and N. Mohan, A novel ZVS bidirectional cuk converter for dual voltage systems in automobiles, in Proc. IEEE IECON Conf. Rec., 2003, pp. 117122. [4] R. Li, A. Pottharst, N. Frohleke, and J. Bocker, Analysis and design of improved isolated full-bridge bidirectional DCDC converter, in Proc. IEEE PESC Conf. Rec., 2004, pp. 521526.

Authorized licensed use limited to: Malaiyappan Maruthamuthu. Downloaded on October 6, 2009 at 07:29 from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.

558

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER ELECTRONICS, VOL. 24, NO. 2, FEBRUARY 2009

[5] L. Zhu, A novel soft-commutating isolated boost full-bridge ZVS-PWM DCDC converter for bidirectional high power applications, in Proc. IEEE PESC Conf. Rec., 2004, pp. 21412146. [6] S. Inoue and H. Akagi, A bidirectional isolated DCDC converter as a core circuit of the next-generation medium-voltage power conversion system, IEEE Trans. Power Electron., vol. 22, no. 2, pp. 535542, Mar. 2007. [7] K. Zhiguo, Z. Chunbo, Y. Shiyan, and C. Shukang, Study of bidirectional DCDC converter for power management in electric bus with supercapacitors, in Proc. IEEE VPPC Conf. Rec., 2006, pp. 16. [8] C. P. Henze, H. C. Martin, and D. W. Parsley, Zero voltage switching in high frequency power converters using pulse width modulation, in Proc. IEEE APEC Conf. Rec., 1988, pp. 3340. [9] D. M. Sable and F. C. Lee, A zero-voltage-switching bidirectional battery charger/discharger for NASA EOS satellite, in Proc. IEEE APEC Conf. Rec., 1992, pp. 614621. [10] Z. R. Martinez and B. Ray, Bidirectional DC/DC power conversion using constant frequency multi-resonant topology, in Proc. IEEE APEC Conf. Rec., 1994, pp. 991997. [11] C.-E. Kim, S.-K. Han, K.-H. Yi, W.-J. Lee, and G.-W. Moon, A new high efciency ZVZCS bi-directional DC/DC converter for 42 V Power System of HEVs, in Proc. IEEE PESC Conf. Rec., 2006, pp. 792797. [12] K. T. Chau, T. W. Ching, and C. C. Chan, Bidirectional soft-switching converter-fed DC motor drives, in Proc. IEEE PESC Conf. Rec., 1998, pp. 416422.

[13] H. Shiji, K. Harada, Y. Ishihara, T. Todaka, and G. Alzamora, A zerovoltage-switching bidirectional converter for PV systems, in Proc. IEEE INTELEC Conf. Rec., 2003, pp. 1419. [14] E. Sanchis-Kilders, A. Ferreres, E. Maset, J. B. Ejea, V. Esteve, J. Jordan, A. Garrigos, and J. Calvente, Soft switching bidirectional converter for battery dischargingcharging, in Proc. IEEE APEC Conf. Rec., 2006, pp. 603609. [15] I.-D. Kim, S.-H. Paeng, J.-W. Ahn, E.-C. Nho, and J.-S. Ko, New bidirectional ZVS PWM Sepic/Zeta DCDC converter, in Proc. IEEE ISIE Conf. Rec., 2007, pp. 555560. [16] L. Schuch, C. Rech, H. L. Hey, H. A. Grundlinggrundling, H. Pinheiro, and J. R. Pinheiro, Analysis and design of a new high-efciency bidirectional integrated ZVT PWM converter for DC-bus and battery-bank interface, IEEE Trans. Ind. Appl., vol. 42, no. 5, pp. 13211332, Sep. 2006. [17] C. Da Cunha Duarte and I. Barbi, A new family of ZVS-PWM activeclamping DC-to-DC boost converters: Analysis, design, and experimentation, IEEE Trans. Power Electron., vol. 12, no. 5, pp. 824831, Sep. 1997. [18] Y. Jang, M. M. Jovanovic, and C.-C. Wen, Design considerations and performance evaluation of a 3 kW, soft-switched boost converter with active snubber, in Proc. IEEE INTELEC Conf. Rec., 1998, pp. 678684. [19] H. M. Suryawanshi, M. R. Ramteke, K. L. Thakre, and V. B. Borghate, Unity-power-factor operation of three-phase ACDC soft-switched converter based on boost active clamp topology in modular approach, IEEE Trans. Power Electron., vol. 23, no. 1, pp. 229236, Jan. 2008.

Authorized licensed use limited to: Malaiyappan Maruthamuthu. Downloaded on October 6, 2009 at 07:29 from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.