Unified Switch Fault Detection for Cascaded

Non-Isolated DC-DC Converters

Ehsan Jamshidpour Philippe Poure Shahrokh Saadate
ECAM Strasbourg Europe Institut Jean Lamour (UMR7198) GREEN Laboratory
ICube (UMR7357) Université de Lorraine Université de Lorraine
F-67400 Illkirch-Graffenstaden, France Nancy, France Nancy, France
ehsan.jamshidpour@ecam-strasbourg.eu philippe.Poure@univ-lorraine.fr shahrokh.saadate@univ-lorraine.fr

Resumen: este documento propone un nuevo enfoque de detección
de fallas de conmutador unificado para convertidores DC-DC no
aislados en cascada de dos etapas bajo control síncrono. El método de
detección de fallas unificado propuesto se compara con dos
algoritmos de detección de fallas separados, que trabajan en paralelo
para cada convertidor. Por lo tanto, el algoritmo unificado es más
simple de realizar y es eficiente como los dos métodos paralelos de
detección de fallas. Además, es más adecuado para convertidores
DC-DC no aislados en cascada, independientemente de los circuitos
de los convertidores.
Index Terms—Switch Failure, unified detection algorithm,
cascaded converter, non-isolated DC-DC converter.
I. I NTRODUCTION
Power electronic converters have a significant part in many
safety-critical industrial applications, such as aerospace, elec-
tric vehicles, renewable energy resources, manufacturing sys-
tems, power networks, power supply systems and industrial
electronic equipment [1].
Among different types of power electronic converters, DC-
DC converters play an important role in renewable energy
resources [2]–[4]. DC-DC converters could be generally clas-
sified into two different categories: isolated and non-isolated.
Transformers are used to achieve the desired output voltage
of isolated DC-DC converters. For the non-isolated DC-DC
converters, no transformer is used. Therefore, non-isolated
DC-DC converters have lower cost, higher efficiency, smaller
volume and simpler topology [1], compared to isolated con-
verters.
A failure is defined as an unpermitted deviation of at least
one characteristic property or parameter of a system from the
acceptable/usual/standard condition [5]. In classical systems,
faults are often classified as actuator faults, sensor faults,
and plant faults. In any case, the failure of an element may
cause the dysfunction of the other devices. Thus, to avoid
further damages after a failure occurrence, a shutdown of the
entire system is mostly required. Therefore, the whole systems
reliability and service continuity can be affected by a device
failure.
In power electronic converters, the failures caused by semi-
conductor faults account for 21% of the total failures [2].
High standstill cost and safety aspect of the applications that
have power electronic converters challenge the reliability of
the systems. Thus, in recent years, researches have targeted
the fault diagnosis and the fault tolerant operation of power
electronic converters to increase reliability, perform service
continuity of the power systems and reduce high maintenance
costs [1]–[6].
Fault tolerance in a power converter requires three steps:
fault detection, fault identification, and remedial actions. In
this paper, a unified approach for switch fault detection is pro-
posed for two stages cascaded non-isolated DC-DC converters
(for example Buck/Buck-Boost) with fault tolerant capability,
equipped with an energy storage. For example, they can be
used in PV systems.
II. CLASSICAL CASCADED DC-DC CONVERTERS
En la Fig. 1 se ilustra un convertidor de CC-CC no aislado en
cascada utilizado en un sistema de energía fotoltaica. En general, en
tales sistemas, un convertidor Buck (o Boost) realiza el Seguimiento
del punto de máxima potencia (MPPT) en los módulos solares
fotovoltaicos lado (lado fuente). Más aún, en el lado de la carga, se
podría usar un convertidor Buck-Boost para controlar el voltaje de
salida, también proporcionando un voltaje de salida ascendente o
descendente, de acuerdo con los requisitos del lado de carga [8].
As Fig.1 shows, the general studied circuit consists of two
non-isolated single switch converters (buck, boost, buck-boost,
uk, SEPIC or dual SEPIC). This family of converters com-
prises a switch, a diode, one or two inductors, and capacitors.
As shown in Fig. 2, in these converters, the shape of the
inductor current ”iL ” (for the inductor directly connected to
the switch) is the same [2]. It is on the basis on the observation
of this similarity that a unified Fault Detection (FD) algorithm
will be proposed for cascaded non isolated DC-DC circuits,
regardless of the converter type (step-up and/or step-down).
III. FAULT DETECTION METHOD
A. General approach
The most common failures in switches are Open Circuit
Faults (OCF) and Short Circuit Faults (SCF). These failures
may happen due to the incorrect gate voltage, lifting of bond-
ing wires due to thermal cycling, driver failure, rupture of the
switch which can be a consequence of an SCF and electrical
over stress (voltage or current), electrostatic discharge, system
transient, and lightning [9], [10]. In practice, OCF may be

