A Modified Non-Isolated Bidirectional DC-DC

Converter for EV/HEV’s traction drive systems

Bussa Vinod Kumar, Student Member, IEEE, R. K. Singh, Member, IEEE, and R. Mahanty, Member, IEEE
Department of Electrical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology (BHU) Varanasi, India

Abstract— High-power-density bidirectional dc–dc One of the main inspirations towards the HEV
converters consisting of buck-and-boost converters are drivetrain development is to increase the efficiency of the
extensively used in Electric Vehicles (EV)/Hybrid Electric
Vehicles (HEV) due to their smaller size and low cost. But drive system. Efficiency can be done by increasing the
conventional bidirectional dc-dc converter has a right half voltage level of EESS and thereby reducing the high
plane (RHP) zero in the open loop control to output voltage current and thus the associated losses.
transfer function in boost mode of operation. Due to this RHP
zero controller design is not simple for boost operation. A
modified non-isolated minimum phase bidirectional DC-DC
converter is presented in this paper. The bidirectional DC-DC
converter displays the minimum phase behavior due to the
complete exclusion of the RHP zero. Due to the minimum
phase behavior, the bidirectional DC-DC converter gives
excellent dynamic performance under heavy load
requirements. Simulation and experimental results are
presented to verify the modified non-isolated minimum phase
bidirectional DC-DC converter.
Index Terms- Right half plane (RHP) zero, Electric Vehicles
(EV)/Hybrid Electric Vehicles (HEV), electrical energy storage
system (EESS), bidirectional DC-DC converter

Fig.1. Power electronics interface in EV/HEV drives system.

I. INTRODUCTION
Increased petroleum prices and harmful emissions One method of increasing the voltage level of EESS is
leading to environmental degradation, the automobile by adding more number of cells in its battery pack.
industries have been focusing on alternate propulsion Although it increases the voltage level, it also increases the
systems since the past two decades. This lead to an weight, size, and cost of the system, which is not a desirable
exponential increase in the development of Electric Vehicle option for a vehicular application having constraints on size
(EV) and Hybrid Electric Vehicle (HEV) technologies. An and weight. Another alternative is to use a bidirectional dc-
EV draws electrical energy from the electrical energy dc converter. Bidirectional dc-dc converters boost up the
storage system (EESS) to generate traction power [1], voltage level of EESS to a higher voltage level and thus
whereas conventional vehicles draw the required energy reduce the current and associated losses. It also facilitates
from an internal combustion engine (ICE) engine for the provision for reverse power flow, back into the EESS
traction power. In the same, an HEV depends on an ICE as during regenerative braking and hence further increases the
well as an EESS. Thus an EV/HEV technology can efficiency. These two features of Bidirectional dc-dc
improve energy conversion efficiency and driving converter make it a better option for power conversion in
capability, simultaneously reducing the emission of the HEV drivetrain. Half bridge non-isolated bidirectional
harmful gasses into the atmosphere. During braking, dc-dc converter has lower device stress, lower losses and
electrical regeneration is possible from the integration of less no of components as compared to the bidirectional
EESS which can further increase the efficiency of the cascade, buck-boost and CUK converters [2]-[6]. However,
system. Many commercial vehicles consist of EESS half bridge non-isolated bidirectional dc-dc converter has a
(mostly battery packs) connected to the high voltage dc bus right half plane (RHP) zero in the open loop control to
through a bidirectional dc-dc converter [2]. The basic block output voltage transfer function in boost mode operation.
diagram of power electronics interface [3] in EV/HEV’s is Due to this RHP zero, controller design is complicated
shown in Fig. 1. during boost operation under heavy load requirements.

978-1-4673-8888-7/16/$31.00 ©2016 IEEE

In this paper, a modified non-isolated minimum phase Buck mode
bidirectional DC-DC converter is presented. Magnetic L1 L2
ibuck . VSN Boost mode . iboost
coupling is employed between the input and output filter
inductors. The converter uses a series Rd & Cd branch. This i1 S2
i2
branch damps out L1C1 resonance, and along with the help Cd
of magnetic coupling between the inductors, the RHP zero Cin Co Vboost
Vbuck S1 VC1
(in the case of boost operation) can be removed [7]. This C1
Rd
feature makes the converter a minimum-phase system
enabling a simple and linear control for boost operation [8]. (a)
Low-pass filters are used on both input and output sides of Boost mode
the converter to smoothen the battery current. The coupled L2
ibuck L1
. VSN . iboost
inductor with series Rd & Cd branch further facilitates the use
of smaller inductors, reducing the system’s weight and S2
volume. i1 i2
Cd VCd
Section II of the paper describes the non-isolated Vbuck Cin
S1 VC1
Co RoH Vboost
minimum phase bidirectional converter. Section III of the C1
Rd
paper describes the small signal dynamic analysis of the
converter. Verification of the concept is done in Section IV. id ic ico (b)
Finally, a conclusion is mentioned in Section V. Buck mode

