Multi-Input Bidirectional DC-DC Converter

Combining DC-Link and Magnetic-Coupling

for Fuel Cell Systems
H. Tao, A. Kotsopoulos, J. L. Duarte, and M. A. M. Hendrix
Department of Electrical Engineering
Eindhoven University of Technology
5600 MB Eindhoven, The Netherlands
Email: h.tao@tue.nl

Abstract— This paper presents a new multi-input bidirectional

dc-dc converter which connects a fuel cell, storage and load by a Multi-input
Fuel Cell Bidirectional Local
combination of a dc-link and magnetic-coupling. A boost-dual- Inverter
Stack DC-DC AC Load
half-bridge and a bidirectional direct-connected switching cell are
Converter
used. The topology is simple and only needs six power switches.
The load and the sources are galvanically isolated. Furthermore,
the proposed converter draws/injects smooth current from the
fuel cell and the supercapacitor. The system is suitable for Storage Grid
medium-power applications where simple topology, autonomous
operation, compact packaging, and low cost are required.
Different control schemes to manage power flow are proposed and Fig. 1. A fuel cell system for domestic applications. System structure: a
compared. Simulation and experimental results that verify the multi-input bidirectional converter manages the power flow between the fuel
effectiveness of the topology and its control scheme are presented. cell generator, storage and load.
Moreover, it is shown that the idea of combining the dc-link and
magnetic-coupling can be further developed to a general topology preferably be operated in current mode, aiming at drawing a
for multi-port bidirectional dc-dc converters. smooth dc current from the fuel cell.
A number of single-input single-output bidirectional dc-dc
I. INTRODUCTION converter topologies have been developed in recent years. Some
soft-switching full-bridge bidirectional converters are
Recently, the investigation of fuel cell based energy
developed [1]-[3], but they suffer from high voltage ripples and
generation systems has become a hot topic for hybrid vehicles
thus need an extra voltage clamping circuit. A naturally
and distributed generation. Fuel cells are particularly interesting
soft-switched bidirectional dc-dc converter was proposed in [4]
in the field of sustainable energy because of their
and [5]. This converter has the advantages of simple circuit
environmentally friendly energy conversion. However, the slow
topology and soft-switching without additional devices; thus it
transient response of the fuel cell requires auxiliary storage
is promising for auxiliary power supplies in fuel cell vehicles
elements like batteries and supercapacitors. Fig. 1 shows a
and power generation. However, for the combination of fuel
possible fuel cell based system for domestic applications, which
cell, storage and load, a multi-input bidirectional converter best
will work either in stand-alone mode or grid-connected. The
satisfies the requirements from the viewpoint of centralized
core of the system is the multi-input bidirectional dc-dc
control, low cost, high reliability, and compact packaging. The
converter that interconnects power sources and storage elements
multi-input topologies for combining diverse sources found in
and manages the power flow. The requirements of such a
literature are by means of either dc-link [6]-[9] or
converter include galvanic isolation between the load and the
magnetic-coupling [10]-[12].
fuel cell, bidirectional power flow, capability to match different
voltage levels, fast response satisfying the transient load In this paper, a new converter for fuel cell systems is
demand, etc. proposed. As shown in Fig. 2, the converter topology makes use
of the dc-link and magnetic-coupling. It can also be viewed as
The power output of the fuel cell is controllable and may be
an extension of the circuit presented in [5]. In our application the
varied to match load conditions so the storage only needs to
converter is considered to be multi-input. That is to say, it
satisfy the transient energy required while the generator power
should be capable of connecting three ports: the fuel cell, the
is adjusted. Therefore, a supercapacitor should be capable of
supercapacitor and the load (The load RL in Fig. 2 represents the
satisfying the energy storage requirements in a fuel cell system.
equivalent power feeding the inverter.) with galvanic isolation
Usually, there is a maximum current ripple limit for the proper
between the load and the sources. The advantage of the
operation of fuel cells. Thus a interfacing converter should
proposed converter is that it only needs six power switches,
which makes it attractive because of low cost, reliability, and

