IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 44, NO.

5, OCTOBER 1997 597

An Integrated Battery Charger/Discharger

with Power-Factor Correction
Carlos Aguilar, Student Member, IEEE, Francisco Canales, Member, IEEE, Jaime Arau, Senior Member, IEEE,
Javier Sebastián, Member, IEEE, and Javier Uceda, Senior Member, IEEE

Abstract—Distributed power-supply systems are an attractive II. PROPOSED CIRCUIT

solution to meeting the requirements (redundancy, modularity,
battery backup, etc.) for the next generation of power-supply The circuit of the proposed topology is shown in Fig. 1(a)
systems. In addition, the normalization regarding power fac- [4]. The topology operates as a preregulator with PFC capacity,
tor and total harmonic distortion (THD) makes it necessary with the battery integrated into the primary side. The converter
to include the power-factor correction in the input stage in in its normal operation is capable of carrying out the battery
those architectures. This paper presents a novel approach of an charging. The function of the energy backup is carried out
integrated battery charger/discharger which offers power-factor
correction and battery galvanic isolation in a simple structure. by means of a winding and an extra switch . The
Placing the battery in the primary side overcomes the need of switch selects the operation mode and protects the battery
galvanic isolation integration in each one of the dc/dc on-board from higher charging current levels than those specified by
converters when this topology is used as part of a distributed the battery manufacturer.
power-supply system. The converter has normal, backup, and charging operation
Index Terms—AC–DC power conversion, batteries, communi- modes, which will be described in the following sections.
cation system power supplies, dc power systems, reactive power
correction, switched-mode power supplies, pulsewidth-modulated
power converters. A. Normal Mode of Operation
When the main power input is functioning properly,
the MOSFET is turned off and the transistor is turned
I. INTRODUCTION
on. The equivalent circuit of the proposed converter for this

N OWADAYS, it is not enough to increase the power

density, which implies use of high-frequency conversion
strategies, elaborate mounting techniques, etc., to meet the
operation mode is shown in Fig. 1(b). In this condition, the
equivalent circuit is a discontinuous-conduction-mode (DCM)
flyback converter; the power flow from to the load is
requirements of modularity, redundancy, and battery backing, controlled by the duty cycle of MOSFET with a pulsewidth
all of which appear to be necessary for the next generation modulated (PWM) pattern.
of power supplies. Distributed architecture in power-supply The current in the secondary side is given by the following
systems solves part of the problem, introduces new challenges equation [5]:
and opens very attractive research areas. The most interesting
challenge in the primary stage of a power supply is probably (1)
power-factor correction (PFC) [1].
However, an important disadvantage of distributed power
where
systems (DPS’s) is that they need to incorporate galvanic
isolation in each one of the dc/dc on-board converters. One duty cycle of ;
possible solution to this problem is to incorporate the battery switching period of ;
into the primary side at the front-end converter [2], [3]. One magnetizing inductance referred to the secondary;
drawback, however, is that PFC is not incorporated. secondary voltage.
This paper presents a new approach in order to incorporate If the secondary voltage is
battery galvanic isolation by placing the battery into the
primary side and the PFC features in a single-stage topology, (2)
to be used as a front-end converter in a DPS.
then
(3)
Manuscript received March 16, 1996; revised January 29, 1997.
C. Aguilar, F. Canales, and J. Arau are with the Centro Nacional de The average input current of the converter is
Investigación y Desarrollo Tecnológico (CENIDET), Cuernavaca, Morelos,
México.
J. Sebastián is with the Universidad de Oviedo, Campus Universidad de (4)
Viesques, E-33204 Gijón, Spain.
J. Uceda is with the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, 28006 Madrid,
Spain. (5)
Publisher Item Identifier S 0278-0046(97)06520-9.

0278–0046/97$10.00  1997 IEEE

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 598 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 44, NO. 5, OCTOBER 1997

(a) (b)

(c) (d)
Fig. 1. Operation modes of the proposed converter. (a) Basic circuit. (b) Normal mode. (c) Backup mode. (d) Charging mode.

Using (3) into (5), we have transistor continues “ON.” The equivalent circuit is shown
in Fig. 1(c), which corresponds to a dc/dc flyback converter.
(6) In this case, the MOSFET current will be much higher
than the MOSFET current, because the voltage is
(7) much lower than the main input voltage . Therefore, the
selection of MOSFET is more critical than the MOSFET
where concerning its internal resistance .
(8)
C. Charging Mode of Operation
Now, if the input voltage is When the main power input is functioning properly and the
(9) battery is discharged, the converter could be operated as a
battery charger. During this operation mode, the PFC capacity
then the low-frequency component of the input current is is preserved. In this mode of operation, the transistor is
turned off, and the equivalent circuit is shown in Fig. 1(d).
(10) Due to the position and polarity of the battery, the effective
voltage seen by the primary is
Therefore, the average input current, or the low-frequency
component, of the converter is directly proportional to the (11)
input voltage.
Since the polarities of and are opposite, then the
B. Backup Mode of Operation magnetizing inductance in this mode of operation is
If a failure of the main input power is detected, the
MOSFET is turned off and the MOSFET now governs – (12)
the backup energy transference with a PWM pattern, while the

