Redox flow batteries mounted on the vehicle chassis behaves better at low voltage and high current while the tractive system of electric vehicles is more efficient at high voltage and low current. The proposed DC/DC converter provides the necessary tractive system isolation from the flow battery and keeps the voltage ratio while working in two quadrants of the current flow direction. The Z-source converter topology enables the necessary wide range voltage control at high efficiency. The power density is increased using the Gallium Nitride (GaN) transistors. The tested prototype of the converter proves that the topology is suitable for this application.
The ever-increasing demands on the efficiency and power density of power electronics converters lead to the replacement of traditional silicon-based components with new structures. One of the promising technologies represents devices based on Gallium-Nitride (GaN). Compared to silicon transistors, GaN semiconductor switches offer superior performance in high-frequency converters, since their fast switching process significantly decreases the switching losses. However, when used in hard-switched converters such as voltage-source inverters (VSI) for motor control applications, GaN transistors increase the power dissipated due to the current conduction. The loss increase is caused by the current-collapse phenomenon, which increases the dynamic drain-source resistance of the device shortly after the turn-on. This disadvantage makes it hard for GaN converters to compete with other technologies in electric drives. Therefore, this paper offers a purely software-based solution to mitigate the negative consequences of the current-collapse phenomenon. The proposed method is based on the minimum pulse length optimization of the classical 7-segment space-vector modulation (SVM) and is verified within a field-oriented control (FOC) of a three-phase permanent magnet synchronous motor (PMSM) supplied by a two-level GaN VSI. The compensation in the control algorithm utilizes an offline measured look-up table dependent on the machine input power.
The presented method automatically adjusts the deadtime of gallium nitride (GaN) transistors in half-bridge to increase the efficiency. This removes the need of manual measuring and setting the deadtime of the finished converter. The developed algorithm was tested and compared with the fixed deadtime case. The obtained results show that the developed algorithm is achieving higher and more stable efficiency compared to selected fixed deadtime.
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