Bidirectional Power Converter for Separately Excited DC Machine
Mohamad Hafiz Bin Limbah
Faculty of Engineering
Universiti Malaysia Sabah
Kota Kinabalu, Sabah
e-mail: mohamadhafizlimbah@yahoo.com
Abstract— In this paper, a simulation of bidirectional power
converter for separately DC machine was proposed which
capable of dual direction of power transfer. The description
the converter which includes buck operation and boost
operation were explained. Electric vehicle require a
converter that allows bidirectional power flow in process of
charging and discharging the battery. Therefore, this paper
explained how the operation of buck mode and boost mode
in charging a battery. Besides that, in this paper the
operation of converter as medium for DC machine and
voltage source was explained. The simulation and design of
this converter are presented in MATLAB/Simulink. A
switching technique during buck and boost operation is
proposed in this thesis. This switching technique later very
useful to switched on and off of MOSFET. Lastly, this paper
explained how this converter can be very useful in
regenerative braking of electric vehicle.
Keywords- bidirectional; buck; boost; regenerative..
I. INTRODUCTION
Nowadays, study of the need of the power electronic
application devices for complex systems are major topic in
power electronic fields. Many researchers have been
focusing on the power efficiency. Most of electronic
devices consists of power electronic circuits. These circuits
are very important to convert one form of electronic power
into another form. Semiconductor devices such as switches
are used to controlled and modified voltage or current in
power electronic circuits. The power electronic circuits
typically applied in conversion of ac to dc, dc to ac, ac to
ac and dc to dc.
DC-to-DC converter is a device that converts the
source of voltage level to another level. It is one of the
types of power converter that used power electronics
circuits. Most of the power converters are unidirectional
application where the power is being supplied from the
source to the load only. Bidirectional power converter is
the main focus in this project. The term bidirectional
clearly shows that the power flow is not only limited for
one direction but in two-way directions. It allows the
power to flow between two sources in both directions.
Various types of bidirectional converter have been
discovered in a previous year which meet the requirement
of dual direction power flow application. Before
bidirectional power converters were discovered, two
independent unidirectional converter were used to have
bidirectional power transfer. Thus, the demand for the
development of advance, compact and efficient power
systems has cause research in bidirectional power
converter. Converters are mostly used for traction motor
control in electronic automobile, trolley cars, marine
hoists, forklift trucks and mine haulers [1]. Bidirectional
power converter has many application in DC machine such
as motor drives, uninterruptable power supply (UPS),
hybrid vehicle, battery charger etc. The design of
bidirectional power converter in DC machines application
is a critical aspect since the weight and physical size of the
converter need to be compact and light.
Conventionally, automobile technology mostly
based on internal combustion engine which used gasoline
or diesel to runs the vehicles. These technologies
contribute to reduce pollutions which may affects human
health. However, in recent years, research has been
focused on dc-dc converters that are used for a clean
energy vehicle applications such as electric vehicles (EVs).
EVs have been invented and introduced in mid-19th
century. In the early century, the inventors began to
understand the concept of battery powered vehicle and
started to build a small scale of electric cars. EVs is an
electric drive vehicle which using electric motors or
traction motors for propulsion. The electric motors gets the
energy from a controller, which regulates the amount of
power [2]. A EVs do not produce a tailpipe emissions
which overcome the dependency on gasoline. A dc-dc