978-1-5386-5186-5/18/$31.00 ©2018 IEEE

 Fig. 1. Cascaded non-isolated DC-DC converters used in a photovoltaic energy system.
a consequence of a gating fault or a SCF. In this case, for
SCF tolerance, a fast fuse is usually connected in series with
the switch, as proposed in [11]. Thus, a SCF will become an
OCF after the fuse break. In this paper, both OCF and SCF
are considered. However, there is no need to detect a SCF, but
it could help the operators to know the reason for the OCF.
A few works have studied switch fault detection for single-
stage non-isolated DC-DC converters and associated fault
tolerant circuits [2], [7], [9]–[14]. In these works, most of the
proposed FD methods are based on the inductor current shape
observation according to the switching command. To our best
knowledge, a unified FD approach for cascaded (two-stages)
fault tolerant DC-DC circuits has never been discussed in the
literature. More, only a few papers have proposed remedial
actions for cascaded fault tolerant DC-DC circuits. Recently, in
[5], the fault tolerant operation of a buck/buck-boost converter
with energy storage has been examined under synchronous
control.
There are two ways for fault detection in cascaded non
isolated DC-DC converters. The first one is based on using
two separate FD algorithms (one for each converter). The
Fig. 2. Non-isolated single switch DC-DC converters and common shape
inductance current [7].
second one is an unified FD algorithm for two convertres.
As detailed in [4], the fault location is not useful for remedial
actions, therefore using two separate FD algorithms is cer-
tainly efficient, but not optimized. Indeed, as detailed in [4],
regardless the switch in OCF case, the two switches of both
cascaded converters are controlled to be opened; then, a shared
synchronous redundant switch replaces these two switches and
the post fault synchronous control is applied to this single
switch [4].
In this paper, the two FD methods for a cascaded non
isolated DC-DC converter under synchronous control are pro-
posed and their simulation results are compared.
B. Parallel FD algorithms
In this method, two identical FD algorithms are working
in parallel, as depicted in Fig. 3. The FD algorithms can be
one of the proposed methods in [2], [10]. These methods
have been applied on a Boost converter and they are based
on the shape of the inductor current. Given the similarity of
the inductor current in non-isolated single switch converters
(Fig. 4), they can be applied on the other converters of this
family. Therefore they can be used to detect a failure in both
converters (source side or load side) of the cascaded non-
isolated converter presented in Fig. 1.
As detailed in [2], [10], to realize these FD algorithms,
a State Machine (SM) is used in each of the FD blocks
and they have been implemented by using a FPGA (Field
Programmable Gate Array). When a switch fault occurs in one
Fig. 3. Parallel FD method block diagram.
of the converters, the associated FD algorithm sends a signal
to declare the failure in one or two switching periods. Parallel
FD algorithm is capable to detect, identify and localize a fault
(OCF or SCF) in one of the converters. This capability is
mandatory for a fault tolerant converter that needs a reconfig-
uration (or remedial actions) for post-fault operation. In case
of an OCF the remedial actions can be done for the post-fault
operation immediately after fault detection. However, in case
of a SCF, the reconfiguration for post-fault operation mode
has to be done after the fuse break; therefore, it takes more
time compared with an OCF case.

C. Unified FD algorithm
Fig. 4 illustrates the schematic of the unified FD method,
in synchronous control case. This algorithm has just one FD
block. It observes the two inductance currents waveforms (iL1
and iL2 ) and the single switching pattern u to detect a failure
in the cascaded circuit. This FD method is based on this
theory: when the switches are on, the inductor currents (iL1
and iL2 ) increase and when they are of f , the inductor currents
decrease. If one of the inductor currents (iL1 or iL2 ) is always
increasing or decreasing during a period of switching, it means
that a failure has occurred.
As shown in Fig. 4, a state machine with only four states
(ST0 , ST1 , ST2 and ST3 ), three inputs (iL1 , iL2 and u) and
one output (F ault) is used to realized the proposed unified
FD method. The T r signal is a rising edge indicator of
the switching pattern u that shows the beginning of a new
switching period (when the switch goes to on state). The sgn1
and sgn2 signals are the sign of the slope of the inductor
currents. They are equal to ’1’ when the currents increase and
equal to zero when they decrease.
Fig. 4 and Fig. 5 illustrate the FD algorithm operation that
is detailed as follows:
• in initial state ST0 ; the converters are in cycle2 of
operation, i.e. u = 0, and stay in this state until ’T r’
passes to ’1’ and then a transition to state ST1 occurs.
• In state ST1 , according to the converters conditions, two
transitions can occur:
– In normal operation mode, when T r set to ’1’, the
switches of the both converters are turned on, iL1
Fig. 5. Unified FD method operation.
and iL2 increase and ’sgn1 &sgn2 ’ goes to ’1’, thus
a transition to state ST2 occurs.
– In the case of an OCF , iL1 or iL2 decreases and
’sgn1 &sgn2 ’ becomes ’0’. The conditions for the
transition from ST1 to state ST2 are not satisfied.
The system remains in ST1 until the next ’T r’ pulse,
and then a transition to ST3 occurs.
• In state ST3 , the F ault is set to ’1’ and the fault is
declared.
In cas of a SCF, the state machine remains in ST2 until
the fuse action. When the fuse isolates the faulty switch,
sgn1 &sgn2 goes to ’0’ and a transition to ST0 occurs. After
that, the FD algorithm acts same as an OCF is occurred.
Contrary the parallel FD method that implemented on a
FPGA target, the unified FD algorithm, can be implemented
just by two D-Flip Flops and some logic gates as shown in
Fig. 6.
In order to realize the FD algorithm, first the state machine
has to be expressed in a state table that is shown in Table I.
Then, one Boolean function will be expressed for each Flip
Flop input with a Karnaugh Map that is presented in Fig. 7.