ibuck L1
. VSN L2 . iboost
II. NON-ISOLATED MINIMUM PHASE BIDIRECTIONAL S2
DC-DC CONVERTER i1 i2
Cd VCd
RoL
A. Synthesis and working of the converter Vbuck S1 VC1
Cin Vboost
Co
The circuit presented in this paper is extracted from the C1
Rd
traditional boost converter [8,9]. It is realized as follows
id iC
which is shown in Fig. 2(a). It consists of two bidirectional (c)
switches with inbuilt body diodes to avoid the interruption
of the inductor current. It is a magnetically coupled from Fig. 2. (a) Non-isolated minimum phase bidirectional DC-DC
converter. (b) Boost mode (c) Buck mode.
the input and output side inductors. It has a series Rd & Cd
branch across the intermediate capacitor to damp out L1C1 OFF), the battery is charged, inductor current iL1 increases
resonance and the complete removal of RHP zero in the and switch node voltage VSN is equal to the output voltage
boost mode of operation. Traditional bidirectional dc-dc Vbuck. During D1 state (S2 is OFF and S1 is ON), Vboost and
converter operating in the continuous conduction mode the inductor current (iL1) decrease, and the switch node
voltage VSN becomes zero. The dc transfer function of the
(CCM) requires a larger valued filter inductor. Thus the
converter in this mode is the same as that in the standard
inductor size increases, and it also slows down the transient buck converter [7], i.e. = .
response and the mode transitioning. But the presented
D. Steady state analysis of the converter in forward
circuit topology uses same core for designing the inductors
motoring mode
which reduce the volume, increases the transient response
The steady state voltage and current expressions have
and improves the dynamic performance also. It is operated
been extracted from the volt-sec balance of inductor, and
in boost mode for forward motoring and buck mode during
charge-sec balance of capacitors principles and the final
electrical regeneration.
steady state expressions are shown in (1), where D is duty
B. Forward motoring mode of the converter ratio of the converter during motoring mode in the
Fig. 2(b) shows the operation of the converter under switching interval .
boost mode for forward motoring operation. It can be seen
that the switch node voltage VSN is zero during D state (S1 = = =
is ON and S2 is OFF) and equals Vboost during D1 state (S1 1−
is OFF and S2 is ON). The dc transfer function of the
converter in this mode is the same as that in the standard =
(1 − )
boost converter [7], i.e., = .
= =
( )
(1)
C. Regenerative braking mode of the converter
Fig. 2(c) shows the operation of the converter under E. Designing of passive elements
buck mode for regenerative braking operation of the
vehicle. It confirms that, during D state (S2 is ON and S1 is The design equations of passive elements are obtained
as follows:
 Where M is mutual Inductance between L1 and L2, d is
=
∆ (1 − ) 1 when S1 ON & S2 OFF and d is 0 when S1 OFF and S2
ON. After applying perturbation and linearization technique
to the above equations leads to following state space model.
∆ (1 − )
= K =A +B + [(A − A )X + (B − B )V ]

= (K A) + (K B) + [K (A − A )X + (B
= − B )V ]
(1 − )∆

∆ Let (K−1 A) = S1 ; (K B) = S ;
= (2)
∆ K [(A − A )X + (B − B )V ] = S

The design procedure of series Rd Cd network [8] has =S +S +S (4)

explained briefly in the following manner
1) Consider and values from the design Where
expressions from (2). L −M 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0
2) Choose “n” value to satisfy the below the −M L 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
inequality K= 0 0 C 0 0 ; A − A = −1 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 C 0 0 0 0 0 0
2(2 + ) 0 0 0 0 C 0 0 0 0 0
<<
0 0 −(1 − D) 0 0
0 0 1 −1 0
3) After the inequality verification, calculate the (1 − D) −1 −1 0 1
R R
damping capacitor from the following relation A=
−1
0 1 0 R 0
=
0 0 1 0 −1
4) Finally calculate the damping resistor from the R R

below equation B = [1 0 0 0 0] ; B − B = [0 0 0 0 0]

= X = [I I V V V ] ;
d
= [ı̃ ı̃ v v v ]
dt
(4 + 3 )(2 + )
=
2 (4 + ) A. control-to-Output voltage transfer function
The open loop duty cycle-to-output voltage transfer
Where = function of the converter can be derived as follows from the
(4).
III. SMALL SIGNAL DYNAMIC MODELING
= [0 0 0 1 0][sI − S ] S (5)
In this section, (~) specifies the small signal ac variation
of the signal. Upper case specifies the steady state value and
lower case specifies the instantaneous value. Assume there After solving (5), the following control to output voltage
are no parasitic effects. The differential equations for the transfer function is obtained as
bidirectional converter in the boost mode have shown below = ∗ (6)
using state-space averaging technique.

