A 3 kW bidirectional DC-DC converter for electric vehicles

Abstract

A bidirectional DC-DC converter (BDC) is an indispensable electrical unit for the electric vehicles (EVs). High efficiency, high power density, isolation, light weight and reliability are all essential requirements for BDC. In this paper, a 3 kW BDC for the battery charger of EVs is proposed. The proposed converter consists of a half-bridge structure on the primary side and an isolation transformer and a synchronous rectifier structure on the secondary side. With this topology, minimum number of switching devices are required for bidirectional power flow between the two dc buses of EVs. The easy implementation of the synchronous rectification gives advantages in terms of efficiency, cost and flexibility. The proposed BDC achieves high efficiency when operating in both modes (step-up and step-down). A 3 kW prototype is implemented to verify theoretical analysis and the performance of the proposed converter.