converters in a EVs are useful in the regenerative braking
mode. Eventually, EVs is rarely used because many factors
such as cost, battery life time, power converter efficiency
etc.
II. PREVIOUS WORK
Bidirectional power flow converter concept have been
discovered many years ago. The concept is to allow dual-
direction of power flow instead of unidirectional of power
flow. The bidirectional power flow converter has many
used in industrial application especially dual operation
application. The bidirectional power flow converter has
reduced the additional inductor that used for charging and
transferring energy to load [3]. Number of components in
one circuit are major concern in designing a power flow
converter. Vadivel, Manikandan and Premkumar have
proposed a converter that used ac supply to vehicle battery
charging operation without any source of inductance [3].
Less number of component used in the converter will
reduce the size, weight and cost of the circuit system. Cost
is the crucial factor that affects the marketing of electric
vehicle. Thus, the bidirectional converter is one of the
solution for this problem. The new concept of bidirectional
converter have used machine inductors as a source of
inductor [3].
Mohitha and Athira have using bidirectional
converter in their work as interface between solar power
and battery storage [4]. The used of storage energy in the
solar powered converter application can easily be done
using this converter. Since the energy storage applications
used a lot of switching, Zero Current Switch (ZCS) During buck mode, M2 is switched OFF and M1 is
technique had been introduced to reduce the switching switched ON/OFF. When M1 is ON, the diode D1 is
stress [4]. In bidirectional power flow converter, switching reverse biased and the current will charged up the inductor.
technique is a part of design that needed to be consider. Meanwhile, during M1 is OFF, the diode D2 is forward
Due to fast switching, an efficiency of one converter can biased.
reduced. Thus, a good technique of switching need to be
implemented to overcome and increase the efficiency of
the converter. Two resonant capacitors and one resonant (2)
inductor have been used to achieve the ZCS of the main
switches [4]. The bidirectional converter provides
advantages to the solar powered battery energy storage Finally, during rest mode, both M1 and M2 are
systems [4]. switched OFF. Therefore, there is no connection between
Bidirectional power flow converter mostly used V1 and V2. The ripple voltage of the capacitor is
in electric vehicle which has fed dc drive. Karthikeyan and
Siva have proposed to implement the regenerative braking
in electric vehicle with bidirectional converter to reduce (3)
power consumption [5]. This converter used as interface
during charging an external battery. They also proposed to B. Arduino Controller
use hybrid battery ultra-capacitor power source for fast and The Arduino were used to drives MOSFETs with
slow current changes which results in increasing the pulses. Two output port of Arduino used in this project as
lifetime of the battery [5]. They also used bidirectional a pulses with frequency of 50 kHz and 40 percent of duty
control for boosting control [5]. Since the back EMF ratio. The time delay used in Arduino is in millisecond.
generated is lesser than the voltage of the source, it needs Figure 2 shows the Arduino source code that used to
to be boosted to charge the battery. control the switches. This source code later uploaded into
the Arduino controller that connected to the circuit.
III. METHODOLOGY
A. Circuit Description
There are three modes of operation in this converter
which is boost mode, buck mode and rest mode. During
the buck mode will supply energy from primary voltage
source, V1 to secondary voltage source, V2. During this
mode, V2 is charged. Meanwhile, the boost mode, V2 will
release an energy to capacitor. The energy that temporarily
stored in capacitor is used to operate any load in left side
of the circuit. If V1 located at the left side of the circuit,
the capacitor will charged V1.