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 AGUILAR et al.: INTEGRATED BATTERY CHARGER/DISCHARGER
(a)
(b)
(c)
Fig. 2. Versions of integrated battery charger/discharger using (a) Sepic
converter, (b) Cuk converter, and (c) zeta converter as the main power stage.
where
number of turns in the main primary;
number of turns in the backup primary;
magnetizing inductance in the main primary.
The primary current, which is the battery-charging current,
flows through the body diode of the MOSFET
Therefore, it is not necessary to turn on in this mode of
operation.
This principle of operation could be easily extended to
other buck–boost-derived topologies, such as the Sepic, Cuk,
and zeta converters, operating in DCM. Versions of Sepic,
Cuk, and zeta converters operating as integrated battery charg-
ers/dischargers can be seen in Fig. 2(a)–(c).
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599
On the other hand, in some applications it is desirable that
the battery connections are accessible to the user, basically for
maintenance purposes. In the proposed topology, the battery
is placed in the primary input side of the circuit (utility line
side). This placement could present a safety hazard, therefore,
we must avoid user access to the battery. However, if we
take into account that, currently, there are many applications
which use maintenance-free batteries and that the output of the
converter is isolated from the batteries and the utility line, there
should be no possibility that the user will have contact with the
battery when some load is connected or disconnected to the
proposed converter. Thus, the proposed topology would work
as a power supply with integrated backup. Besides, considering
the advantages of having the batteries in the primary side (we
can control both the charge and the discharge of the battery),
the proposed solution could be an interesting alternative.
III. CONTROL OF THE BATTERY CHARGING/DISCHARGING
The primary current of this converter depends on the
load; however, the battery-charging current can be controlled
through the duty cycle of MOSFET . Depending on the
converter load and the charging time of the battery, the duty
cycle of the transistor would be regulated. Taking into
account the operation frequency of the switch , it could be
a power bipolar junction transistor (BJT).
The primary and battery-charging currents for different load
conditions are shown in Fig. 3. In these conditions, the battery-
charging current needs to be kept at an adequate level, so that
it does not exceed the peak current established by the battery
manufacturer.
In the case where the converter is operating in backup mode,
the battery discharge can be controlled through the duty
cycle.
IV. CRITICAL DESIGN CONSIDERATIONS
Since the transformer has two primary windings, we must
take into account some special considerations in its construc-
tion. During the converter operation, it requires that, when a
primary winding is functioning, the other must be idle and vice
versa. If a magnetic field crosses over an idle winding, then
an extra leakage inductance will appear, which will cause an
increase in switching loss. Therefore, we must select windings
sequences upon which the magnetic field does not cross. These
sequences could be – – or – – .
As explained in Section II, the body diode of MOSFET
is used to carry on the current in charging mode. However,
it must not carry the current when the converter is functioning
in normal mode, so that the backup converter
and can disappear from the equivalent circuit. In order to
.
achieve that, it is necessary to fulfill the following condition
[4]:
(13)
Such selection prevents diode conduction when is
turned on, so that the backup converter is idle.
 600
(a)
Fig. 3. Theoretical waveforms of the input and battery currents for (a) half-load and (b) full-load conditions.
Fig. 4. Experimental input waveforms (1: line voltage; 2: line current) in
normal mode under full-load conditions, PF =98.26%.
Regarding the input filter , the first purpose of is
to limit the amount of ripple current seen by the power utility.
Its selection depends on the switching frequency, the source
impedance, and conduced EMI specifications. The presence
of the capacitive filter introduces a reactive component on the
input current. Because the diode bridge carries power flow in
the first quadrant only, the diode bridge will stop conducting
when the reactive load tries to send energy back to the source.
At this time, the input current goes to zero, remaining in this
condition until the magnitude of the source voltage becomes
greater than the capacitor voltage. That means that the
value of has influence on the input current distortion. A
relatively large value of will not appreciably affect the
total harmonic distortion (THD) at higher power levels, but,
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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 44, NO. 5, OCTOBER 1997
(b)
if we want to maintain a low THD over a wide output power
range, the value of must be kept small. On the other hand,
when the proposed converter is working in the charging mode,
it has different battery polarities concerning the main source
input [see (11)]. Therefore, it is necessary to have a sufficiently
large capacitor value to avoid the effective voltage being zero
in the proximity of the zero crossing of the input voltage,
which introduces a higher distortion on the input current in
normal mode. It is clear that a design compromise must be