IAS 2005 2021 0-7803-9208-6/05/$20.00 © 2005 IEEE

 VDC VLOAD
iLOAD
S1 S3 C1 S5 C3
LSC i1 LS1 LS2
iSC
LFC iFC v1 v2 CL RL
VSC
+
Super VFC S2 S4 1:n S6 C4
Fuel C2
capacitor
Cell

HB1 HB2 HB3

Fig. 2. Proposed bidirectional dc-dc converter for fuel cell systems. The bridges are represented by HB1 (stands for half-bridge), HB2 and HB3 respectively.

simplicity. Moreover, the proposed converter draws continuous fuel cell, whose characteristic is already taken into account. This
current from the fuel cell and supercapacitor, which will be is detailed later.
favorable operating conditions. Detailed analysis and power
flow management are presented in the following sections. B. Principles of Operation
Fig. 3 shows the gate control signals for six power switches.
II. TOPOLOGY DESCRIPTION AND OPERATING PRINCIPLES HB1 is PWM-controlled. The variation of the supercapacitor
voltage is matched by the appropriate duty cycle of HB1:
A. Topology Description
Depending on applicable local standards, systems will often VDC − VSC
require isolation between the fuel cell generator and the load in D= (1)
VDC
domestic applications. The ac output, which feeds ac loads, e.g.
50 Hz, 230 V, normally requires a 400 V dc voltage to feed an
inverter, while fuel cell generators and supercapacitor cells are where VDC is the dc-link voltage and VSC is the voltage of the
low voltage. Serial connections are needed to obtain higher supercapacitor. HB2 and HB3 switch at 50% fixed duty cycle
voltage and voltage balancing is required if many cells are and their gate signals are shifted with respect to each other by an
connected in series. Hence, a transformer to boost the low fuel angle ϕ, which is positive when gate signal of HB3 is lagging
cell voltage to match a 400 V output voltage is desirable. In that of HB2. Each half-bridge is driven by a pair of
addition, the dc-ac stage (which is a part of the load, not shown complementary gate control signals. In addition, as shown in
in Fig. 2) operates in a manner where it expects a stiff dc input Fig. 3 the PWM carrier signal for HB1 and HB2 are shifted
voltage and extracts/injects a constant power. Thus the 180o; thus they are interleaved, which achieves a minimum
converter should be able to control the output dc voltage with a current ripple for the dc-link capacitors, C1 and C2. This
very fast dynamic response. benefits the design of dc-link capacitor from the viewpoint of
cost and size. A relatively small capacitance is needed.
Taking these requirements into account, as shown in Fig. 2,
the proposed converter consists of a boost-dual-half-bridge The power flow between the dc-link capacitor and the load is
(HB2 and HB3) and a bidirectional direct-connected switching controlled by the phase shift between the two half-bridges, HB2
cell (HB1) interfacing the supercapacitor. The isolation and HB3. The leakage inductance of the transformer, LS1 and
transformer links HB1 and HB2 with HB3. HB1 and HB2 are LS2, are acting as energy transfer elements. The power flowing to
linked together at the dc-link capacitor C1 and C2. The
transformer is multi-functional. It isolates the load and the
sources, and boosts the low dc-link voltage to high load side π
voltage. In addition to that, the leakage inductance is used as an variable S1
energy transfer element. The operation of HB1 can be divided duty
into two modes: boost mode and buck mode. In the buck mode cycle D HB1
S2
the supercapacitor sinks surplus power, whereas in the boost
mode power flows from the supercapacitor to the load. The S3
possible operation of the HB2 and HB3 is also bidirectional. The
power flow of the fuel cell, however, is not bidirectional and it is HB2
50% S4
preferable that the fuel cell always operates at maximum power duty
in order to achieve maximum utilization of the fuel. The low cycle S5
current ripple is achieved both for the fuel cell and the
supercapacitor due to the current source structure of this HB3
S6
converter. To make it clear, the circuit in Fig. 2 is a front-end ϕ ωt
converter. It does not need any additional stage to interface the
Fig. 3. Gate control signals for six power switches.