Figure 1: Bidirectional power converter circuit.

During boost mode, M1 is switched OFF and M2 is

switched ON/OFF. When M2 is ON, the diode D2 is
reverse biased and the current at the inductor is decreases
to zero. Meanwhile, during M2 is OFF, the diode D1 is
forward biased and conducts as a free-wheeling diode for
the current inductor. At this moment, the inductor is
discharged and the discharge current will start to charge
the capacitor.

(1)
Figure 2: Arduino controller source code.
 The MOSFET 1, M1 and MOSFET 2, M2 are
controlled by the Arduino controller. The output pulses of
M1 and are shown in Figure 3. During buck mode, M1 is
switched ON/OFF and M2 is switch OFF. Meanwhile,
during boost mode, M2 is switch ON/OFF and M1 is
switched OFF. Finally, during rest mode, both M1 and M2
are switched OFF.
Figure 3: The output pulses from the Arduino controller.
IV. RESULTS
A. Simulation results
The simulation result shows the operation of converter
in boost mode, buck mode and rest mode. In this
simulation, V1 is 12 V with initial SOC 70% and V2 is 6
V with initial SOC 80%. The switching frequency used in
this simulation is 50 kHz with 40% duty ratio. The
simulation time is 20 seconds with switching pattern of 2.5
seconds boost mode, 7.5 seconds buck mode and 10
seconds rest mode. Figure 4 shows the output current and
voltage of inductor with given pattern of pulses. The
pattern of pulses consists of boost mode, buck mode and
rest mode. In this simulation, the value of output inductor
current during boost mode is -0.06A and during buck
mode is 0.03A.
Figure 4: Output waveform of input pulses, inductor current and voltage..
Figure 5 shows the output voltage of source 1 and
source 2. During boost mode in the first 2.5 seconds, V1 is
constant and V2 is decreasing because V2 provide a
voltage source to V1. During the buck mode, V1 is
decreasing and V2 is increasing because V1 is supplying
voltage to V2. Then, during rest mode, V1 slowly
increasing and V2 slowly decreasing.
Figure 5: Output voltage of source 1, V1 and source 2, V2.
Based on Figure 6, during the boost mode the output
current for source 1 is constant at almost zero and the
output current for source 2 is 0.065 A. Meanwhile, during
buck mode, the output current of source 1 is 0.03A and the
output current for source 2 is -0.028 A. The negative sign
indicates that the current flow from V2 to V1. Lastly,
during rest mode, the output current of both source 1 and 2
is returning back to almost zero.
Next, the simulation of bidirectional power converter
in DC machines. In this simulation, source voltage 1
represent as motor during boost mode and generator during
buck mode. The DC machine used in this simulation is
separately excited DC machine. The switching frequency
used is 50 kHz with 40% of duty ratio.
 Figure 7 shows the output voltage of motor and V2
during boost mode. During this mode, V2 act as source
and provides voltage to drives the motor. The speed of the
motor is negative because the motor torque is positive.
When the motor torque is positive, the DC machine acts as
motor. The motor speed stabilizes at -100 rpm. The
armature current, IA is positive when the DC machine acts
as motor and stabilizes at 0.04A. The field current, IF
stabilizes at 0.033A. The motor torque stabilizes at 0.0018
N.M.
Figure 6: Output current of source 1, I1 and source 2, I2.
Figure 7: The output waveform of DC machine acting as a motor.
The output waveforms of V2 during boost mode are
shown in Figure 8. The battery standard-of-charge (SOC)
decreasing as well as voltage level because the battery is
supplying a voltage to the motor. The output battery
current is stabilizes at 0.1213A and the output battery
voltage is stabilizes at 12.138 V. During boost mode of the
converter, the output inductor current is negative because
the flow of the current in the inductor is opposite way
which is from V2 to load motor.
Figure 8: The output of voltage source, V2 during boost mode.
Figure 9: The output waveform of DC machine acting as generator.
The standard-of-charge (SOC) and the voltage level of the
battery are increasing during buck mode of the converter.
The output waveforms of voltage source, V2 are shown in
Figure 10. Since the DC machine act as generator, it
provides voltages supply to V2. This is the reason why the
SOC and voltage level of battery are increasing. The
battery current stabilizes at -0.3 A. The negative sign
indicate that the current flow into the battery.
B. Experimental results
For experiment, the battery used is 12 V, 1.2 Ah
Rechargeable Lead Acid Battery and 1.2 V, 2500mAh
Rechargeable Ni-MH Battery. The 12 V battery taken as
V1 and 1.2 V taken as V2.
Several experiments were conducted to identify the
effect of each mode of operation to battery charging
performance. The switching frequency of this experiment
is 50 kHz with 40% duty ratio. Thus, the time for all pulse
ON and OFF are the same. The difference is number of
pulses that generated during that that mode. For instance,
in Experiment 1, the period is 0.02ms. So, the ON time is
0.008ms and the OFF time is 0.012ms. This one cycle
period will be repeated for 10 times during boost mode,
120 times during buck mode and 70 times during rest
mode. The total experiment time is 50 minutes for each
experiment. The output voltage of V1 is taken every 10
minutes interval. Table 1, Table 2 and Table 3 shows the
experimental setup with different number of pulses in
boost mode, buck mode and rest mode respectively.
Figure 10: The output waveform of voltage source, V2 during buck mode.