Where is a peak of saw tooth wave, numerator and

− = − (1 − ) denominator coefficients of (6) are given in Appendix.
In a similar way, the control to output voltage transfer
function of the converter in the buck mode is shown below.
− = −
= ∗ (7)

= − − + (1 − ) Numerator and denominator coefficients of (7) are given

in Appendix.
To show the minimum phase performance of the
= −
converter, pole-zero plots are shown in Fig.6 for the
following data, Vbuck = 12 V, Vboost = 48 V, Po = 250 W, Fs
= − (3) = 100 kHz, ripple currents = 25 % and Voltage ripple = 3
%.
 (a) (b)

Fig. 4 Step-down load changes from 250 W to 150 W at t = 0.25

s (a) boost mode. (b) buck mode.

of the bidirectional converter is shown for step-down load

change and reference voltage changes in the boost and buck
mode of operations. The step-down load changes from ROH
= 9.216 Ω (250 W) to 15.36 Ω (150 W) at t = 0.25 s for the
boost mode of operation is shown in Fig. 4(a). The step-
down load changes from ROL= 0.576 Ω (250 W) to 0.96 Ω
(150 W) at t = 0.25 s for the buck mode of operation is
shown in Fig. 4(b). Similarly, the step-down reference
voltage changes at t = 0.25 s from Vref = 4 V to 3 V for
(b)
boost mode and buck modes of operations are shown in Fig.
Fig. 6 Pole-zero plots of open loop control to output voltage 5(a) and Fig. 5(b) respectively.
transfer function (a) boost mode (b) buck mode.
From Fig. 6, it can be observed that the proposed
converter does not have any RHP zero and hence it shows
minimum phase nature.

IV. VERIFICATION
A. Simulation results of non-isolated minimum
phase bidirectional DC-DC converter

The simulation of non-isolated minimum phase

bidirectional DC-DC converter is carried out on the (a)
following data; 12/48 V, 250 W, 100 KHz, ripple currents
= 25 % and voltage ripple = 3 %. The dynamic performance

(b)

(a) Fig. 5. Step-down reference voltage changes from 4 V to 3 V at t

= 0.25 s (a) boost mode. (b) buck mode.
In the boost mode, Vboost = 48 V at Vref = 4 V. In the buck heavy load requirements in the EV/HEV’s drive systems.
mode, Vbuck = 12 V at Vref = 4 V. From the simulation results, it can be observed that the
bidirectional converter had an excellent dynamic response
B. Experimental results of non-isolated minimum in both boost and buck mode of operations for the step-
phase bidirectional DC-DC converter down load change and reference voltages. The concept is
To validate the topology, scale down experimental results validated through simulation and experimental results.
are given in this section for the both boost and buck mode
of operations. The open loop experimentation of non-
isolated minimum phase bidirectional DC-DC converter is REFERENCES
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Ibuck
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Vbuck
APPENDIX
(b)
=
Fig. 6. (a) Steady state experimental results of bidirectional DC- = ( + )− + (1 − )
DC converter in the boost mode at D = 0.75 (b) In the buck mode
at D = 0.2. = (1 − )( + )−

V. CONCLUSION = (1 − )

A non-isolated minimum phase bidirectional DC-DC = ( − )

converter is presented in this paper. In the presented
= ( − )+ ( − )+ (
converter RHP zero is completely eliminated. Thus it − )
displays minimum phase behavior. Due to the minimum
=( + + )( − )
phase behavior, the controller design becomes simple for
boost operation (acceleration of EV) and buck operation =( + )( − )+( + ) −2 (1
(braking of EV). The non-isolated bidirectional DC-DC − ) + (1 − )
converter gives excellent dynamic performance under
=( + + ) + −2 (1 − ) −2 (1
− ) +( + ) (1 − )

= + (1 − ) − 2(1 − ) + (1 − )

= (1 − )

= ( + )+ −

= + −

= ( − )

= ( − )+ ( − )+ (
− )

=( + + )( − )

=( + )( − )+ ( + )
−2 +

=( + + ) + + −2 (
+ )+

= −2 + +