Certain investigations on DC DC converter incorporating control techniques for performance enhancement

Abstract

Environmental issues and fast depleting nature of fossil fuels have created opportunities for the use of alternate clean and green renewable energies from photovoltaic, wind and fuel cells. These renewable energy sources needs DC-DC converter as front-end converter for power conversion to suit different application requirements. Also many industrial applications like battery bank charging, DC drives, high power LED lighting system and DC micro grid systems requires the application of DC-DC converters. Topology, conversion stages, high efficiency, power handling capability, high voltage gain and fast acting controllers are the key requirements for enhancing the performance of DC-DC converters. Regulation of output voltage of DC-DC converter for input and load fluctuations at different operating conditions is also another domain of research. Investigation of suitable DC-DC converters and incorporation of matching controllers for different applications are dealt in this research work. In line with proposed objective, Digital current controlled ZVS half-bridge DC-DC boost converter with voltage quadrupler for solar PV systems has been proposed. Half-bridge topology has been used due to high power handling ability. Voltage quadrupler increases the voltage available at the output of transformer and Zero Voltage Switching (ZVS) which is achieved without using additional components reduces the converter size. Digital current controller controls the current of converter within suitable limits maintaining output voltage. These improved properties make the converter suitable for solar PV system based applications. newline