Non-inverting buck-boost converter for fuel cell applications

Fuel cell DC/DC converters often have to be able to both step-up and step-down the input voltage, and provide a high efficiency in the whole range of output power. Conventional negative output buck-boost and non-inverting buck-boost converters provide both step-up and step-down characteristics. In this paper the non-inverting buck-boost with either diodes or synchronous rectifiers is investigated for fuel cell applications. Most of previous research does not consider the parasitic in the evaluation of the converters. In this study, detailed analytical expressions of the efficiencies for the system composed of fuel cell system and interfacing converter, considering the parasitics, are presented. It is concluded that the implementation with synchronous rectifiers provides the highest efficiency in the whole range of the fuel cell power, and its efficiency characteristic is more suitable for fuel cell applications than the implementation with diodes.

[1]  Yongtao Yao,et al.  Analysis of Buck-Boost Converters for Fuel Cell Electric Vehicles , 2006, 2006 IEEE International Conference on Vehicular Electronics and Safety.

[2]  M. Gaboriault,et al.  A high efficiency, noninverting, buck-boost DC-DC converter , 2004, Nineteenth Annual IEEE Applied Power Electronics Conference and Exposition, 2004. APEC '04..

[3]  I. Husain,et al.  Power electronic interface with ultracapacitors and motor control for a fuel cell electric vehicle , 2005, 2005 IEEE Vehicle Power and Propulsion Conference.

[4]  Ali Emadi,et al.  Digital Combination of Buck and Boost Converters to Control a Positive Buck–Boost Converter and Improve the Output Transients , 2009 .

[5]  Prasad N. Enjeti,et al.  Design of a wide input range DC-DC converter with a robust power control scheme suitable for fuel cell power conversion , 2004, Nineteenth Annual IEEE Applied Power Electronics Conference and Exposition, 2004. APEC '04..

[6]  Robert W. Erickson,et al.  Fundamentals of Power Electronics , 2001 .

[7]  A. M. Khambadkone,et al.  Dynamic modelling of fuel cell with power electronic current and performance analysis , 2003, The Fifth International Conference on Power Electronics and Drive Systems, 2003. PEDS 2003..

[8]  J.-S. Lai,et al.  A high-performance V6 converter for fuel cell power conditioning system , 2005, 2005 IEEE Vehicle Power and Propulsion Conference.

[9]  A. Khaligh,et al.  Combination of Buck and Boost Modes to Minimize Transients in the Output of a Positive Buck-Boost Converter , 2006, IECON 2006 - 32nd Annual Conference on IEEE Industrial Electronics.

[10]  E. Niculescu,et al.  Computation of averaged characteristic coefficients for elementary PWM converters , 1998, COM.P.EL.98. Record 6th Workshop on Computer in Power Electronics (Cat. No.98TH8358).

[11]  R. S. Weissbach,et al.  A noninverting buck-boost converter with reduced components using a microcontroller , 2001, Proceedings. IEEE SoutheastCon 2001 (Cat. No.01CH37208).

[12]  Young-Joo Lee,et al.  Digital Combination of Buck and Boost Converters to Control a Positive Buck–Boost Converter and Improve the Output Transients , 2006, IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics.