Hybrid System Control for Robot Motors Based on a Reduced Component, Multi-Voltage Power Supply System

This brief presents a hybrid power supply system for robot actuators that has multiple voltage buses and hybrid energy storage including a supercapacitor. The proposed system utilizes a multi-tasking control scheme to reduce the component count. To improve the system response of mobile robots, a supercapacitor is employed in the proposed architecture along with a battery. The proposed circuit offers two higher voltage buses than the main battery voltage in order to employ higher voltage actuators with a lower current for a higher power density. To manage the DC buses and the supercapacitor’s bi-directional power flow, three switching devices are used in the proposed structure, reducing a switching device and an inductor. A control structure using a mixed switching strategy has been developed to regulate the higher-voltage buses and the supercapacitor’s power flow simultaneously. The proposed control and circuit structure are validated by hardware experiments.