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the load side is given by [13] [13]. In this case the shape of the current waveform is a
trapezoidal.
VDCVLOAD  ϕ  The current of each switch is illustrated in Fig. 5, where for
P= ϕ 1 −  (2)
nω LS π  simplicity the slope of the voltages and currents during the

switching transitions (resonant processes) are not shown. A
close study reveals that the average current stress of S4 is much
where ω = 2πfS (fS is the switching frequency), n is the higher than that of S3 when the power is flowing from fuel to the
transformer turns ratio and LS is the total leakage inductance load, whereas current stress of S5 and S6 are the same. This is
referred to the primary, and VLOAD is the load side dc voltage. because of the boost dual half-bridge configuration. Referring to
The power flow is bidirectional. According to (2), the output the definition in Fig. 4, the ON-time conducting current of each
power is related to the phase shift angle and leakage inductance main device is given by
when duty cycle and switching frequency are fixed. A smaller
leakage inductance leads to a smaller phase shift angle to
transfer the same amount power. Therefore the leakage (and
possibly external) inductance can be designed according to the v1
expected phase shift at the desired power rating. A negative
phase shift results in a negative power flow. The maximum v'2
power flow occurs at ϕ = π/2. However, in practice the i1
maximum phase shift is limited to ±π/4 in order to limit the iFC
amount of reactive power.
For a better understanding of the operating principle of the iS3
proposed converter, the boost-dual-half-bridge converter is
analyzed separately. The primary referred circuit model is
illustrated in Fig. 4. This topology is actually a combination of
iS4
dual-active-bridge (DAB) [13] implemented with half-bridges
(HB2 and HB3) and a boost half-bridge that consists of S3, S4,
C1, C2 and LFC. HB2 has two functions. First, it boosts the fuel iS5
cell voltage VFC to the dc-link voltage VDC. Second, it is a
half-bridge inverter to produce high frequency ac voltage. Since iS6
HB2 operates at a fixed 50% duty cycle, the following relation t
always stands: ϕ
t1 t2 t3 t4
ω
VDC = 2VFC . (3) S3 S5 S4 S6
off off off off
Fig. 5 plots the ideal waveforms. Both HB2 and HB3 Fig. 5. Idealized waveforms of the boost-dual-half-bridge converter with a
normal load (positive phase shift).
produce a square-wave high frequency ac voltage, v1 and v2.
They are applied to the primary and secondary of the
transformer respectively, and shifted with respect to each other v1
by ϕ. The current waveform, i1, is determined by the phase shift
and voltage relationship of v1 and v2. The optimal case is that the v'2
primary-referred peak value of v2 is equal to v1. This requires the iFC
transformer turns ratio to be designed according to

VLOAD i1
iS3
VDC = . (4)
n

Then, the peak current is minimized and soft-switching is iS4

achieved over the entire phase shift region (−π/2 ≤ ϕ ≤ π/2)
VDC VLOAD iS5

C1 S5 iS5
S3 iS3 C3
LS iS6
LFC i t
FC i1 v1 v'2 CL RL ϕ
t1 t2 t3 t4
VFC ω
S4 C2 S6 iS6
Fuel iS4 C4
S5 S3 S6 S4
Cell
off off off off
HB2 HB3 Fig. 6. Idealized waveforms of the boost-dual-half-bridge converter with a
Fig. 4. Primary referred boost-dual-half-bridge converter. regenerative load (negative phase shift).

