A Three-Level Buck-Boost Converter with Planar Coupled Inductor and Common-Mode Noise Suppression

Yuliang Cao, Yijie Bai, Vladimir Mitrovic, Boran Fan, Dong Dong, Rolando Burgos, Dushan Boroyevich, Radha Sree Krishna Moorthy, Madhu Chinthavali

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

22 Scopus citations

Abstract

The demand for a bidirectional dc-dc converter with a flexible dc bus is driven by the fast development of renewable energy system, transportation electrification, and microgrid. In order to accommodate different dc bus, two-stage ac-dc-dc architecture has been widely used, and the dc output regulation was handled by a rear-end dc-dc converter. If the galvanic isolation is not required, the four-switch buck-boost (FSBB) converter with quadrangle control is a good candidate because of the bidirectional noninverting output, step-up/down capability, and zero voltage switching. However, to achieve the minimum rms current and soft switching, the calculation of quadrangle control is complicated and often requires the resource-consuming loop-up tables, or additional high-frequency current detection circuits. Moreover, due to the unbalanced circuit topology, the common-mode (CM) noise is another concern. In this article, a symmetric three-level (3-L) buck-boost converter was first proposed to suppress the CM noise. To increase the power density and efficiency, a planar coupled inductor was designed for this 3-L buck-boost converter with a 30% winding loss reduction. And then, to realize a simple close-loop output control, a real-time simplified minimum rms current calculation for quadrangle modulation was found without look-up tables or ZCD circuits. Based on this simplified output control, a decoupled mid-points balance control for both input and output sides were also proposed. Finally, the simplified close-loop control, the decoupled active balance control, and the CM mode noise reduction were all verified by a 30 kHz 50 kW 3-L buck-boost converter. Compared with the typical FSBB converter, the proposed 3-L buck-boost converter has a up to 25 dB CM noise reduction from 150 kHz to 30 MHz. This article is accompanied by two videos demonstrating the effect of decoupled active balance control.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)10483-10500
Number of pages18
JournalIEEE Transactions on Power Electronics
Volume38
Issue number9
DOIs
StatePublished - Sep 1 2023

Funding

This work was supported by Oak Ridge National Laboratory and funded by the Department of EnergyOffice of Electricity's, Transformer Resilience andAdvanced Components program led by the program manager A. Pereira.

FundersFunder number
Department of EnergyOffice of Electricity
Oak Ridge National Laboratory

    Keywords

    • Common-mode (CM) noise reduction
    • decoupled active balance control
    • four-switch buck-boost (FSBB) converter
    • planar coupled inductor
    • quadrangle control
    • simplified minimum rms current calculation
    • three-level (3-L) buck-boost converter
    • zero voltage switching (ZVS)

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