Fig. 4. Unified FD method block diagram. Fig. 6. Unified FD method implementation.

 TABLE I TABLE II
U NIFIED FD METHOD STATE TABLE . S IMULATION PARAMETERS FOR THE FAULT TOLERANT CASCADED
DC-DC CONVERTER .
Current State Inputs Next state Output
Elements Value
Q1 Q2 Tr Sg Q1N Q2N F ault
Vin 8V
0 0 0 0 0 0 0
RL 2.5Ω
0 0 0 1 0 0 0
L2 100μH
0 0 1 0 0 1 0
C2 22μF
0 0 1 1 0 1 0
VB 12V
0 1 0 0 0 1 0
L1 50μH
0 1 0 1 1 0 0
C1 100μF
0 1 1 0 1 1 1
fs 20kHz
0 1 1 1 1 1 1
1 0 0 0 0 0 0
1 0 0 1 1 0 0 unified fault detection method is proposed and compared with
1 0 1 0 1 0 0 a parallel FD method in this paper, this is why the fault tolerant
1 0 1 1 1 0 0 topology is not discussed. For fault tolerant, Siouane et al have
1 1 0 0 1 1 1
presented a topology in [4] that can be applied to the converter
studied in this paper.
1 1 0 1 1 1 1
Fig. 9 shows the simulation results for an OCF on SW2 .
1 1 1 0 1 1 1 The fault is detected, identified and localized (OCF2 is set to
1 1 1 1 1 1 1 ’1’) by the two proposed methods (parallel and unified FD).
The parallel method has declared the OCF on the SW2 very
quickly , in less than one switching period where the unified
FD has announced a failure on one of the switches in two
switching periods without identification and localization.
Fig. 10 shows the simulation results for a SCF on SW1 . As
it can be seen in the simulation results, the SCF is detected,
identified and localized rapidly by parallel FD (SCF1 is set
to  1 ). The unified FD is not able to detect the SCF before
fuse action. When the fuse isolates the faulty switch, it can
be considered as an OCF. In the simulation, the fuse breaking
time is equal to 200μs. Thus, the unified FD declared a fault on
one of the switches after two switching periods.It is noticeable
that the detection time for unified FD is still less than two
Fig. 7. Karnaugh Map to find the boolean functions. switching periods after fuse action. In a case of SCF, the
reconfiguration and remedial actions must be done after the
fault isolation which means fuse action. Therefore, this delay
This algorithm is not able neither to identify the type of the unified FD has not an important effect on the system
of the fault nor the location of the fault. But, the simple operation.
implementation in comparison with the parallel FD (in section
B) is the advantage of this unified FD algorithm. V. C ONCLUSION
It is noticeable that in cascaded converters, the post-fault In this paper, two switch fault detection methods for non-
reconfiguration strategy is the same regardless the fault lo- isolated DC-DC cascaded converter are proposed and com-
calization. So, to guarantee service continuity, we just need pared. The first method consists of two identical fault detection
to detect the fault occurrence [4] and thus, the unified FD method that work in parallel. This method can detect, identify
method is more suitable. As it mentioned before, a SCF will and localize both type of switch faults (OCF and SCF) in less
be an OCF after the fuse action, therefore both type of the than one switching period. The implementation of this method
faults can be detected by the unified proposed method. is not optimized.
The second FD method (unified FD) is able to detect the
IV. SIMULATION RESULTS type of the fault. Also, fault localization and identification
To validate the performance of the proposed FD methods cannot be realized by this method. It is mentioned in the
some simulations in Matlab Simulink environment are per- paper that the localization and identification of the fault are
formed for a Buck/Buck-Boost converter depicted in Fig. 8. not important in this family of DC-DC cascaded converters
The parameters of the converter are given in Table II. An for fault tolerant circuits. Therefore, the proposed unified FD,
 Fig. 8. Studied cascaded DC-DC non-isolated converter.
Fig. 9. OCF detection on SW2 simulation result.
Fig. 10. SCF detection on SW1 simulation result.
with a simple implementation is suitable for this family of
converters compared to the parallel FD method. The simulation
results have validated the performances of the proposed unified
FD.
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