Efficient On-Board Charger to Improve the Life Time of Electric Vehicle Battery

Abstract

Internal combustion engines produce about 10% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. Electric vehicles generate 17-30% lower emissions than the internal combustion engines. However, the formers entail certain drawbacks, namely the few available charging stations, the high charging cost, and the limited battery life. The purpose of this paper is to propose the best suitable converter for the on-board charger, which will be able to decrease the charging cost by improving the power factor and the battery life span. This enhancement will be accomplished through the reduction of the charging current either at a very high or very low State of Charge (SOC). Isolated and non-isolated converter topologies were studied to identify the most suitable converter for the on-board charger that will be able to ameliorate the efficiency and the input power factor as well as control the charging current limits. A non-isolated buck converter with switched inductors is used for the power factor adjustment along with the current control approach to achieve a highly efficient on-board charger. Compared to the isolated converter with transformers, the non-isolated hybrid switched inductor buck converter has a wider current control range. MATLAB/Simulink output results were analyzed to validate the performance of the designed on-board charger with a non-isolated converter.