IAS 2005 2023 0-7803-9208-6/05/$20.00 © 2005 IEEE

 iS3_ON (t ) = i1 (t ) − iFC (t )
iS4_ON (t ) = −i1 (t ) + iFC (t )
. (5)
iS5_ON (t ) = −i1 (t )
iS6_ON (t ) = i1 (t )
Because iFC should always be positive, S4 clearly carries
more current than S3. Therefore, devices with different current
ratings could be chosen for S3 and S4.
In the case of a regenerative load (Fig. 6), the power flow is
reversed. The regenerative power together with the power
supplied by the fuel cell charges the supercapacitor.
III. ANALYSIS OF SOFT-SWITCHING CONDITIONS
A. ZVS Conditions for HB2 and HB3
The commutation of HB2 and HB3 is similar to the
diode-to-switch commutation mode of the phase-shifted
full-bridge dc-dc converter. The soft-switching conditions for
each switch depend on the magnitude of current i1 and iFC at the
switching instances, i.e. the main devices are turned off with a
positive current flowing. Then the current diverts to the opposite
diode which allows the in-coming MOSFET to be switched on
under zero voltage. In order to achieve zero-voltage-switching
(ZVS), the currents should obey
i1 (t1 ) > iFC (t1 )
 high power applications. Nevertheless, the ADRP could be a
i1 (t2 ) < 0
 . (6)
i1 (t3 ) < iFC (t3 )
i1 (t4 ) > 0
In the case of a regenerative load (Fig. 6), i1 changes its
polarity. Similarly, the soft-switch conditions are that
i1 (t1 ) < 0
i (t ) > i (t )
1 2 FC 2
 . (7)
i
1 3 (t ) > 0
i1 (t4 ) < iFC (t4 )
By nature, ZVS conditions are achieved over the entire
phase shift region for HB2 and HB3 in either direction of power
flow [5]. However, the dv/dt at switching instants of S3 and S4
are different because of the difference of the turn-off currents.
As a result, the allowable minimum and maximum dv/dt should
be designed according to application requirements.
In addition, the ripple voltage on VDC will not deteriorate the
soft-switching conditions for HB2 and HB3 because as long as
the average value of VDC is equal to the primary-referred value
of VLOAD, ZVS is guaranteed for HB2 and HB3. Therefore,
smaller capacitors are again allowed for the dc-link.
B. ZVS Condition for HB1
HB1 is designed only to match the transient power. An
average zero power/current is drawn from the supercapacitor. At
IAS 2005 2024
most time S1 and S2 are soft-switched themselves because of
the ripple current through LFC. If the average current of the
supercapacitor is within the region:
∆I SC ∆I
− ≤ I SC ≤ SC
2 2
(8)
V (V − VSC )
∆I SC = SC DC
LSC f S VDC
where ∆ISC is the magnitude of the ripple current and fS is the
switching frequency. In this case, because the instantaneous
inductor current iFC is bidirectional over one switching cycle, S1
and S2 are turned off with a positive current flowing. Therefore
they are soft-switched.
However, HB1 is not always naturally soft-switched. If the
average current ISC exceeds the limit (8), the diode-to-switch
commutation fails because the instantaneous inductor current iSC
is unidirectional in this situation. Thus hard-switching occurs.
In order to improve the switching conditions for S1 and S2,
an auxiliary diode resonant pole (ADRP) [14] is proposed. Fig.
7 shows the configuration of the circuit. It is rather simple and
does not need active components nor extra control circuitry. The
auxiliary resonant components Dr1, Dr2, Cr1, and Cr2 are
paralleled to HB1. They help S1 and S2 to be soft-switched by a
freewheeling current. However, the continuously freewheeling
current causes additional losses in the resonant inductor and
power switches, which is a problem that should be considered in
good solution in the case of domestic applications (around
5kW), where simple control and high reliability is important.
To make use of the pole formed by the two dc-link
capacitors, using the auxiliary resonant commutated pole
(ARCP) [15] to achieve ZVS is also considered, but it is not
suitable for this case because the average supercapacitor current
is not periodic. So this requires a very large dc-link capacitance
to stabilize the pole voltage. Alternatively, the zero voltage
transition (ZVT) PWM technique is also applicable. However, it
needs two extra switches for this bidirectional application and it
needs complicated control circuitry. Other control techniques
like variable frequency critical continuous current mode can
also achieve ZVS for HB1; however this method increases the
voltage ripple on the dc-link capacitors.
IV. CONTROL SCHEME AND POWER FLOW MANAGEMENT
As mentioned before, the load side voltage should be stiff in
order to feed a voltage source inverter. Therefore the output
S1
Dr1 Cr1
LSC iSC Lr
+ Super
capacitor S2 Dr1 Cr1
Fig. 7. The auxiliary diode resonant pole (ADRP) for S1 and S2.
0-7803-9208-6/05/$20.00 © 2005 IEEE

