A DSP Based Controller for High Power

Dual-Phase DC-DC Converters

Xin Guo, Xuhui Wen and Ermin Qiao

Institute of Electrical Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

e-mail: guoxin@mail.iee.ac.cn

Abstract—High power DC/DC converter has become the

essential part of the distributed power system in fuel cell
powered electric vehicles and stationary power systems.
This paper proposes a topology of high power Dual-Phase
Boost DC/DC Converter for Fuel Cell Power Supply. The
principle of the converter operating in BOOST mode are
analyzed thoroughly. A 150KW converter was designed.
The converter was adopted DSP-based fully digital dual-
loop control. The efficiency of the converter is over 97%, the
experimental results realized perfect effect.

Keywords-Dual-Phase DC/DC converter; Electrical Vehicle;

Interleaved Boost converter; PWM
Figure 1. The power supply system of FCEV
I. INTRODUCTION
experimental results show that the converter has excellent
Fuel Cell Electric Vehicle (FCEV) is believed to be the electrical characteristics.
ultimate target in the development of EV in 21st century.
In the FCEV, a distributed energy system consisting of II. THE PRINCIPLE OF DUAL-PHASE DC-DC
fuel cell is used , high-power DC-DC converter is adopted CONVERTER
to adjust the output voltage, current and power of Fuel
The main circuit of the Dual-Phase DC-DC converter is
Cell Engine (FCE) to meet the vehicle’s requirements. As
shown in fig 2. From fig 2 we can see that the circuit is
fig.1 shows, the power supply system of FCEV is
composed of a bridge of power switches and storage
composed of Fuel Cell (FC), Fuel Cell Compressor Motor,
energy inductor, it can work in Boost mode or in Buck
Traction Motor Driver, high-power DC-DC converter and
mode. When S1u=S2u==OFF, S1d and S2d switch on and
Bi-directional power flow DC-DC converter.
off, the system work in the Boost mode, as shown in table
In the application of FCEV and moveable power I.
supply, the power converter devices especially demand
From table I, we can see that in Boost mode, only the
small volume, light weight, stable and reliable properties,
power device (S1d,S2d,D1u,D2u) have switching
that is to say, DC/DC converter need high power density
commutation, the power device (S1u,S2u,D1d,D2d) are in
and excellent dynamic control characteristic. Boost
constant off state. The power switches S1d and S2d have
converter has such good properties, simple system
180-degree phase difference of driving pulses in a cycle
structure, high conversion efficiency, good stability and
from each other. The current ripple of input power supply
reliability, it is widely used in EV. In order to reduce the
reduced greatly because the two 180-degree phase
ripple current and to reduce the size of passive
difference inductor currents minify the fluctuation of each
component, multiphase structure with interleaved control
other[3][4]. In one switching cycle Ts, considering the
is adopted in the high-power DC-DC converter. In the
commutation of power switches and diodes
high-power boost converter, the magnetic inductor is the
(S1d,S2d,D1u,D2u), there have eight kinds of running
important unit, which mainly composes the whole volume
states, as shown in table II.
and weight of the device. It is a very hard and challenging
work to design a high power inductor to store energy. According to table II, the converter have eight
equivalent sub-circuits of state1~state 8, as shown in fig.
For such an interleaved controlled Boost converter, full
3.[5][6]
digital control is a natural choice. In this paper, the
TMS320LF2407A digital signal processor (DSP) is When S1d=S2d==OFF, S1u and S2u switch on and off,
adopted to realize the full digital control for the high- the system can work in the Buck mode, as shown in Table
power dual-phase Boost DC-DC converter[1][2]. The III.

1-4244-0449-5/06/$20.00 ©2006 IEEE IPEMC 2006

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 TABLE I.
THE STATE OF THE POWER DEVICE IN BOOST MODE

S1u=off S2u=off D1u=on/off D2u=on/off

Figure 3a The equivalent sub-circuits of state1

S1d=on/off S2d=on/off D1d=off D2d=off

TABLE II.
THE EIGHT KINDS OF RUNNING STATES IN INTERLEAVED BOOST MODE

S1d=on S2d=on D1u=on D2u=on

S1d=on State 2 State 7 * State 1 Figure 3b The equivalent sub-circuits of state2

S2d=on State 7 State 5 State 4 *

D1u=on * State 4 State 3 State 8

D2u=on State 1 * State 8 State 6

From table III, we also can see that in Buck mode, only Figure 3c The equivalent sub-circuits of state3
the power device (S1u,S2u,D1d,D2d) have switching
commutation, the power device (S1d,S2d,D1u,D2u) are in
constant off state. The power switches S1u and S2u have
180-degree phase difference of driving pulses in a cycle
from each other. The current ripple of output power
supply reduced greatly because the two 180-degree phase
difference inductor currents minify the fluctuation of each Figure 3d The equivalent sub-circuits of state4
other. In one switching cycle Ts, considering the
commutation of power switches and diodes
(S1u,S2u,D1d,D2d), there also have eight kinds of
running states. The analysis method of Buck mode is
similar to the Boost mode, we will not analyze the work
station in detail in this paper.
From the analysis above, we can see that adopt
Figure 3e The equivalent sub-circuits of state5
appropriate control method , we can realize the conversion
from Boost mode to Buck mode easily. Full digital control
makes this conversion become easy.