Table 1: Experimental setup of battery charging with varying number of

pulses in boost mode. Graph of output voltage V2 versus time
0.75
Condition
0.74
Boost Rest 0.73
Experiment Buck Mode
Voltage (V)

Mode Mode 0.72

(Pulses) 0.71
(Pulses) (Pulses) 0.7
1 10 120 70 0.69
0.68
2 30 120 70 0.67
3 100 120 70 0 10 20 30 40 50
Time (min)

Table 2: Experimental setup of battery charging with varying number of Experiment 1 Experiment 2 Experiment 3
pulses in buck mode.
Condition Figure 11: Graph of battery charging results with varying value of
boost mode.
Boost Rest
Experiment Buck Mode
Mode Mode
(Pulses) Graph of output voltage V2 versus time
(Pulses) (Pulses) 0.75
4 10 120 70 0.74
0.73
5 10 50 70 0.72
Voltage (V)

0.71
6 10 200 70 0.7
0.69
Table 2: Experimental setup of battery charging with varying number of 0.68
pulses in rest mode. 0.67
0.66
Condition 0 10 20 30 40 50
Time (min)
Boost
Experiment Buck Mode Rest Mode
Mode Experiment 4 Experiment 5 Experiment 6
(Pulses) (Pulses)
(Pulses) Figure 12: Graph of battery charging results with varying value of
7 10 120 70 buck mode.
8 10 120 90
9 10 120 120

The results of output battery charging of Experiment 1,

Experiment 2, Experiment 3, Experiment 4, Experiment 5,
Experiment 6, Experiment 7, Experiment 8 and
Experiment 9 are plotted in graph on Figure 11, Figure 12
and Figure 13 respectively.
The boost mode operations are to accelerate the
diffusion of the ions inside the battery during charging.
Thus, if the number of pulses in boost mode are too much,
it will discharge V2 and resulting the slowdown of Figure 13: Graph of battery charging results with varying value of
rest mode.
charging speed.
 Rest mode gives limited time for the battery to
neutralize and diffused the ion. Rest mode of this converter
affects the rate of charging of the battery. If there is shorter
rest mode, the rate of charging become slower due to over
potential imposed on the battery. The increasing number of
pulses in boost mode, will slow the charging speed and
discharge the battery. Thus, the boost mode must be as
narrow as possible to avoid from the discharging of the
battery. Next, the increasing number of pulses during rest
mode can helps to increase the efficiency of battery
charging.
V. CONCLUSION
In summary, the bidirectional power flow converter
constructed have fulfilled the objectives of the project.
Firstly, this converter have been experimented as battery
charging and discharging. The battery is charging in the
buck mode operation and discharging during boost mode
operation. Basically, the converter use advantages of both
buck and boost converter to achieve the bidirectional
power flow. The suitable pattern of switching in battery
charging are needed to ensure the good performance of the
converter in charging a battery. Next, this bidirectional
power flow converter has been applied on DC machine.
The DC machine is connected as load (motor) and source
(generator). It used same concept of battery charging and
discharging in order to drives a motor and used as
generator. When the DC machine act as motor, the
converter operates in boost mode. Meanwhile, during DC
machine act as generator, the converter operates in buck
mode. The operation of the converter is very useful in
regenerative braking operation for electric vehicle.
VI. REFERENCES
[1] M. H. Rashid, “Power Electronics Handbook: Devices, Circuits
and Applications 3rd Edition”, 2011, Oxford: Elsevier. T. Nakano,
A. W. Eckford, and T. Haraguchi, Molecular communication,
Cambridge University Press, 2013.
[2] B. Berman, “What is an Electric Car?”, 2014, Recargo Inc:
PluginCars.com.
[3] N. Vadivel, A. Manikandan, G. Premkumar, “Development and
Analysis of Bidirectional Converter for Electric Vehicle
Application”, International Journal of Innovative Technology &
Adaptive Management (IJTAM), 2013, Volume 1, Issue 3.
[4] V. S. Monitha, P. C. Athira, “Solar Powered ZCS Bidirectional
Buck-Boost Converter Used in Battery Energy Storage Systems”,
International Conference on Circuit, Power and Computing
Technologies (ICCPCT), 2016.
[5] K. Vasudevan, G. S. Rao, P. S. Rao, “Electrical Machines I”, 2010,
India: Indian Institute of Technology Madras.