VLOAD
V*LOAD - ϕ
+
Σ PID
Hybrid
Limiter Bidirectional
V*DC D Converter
+
Σ PID
- current-mode control. Therefore, current-mode control is more
VDC
Fig. 8. Control scheme: fuel cell indirect voltage-mode control. V*LOAD and V*DC
are the reference signals for VLOAD and VDC, respectively.
voltage must be regulated with a fast response. Simultaneously,
the power or the current of the fuel cell should be controlled.
There are two variables that can be used as control inputs,
namely phase shift, ϕ, and duty cycle, D (indicated in Fig. 3). A
number of control schemes can be realized.
A. Indirect Voltage-Mode Control
Fig. 8 shows the voltage-mode control. In this scheme, both
VLOAD and VDC are regulated and the fuel cell power is controlled
indirectly via the dc-link voltage. The output voltage is assumed
to be regulated by a PID controller by the adjustment of the
phase shift. A higher demand of the load leads to a larger phase
shift. The dc-link voltage VDC is regulated by the duty cycle of
HB1. The dc-link voltage is designed in such a way that VDC is
twice that of the fuel cell terminal voltage at nominal load
(normally it is the maximum power of the fuel cell). Thus by
imposing a fuel cell terminal voltage, which is equal to half of
VDC, the power drawn from the fuel cell is controlled. This is
further explained by the modeled characteristic of a 500 W
polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) fuel cell demonstrated in
Fig. 10. This figure illustrates the P-V and I-V curve with the
terminal voltage of the fuel cell as control variable. In addition,
Fig. 12 shows the equivalent dynamic circuit model of the PEM
fuel cell [16]. The power/current drawn from the fuel cell is a
nonlinear function of the terminal voltage. Thus it is possible to
control the power of a fuel cell indirectly by controlling the
dc-link voltage VDC.
B. Direct Current-Mode Control
Fig. 9 shows another control scheme, which is referred to as
current-mode control. The fuel cell current is regulated directly
by a PID controller and the output of the current regulator is the
VLOAD
_
+ ϕ
V*LOAD Σ PID
Limiter
+ +
I*FC Σ PID
_ _
IFC
Fig. 9. Control scheme: fuel cell direct current-mode control. V*LOAD and I*FC are the reference signals for VLOAD and IFC, respectively.
IAS 2005
reference of the dc-link voltage controller. With an outer
current-loop and an inner voltage-loop, both the dc-link voltage
and the fuel cell current are controlled. The output voltage VLOAD
is again controlled by regulating the phase shift ϕ. The P-I and
V-I curve of the fuel cell are demonstrated in Fig. 11. In this
scheme, the fuel cell current is explicitly regulated. This is
preferable for the fuel cell because it will behave better under
promising for the proposed converter. However, in this control
scheme, the parameters of the controller should be carefully
designed; otherwise the system could be unstable. Further
investigation will pay attention to the optimization of the
controller parameters.
C. Power Flow Management
In both control schemes, the power of the supercapacitor is
not directly controlled. It sinks or sources the power difference
between the load and the fuel cell. The deficiency or surplus is
managed automatically by the proposed control schemes. For
example, in the case that the load asks more power than the fuel
cell can supply, the dc-link voltage attempts to drop.
Consequently, by the regulation of the controller, the duty cycle
D attempts to become larger. As a result, a current will be
extracted from the supercapacitor to charge the dc-link capacitor
in order to maintain the dc-link voltage. Hence, the power
deficiency is supplied by the supercapacitor automatically. In
the case of excess power, the supercapacitor is charged. This is
an autonomous system matching the load variations while the
power of the fuel cell is kept at the same level. In addition, the
supercapacitor voltage is varying very slowly depending on the
load profile. The control circuit also automatically adjusts the
duty cycle to match this change according to (1). A detail that
should be pointed out here is that the supercapacitor voltage
should be limited. In the case that the supercapacitor is
over-charged/-discharged, by slightly adjusting the fuel cell
current reference level I*FC as shown in Fig. 9, the control circuit
is also be capable of charging or discharging the supercapacitor
with an average current:
I SC = ( PFC
*
− PLOAD ) / VSC . (9)
In both above control schemes the voltages on both sides,
VLOAD and VDC, are regulated. This would be an excellent
operating condition for the DAB converter, where a stable
equalized primary-referred voltage is required in order to realize
ZVS over entire phase shift region and minimize the peak
Hybrid
Bidirectional
Converter
D
Σ PID
VDC
2025 0-7803-9208-6/05/$20.00 © 2005 IEEE
 25 500
TABLE I. SIMULATION PARAMETERS