Figure 3f The equivalent sub-circuits of state6

Figure 3g The equivalent sub-circuits of state7

Figure 2. The topology of the dual-phase DC-DC converter

Figure 3h The equivalent sub-circuits of state8

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 TABLE III.
THE STATE OF THE POWER DEVICE IN BUCK MODE
S1d=OFF S2d=OFF D1d=ON/OFF
S1u=ON/OFF S2u=ON/OFF D1u=OFF
III. THE DESIGN OF THE CONTROLLER
The control scheme of the dual-phase DC/DC
converter(Boost mode) is shown in fig. 4. From fig. 4 we
can see that the converter adopt dual-loop control. In the
dual-loop control structure, the outer loop is voltage loop,
which provides the current reference for the inner current
loop. The inner current loop can suffice the faster transient
response of the DC/DC converter’s requirement. This
control requires the sampling of two variables: output
voltage Vo , output current Io , which are obtain through
conventional Hall transducers.
A limiter on the output current reference is crucial in
this controller. This is because during large signal
transient like startup period, there is a big difference
between the voltage reference and the DC output voltage.
As a result, the output of the voltage compensator could
give a command to the current loop higher than the
maximum allowable current, resulting in the damaging the
device. A limit on the output of the current loop is also
crucial in this controller. This is because the
TMS320LF2407A DSP is a fixed-point DSP, if we do not
limit the maximum value of the output of the current loop,
the value will be unpredictable when the converter work at
some nonideal state, the PWM waveform will be
abnormal, and these maybe result in damaging the device.
From fig. 4 we can see the control system of this
converter is a double closed-loop system, outer voltage
loop and inner current loop, full digital control with DSP.
Now we draw the control graph of the dual-loop controller
in fig. 5.
Io
I o* Vo
H V (S )
Vo*
H i (S )
Figure 4 Dual-phase DC/DC converter (Boost mode) with digital
control
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V r* I o* d Vo
Gvr Gir e−Ts Gvd
D2d=ON/OFF Io
Gid
D2u=OFF
Figure 5 The dual-loop controller of the converter
The loop gains for inner current loop and outer voltage
loop can be expressed as:
H i (S ) = Gir * Gid * e −Ts (1)
−Ts
Gvr * Gir * e * Gvd
Hv (S ) = (2)
1 + Hi
Hi: Current loop gain, Hv: Voltage loop gain
Gir: Current loop compensator, Gvr: Voltage loop
compensator
e-Ts: Delay caused by sampling period, computation time
and duty cycle update
In the dual-loop system, the current compensator is
designed for good loop dynamics, and the voltage
compensator is designed for the desired crossover
frequency and phase margin.
IV. EXPERIMENT RESULT
Based on the analysis above, using TMS320LF2407A
DSP as main controller, a prototype of a fully digital
controlled Dual-phase Boost converter was constructed
with its basic technical specification as follows:
P=150KW, 250V≤Vs≤450V, Vo=584V. The proposed
converter weigh 50kg and hold 50L, which is lessen one-
third of the volume and weight than single phase Boost
converter, moreover , the fluctuation of current is less than
10%. Fig. 6 is the photo of the converter.
Figures 7 are the waveforms of the dual-phase DC/DC
converter (Boost mode) which is working at 75KW. Fig.
7a is the driving signals of the two phase IGBT switches,
which have equal duty and have 180-degree phase
difference. Fig. 7b is the waveform of its output voltage
and output current, which shows that the voltage
fluctuation is less than 1%. Fig. 7c is the waveform of the
inductor current of one phase and output voltage, it can be
seen that the converter run at critical state between CCM
mode and DCM mode. Fig. 7d is the waveform of voltage
and current of inductor at half load. Fig. 7e is the
waveform of two phase inductor current at half load.
Io
Vo
Figure 6 The photo of the converter
 Fig. 7f is the waveform of two inductor current and the
sum of the two inductor current. Fig. 7g is the waveform
of inductor current and input current. From the graph we
can see that the ripple of inductor current can reduce the
infection for input current obviously when we adopt
interleaved control. The ripple coefficient of the input
current is less than 10%. Fig.8 is the waveform of output
voltage and output current when the system is soft start
and soft stopped. The time of soft start and soft stopped
can be redesigned easily. Fig. 9 is the system efficiency Figure 7e two phase Inductor current at 75kW
curve, which indicates that the whole efficiency is about
95~98%, and the efficiency is over 97% when the output
power is large than the half of rated power.
The related parameters of the oscillograph are: voltage-
200V/div, current-100A/div

Figure 7f Two Inductor current (upper) and the sum of the two
inductor current (lower) at 75kW

Figure 7a Drive signals of two-phase IGBT switches

Figure 7g Inductor current (upper) and input current (lower)

at 75kW

Figure 7b Output current (upper) and output voltage (lower)

at 75kW

Figure 8 Output current (upper) and voltage (lower)

at soft start/stop

Figure 7c Inductor current (upper) and output voltage (lower)

at 75kW

Figure 9 the system efficiency curve

Figure 7d Inductor current (upper) and voltage (lower)
at 75kW

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 V. CONCLUSION
A DSP-based digital controller for a 150KW dual-phase
DC/DC converter is presented in this paper. The converter
can work at Boost mode and Buck mode. In this paper,
analyze the work state of Boost mode in detail. the
topology is interleaved Boost. The system adopt double
closed-loop control, the outer loop is voltage loop, the
inner loop is current loop. The experimental result shows
that the converter has excellent dynamic characteristic, its
efficiency is about 95~98%, its volume and weight is less
than single Boost converter. The converter is suitable for
Fuel Cell Electric Vehicle as well as the Fuel Cell
Distributed Generation.
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2003.
Authorized licensed use limited to: University of Calgary. Downloaded on January 7, 2010 at 17:11 from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
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