Design and analysis of three-port DC/DC converters for satellite platform power system

Abstract

Mass is one of the most important design constraints for the satellite power system. In order to achieve maximal solar power harvesting, battery charge/discharge control, and bus voltage regulation, normally several independent converters will be required, resulting in a heavy and bulky power system. This paper proposes a compact and efficient solution by using integrated three-port converter to achieve all above-mentioned functions within one single converter, therefore much lighter and smaller than the conventional system. The three-port topology is obtained by simply adding a switch and a diode to the conventional half-bridge converter. Moreover, zero-voltage switching is realized for all switches to reduce switching loss. The topology and circuit design is discussed in detail. In addition, the system construction is introduced, which adopts a distributed structure to obtain redundancy and maximize solar power harvesting for each individual PV panel. The proposed design is verified by experimental results. © 2011 IEEE.