20 400
Description Parameter Value Unit
P-V curve Fuel cell voltage VFC 20 ~ 40 V
Load dc voltage VLOAD 400 V
Current (A)

Power (W)
15 300
I-V curve
Supercapacitor voltage VSC 20 ~ 35 V
dc-link voltage VDC 40 V
10 200 Fuel cell power PFC 500 W
Load power PLOAD 0 ~ 1000 W
5 100
Switching frequency fS 100 kHz
Transformer turns ratio n 10
LFC 10 µH
0
15 20 25 30 35
0
40
Inductance LSC 10 µH
Voltage (V) LS 0.5 µH

Fig. 10. Characteristic of the 500 W PEM fuel cell: P-V curve and I-V curve. The output voltage is regulated to a constant value, 400 V, while
50 500
the power delivered by the fuel cells remains unchanged at its
nominal value, 500 W. The currents of the fuel cell, the load and
the supercapacitor are shown in Fig. 14 during the transitions.
40
V-I curve P-I curve
400
They are representative for power since the voltage at each
terminal remains unchanged. Clearly, the controller is capable
of managing the power flow and it also shows a very fast
Voltage (V)

Power (W)

30 300

response to the load variations. During the transition the

20
10
0
0 5 10 15
Current (A)
Fig. 11. Characteristic of the 500 W PEM fuel cell: P-I curve and V-I curve.
current. Another advantage of the proposed converter is that the
regulation of phase shift and duty cycle is decoupled. Therefore
it is easy to control and implement.
V. SIMULATION AND EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
The converter and its control schemes were simulated with
PSIM6.0. The power level of the converter is in accordance with
the fuel cell (500W) in the laboratory. Parameters for the
simulation are listed in TABLE I.
Fig. 13 shows the simulation results of steady-state
operation with a normal load. The fuel cell simulation model is
implemented according to Fig. 12. Fig. 14(a) illustrates the
power flow with the current-mode control while a step load
variation takes place. The load changes from its normal level of
500 W to 1000 W at 2.5 ms, then turns back to 500 W at 5 ms.
200
deficiency of the power (500 W) is supplied by the
supercapacitor. Fig. 14(b) shows the charging process while the
load remains unchanged. In this case, the load remaining at 400
100
W, a step change on the reference signal I*FC at 3 ms results in
charging the supercapacitor with an average power of 100 W.
20
0
25
By returning the reference signal back to the original value at 5
ms, the charging process stops. However, the charging process
is only possible when the power consumed by the load is less
than the maximum power of the fuel cell.
The control schemes are implemented by a DSP. The
preliminary low power level prototype is rated at 500 W at 20
kHz switching frequency. The switching frequency is restricted
by the limit cycle due to the resolution of digitally implemented
phase shift. Future work in progress aims to increase the
switching frequency to 100 kHz with 0.1 degree resolution of
the phase shift. The PEM fuel cell (500 W @ 20 V, 25 A) is used
as a generator and a 145 F supercapacitor is used as the storage.

