Modeling, design and validation of DC-DC landsman converter for low-power electric vehicle battery charging applications

Abstract

As the world moves towards sustainable development, the reduction of air pollution is considered an important factor. Consequently, the transportation sector is moving from conventional internal combustion engine vehicles to electric vehicles (EVs). To encourage EV usage, governments are working towards installing more public charging systems. These systems invariably use a DC-DC converter to ensure the supply of an appropriate voltage to charge the battery. In developing countries, the majority of users prefer electric bikes and electric rickshaws, which require low power. Therefore, it becomes necessary to use low-power converters suitable to charge these batteries. In such systems, non-isolated DC-DC converters play an important role. This work is intended to explore the use of the Landsman converter for EV battery charging. The motivation behind the work is explained, and the state of the art of EV battery charging research is reviewed to show the research gap. The operation of the proposed converter is explained in detail with its dynamic loop and nodal equations. The gain equation and the memory elements design are detailed with the corresponding equations. The model of the proposed converter is provided with the loss calculation. The system is simulated on MATLAB R2022b software, and the simulation results are provided to show the behavior of voltage and current in each component. To validate the design, a 100 W hardware prototype is implemented using discrete components to supply a resistive load, and to charge a 48 V Li-ion battery. The corresponding results are provided to validate the design and operation. A comparison of the proposed converters’ performance parameters with other non-isolated converters is provided. The topology is seen to provide an instantaneous efficiency of 88% during the prototype testing for resistive load, and an efficiency of 89.6% while charging a 48 V Li-ion battery, wherein, the efficiency magnitudes are the experimental values obtained through real-time measurements on Keysight IntegraVision Power Analyzer PA2203A, during the testing of the hardware prototype, as presented in section 8. Consequently, Landsman converter is seen to be an attractive converter for EV battery charging applications.