A Family Of Hybrid Boosting Voltage Converters

Brief Description

Many industries, such as solar cells and energy storage, will be greatly benefited by high-gain step-up/step-down converters.UCI researchers have developed a family of hybrid boosting converters (HBC) that combine a base bipolar voltage multiplier (BVM) and one of several possible inductive switching cores to address various converter functionalities.

Suggested uses

DC-DC voltage conversion applications such as renewable energy, high-voltage power sources, energy storage, and high-power conversion

Features/Benefits

·Improved ConversionProperties: all HBC family members exhibit high gain, wide regulation range, low output ripple, easy expansion, low cost, and high-efficiency

·Variable Configuration: use of different inductive switching cores varies functionalities and available control strategies

·Extensions: configurations can be extended for bidirectional power delivery, DC-AC conversion, and DC micro-grid applications

Technology Description

DC-DC converters are an important category of power electronics which change DC electricity from one voltage to another.Step-up converters that increase voltage by 10x or more are particularly important for many applications, including renewable energy, high-voltage discharge (x-rays and discharge lamps), energy storage, and electrical power grids. Previously, inductor- or switched capacitor-based converters were used, but each has drawbacks.Inductor-based converters are bulky and have low gains while switched capacitor converters can be unstable and have many components.

UCI researchers have developed a family of hybrid boosting converters for high-gain applications.The invention integrates inductive switching cores of various functionalities and control strategies with a bipolar voltage multiplier (BVM) to produce Basic, Symmetrical, Isolated, and Tapped-inductor variants. The minimized component count, low component ratings, tunable voltage gain and expendable structure of proposed topologies provide solid candidates for low cost, small volume, high-gain, high-power and high-efficiency DC-DC converters.

State Of Development

The family of hybrid boosting converters has been fabricated and characterized.

Related Materials

• Wu, Bin, et al. “A New Hybrid Boosting Converter for Renewable Energy Applications.” IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics, vol. 31, no. 2, 2016, pp. 1203–1215., doi:10.1109/tpel.2015.2420994. - 04/08/2015

Patent Status