Rp Rs

0.23Ω 0.55Ω
Cdl
EFC 47V
270mF

Fig. 12. Equivalent dynamic circuit model of the 500 W PEM fuel cell. Fig. 13. Simulation results (note that waveforms are scaled and offset).

IAS 2005 2026 0-7803-9208-6/05/$20.00 © 2005 IEEE

 iLOAD
v1
iFC
v2

iSC iFC

i1

(a)

(a)
iFC

iLOAD
vS2

iSC
iSC

(b)

Fig. 14. Simulation results: (a) A step change in the load (from 500 W to 1000
W at 2.5 ms and then goes back to 500 W at 5 ms) while energy delivered by the (b)
fuel cell maintains constant. (b) A supercapacitor charging process while the
output load remains unchanged. The fuel cell power steps from 400 W to 500 W Fig. 15. Measurement results: (a) voltages across the transformer terminals and
from 3 ms to 5 ms, charging the supercapacitor with an average power of 100 current waveforms at a time base of 10µs/div. Trace 1: v1 (25 V/div), Trace 2: v2
W. Note that the load side current is scaled. (250 V/div), Trace 3: iFC (4 A/div), Trace 4: i1 (2 A/div measured at the
secondary side), and (b) Trace 1: drain to source voltage of S2 vS2 (25 V/div),
Measurement results of key waveforms are shown in Fig. 15. Trace 3: iSC (5 A/div).
Fig. 16 illustrates the response to a 35% step change in the load.
It is clear that iFC remains constant and the supercapacitor
supplies the deficiency of the power. Good correlation is found
between theoretical analysis, simulation, and experimental iFC
results.

VI. DISCUSSION
iLOAD
The converter concept in this paper can be further developed
to a general topology for the multi-port dc-dc converters. The
combination of the dc-link and magnetic-coupling method can
connect more sources, where loads and storage can be viewed as
sources as well. Fig. 17 illustrates the extended topology. Such a
iSC
multi-port converter integrates diverse sources together and
would be capable of managing the power flow and other
functionality by a centralized sophisticated control strategy. By
means of magnetic-coupling, power flow is controlled by phase
shift, whereas by means of dc-link connection, power flow can
be regulated by duty cycle, while one master module on the Fig. 16. Response to a step change in the load: Trace 2: iFC (10 A/div), Trace 3:
iLOAD (0.5 A/div, Trace 4: iSC (10 A/div).

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dc-link
Fig. 17. A general topology for multi-port dc-dc converter.
dc-link side should operate at 50% fixed duty cycle in order to [5]
generate a square-wave. Whether to integrate a source to the
system by dc-link or by magnetic-coupling depends on the
[6]
isolation requirements and voltage levels. A case in point is the
application in sustainable energy generation systems, where fuel
cells, photovoltaics, batteries, supercapacitors and loads should
be integrated by a multi-port bidirectional converter. [7]
VII. CONCLUSION
[8]
A new bidirectional multi-input converter based on the
combination of a dc-link and magnetic-coupling is proposed in
this paper. The new converter is simple and needs fewer power [9]
devices. Thus it is attractive for fuel cell and supercapacitor
applications at a medium-power level. Soft-switching
[10]
conditions are achieved for the two half-bridges in either
direction of power flow and the third half-bridge can also be
soft-switched by employing an auxiliary commutation circuit.
Two control schemes, referred to as indirect voltage-mode [11]
control and direct current-mode control, are proposed to manage
the power flow. Simulation results are given which verify the
control schemes. Experimental results validated the [12]
effectiveness of the proposed converter.
REFERENCES [13]
[1] K. Wang, et. al., “Bi-directional dc to dc converters for fuel cell systems,”
in Proc. IEEE workshop Power Electronics in Transportation, Oct. 1998,
pp. 47–51.
[14]
[2] L. Zhu, “A novel soft-commutating isolated boost full-bridge ZVS-PWM
dc-dc converter for bi-directional high power applications,” in Proc.
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