made concerning the capacitor value and the maximum
permissible input current distortion. An alternative solution
to matching optimal conditions in both operating modes is the
use of two capacitors (a small-value capacitor for normal mode
and large-value capacitor for charging mode) and adding an
extra switch, which will place the shunt capacitance necessary
for the charging mode.
V. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
In order to verify the performance of the proposed topology,
an experimental prototype has been built with the following
specifications:
90–140 V ;
48 V ;
50 W;
24 V.
The flyback transformer designed has the following mag-
netizing inductances: H, H,
and H. The filter section is formed with an
inductance mH and a capacitor nF. The
 AGUILAR et al.: INTEGRATED BATTERY CHARGER/DISCHARGER
(a)
(b)
Fig. 5. (a) Power factor and (b) THD of the proposed topology in normal
mode.
Fig. 6. Experimental efficiency for different load conditions in normal mode.
switching frequency for both power transistors and
is 100 kHz.
Fig. 4 shows input current and voltage waveforms for full-
load condition, when the converter operates in normal mode.
The experimental power factor and THD obtained for different
load conditions in the normal operation mode is shown in
Fig. 5(a) and (b). The efficiency of the prototype is shown in
Fig. 6. The efficiency obtained could be higher through the
use of an active-clamp circuit.
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601
Fig. 7. Power-factor evolution in charging mode.
Fig. 8. Input current and voltage waveforms in charging mode under
half-load condition.
Fig. 9. Input current and voltage waveforms in charging mode under
low-load condition.
Fig. 7(a) shows the power-factor evolution when the con-
verter is operating in charging mode, and Figs. 8 and 9 show
the input current and voltage waveforms under the same
operation mode. The effect of the change in the operating mode
during a semicycle, in order to limit battery current through
modulation, can be seen in the input current waveforms. The
distortion introduced depends on where the operating mode
change occurs (respecting to the sinusoidal waveforms). It is
 602
(a)
(b)
Fig. 10. (a) THD and (b) efficiency of the proposed converter in charging
mode.
important to note that, for all the results shown in Figs. 7–9,
modulation is present in order to protect the battery.
Fig. 8 presents a case of half load, when the change occurs
close to the middle of the sinusoidal waveform producing the
lowest power factor obtained (see Fig. 7). On the other hand,
when the change occurs close to the voltage peak (Fig. 9) or
to the zero crossing (low or full load), the effect on the current
distortion is lowest, and the power factor is higher, as can be
seen in Fig. 7.
The THD and efficiency results obtained for different load
conditions are shown in Fig. 10(a) and (b), when the converter
is functioning in charging mode. The efficiency obtained could
be improved through the use of an active-clamp circuit.
VI. CONCLUSION
Nowadays, characteristics such as power-factor correction,
galvanic isolation, and efficient charging/discharging schemes
need to be compatible with actual trends in distributed power-
supply systems, keeping in mind the cost factor, which means
that it is necessary to develop simple structures with a mini-
mum component count.
This paper has presented a novel approach to an inte-
grated battery charger/discharger which offers power-factor
correction and battery galvanic isolation in a simple structure.
Placing the battery into the primary side, it overcomes the
need of galvanic isolation integration in each one of the dc/dc
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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 44, NO. 5, OCTOBER 1997
on-board converters, when this topology is used as part of a
distributed power-supply system.
Extensions of the proposed topology to other buck-boost-
derived topologies, such as Sepic, Cuk, and zeta converters
were also presented.
REFERENCES
[1] W. A. Tabisz, M. M. Jovanovic, and F. C. Lee, “Present and future of
distributed power systems,” in Proc. Virginia Power Electronics Center
Conf., 1991, pp. 161–168.
[2] K. Ma and Y. Lee, “A novel uninterruptible dc-dc converter for
UPS applications,” IEEE Trans. Ind. Applicat., vol. 28, pp. 808–815,
July/Aug. 1992.
[3] K. Ma and Y. Lee, “An integrated flyback converter for DC uninter-
ruptible power supply,” in Proc. IEEE Applied Power Electronics Conf.,
1994, pp. 661–667.
[4] C. Aguilar, “Analysis of a novel scheme of an integrated battery
charger/discharger with high power factor,” M.S. thesis, Dep. Electron.
Eng., Centro Nacional de Investigación y Desarrollo Tecnológico,
Cuernavaca, México, Feb. 1995.
[5] R. Erickson, M. Madigan, and S. Singer, “Design of a simple high-
power-factor rectifier based on the flyback converter,” in Proc. IEEE
Applied Power Electronics Conf., 1990, pp. 792–801.
Carlos Aguilar (S’94) was born in Tres Valles,
Veracruz, México, in 1970. He received the B.Sc.
degree in electromechanical engineering in 1992
from the Instituto Tecnológico de Tuxtepec, Tux-
tepec, México, and the M.Sc. degree in electronic
engineering in 1995 from the Centro Nacional de In-
vestigación y Desarrollo Tecnológico (CENIDET),
Cuernavaca, México, where he is currently working
toward the Ph.D. degree in power electronics.
His research interests include active power-factor
correction, dc power supplies, and distributed power
supply systems.
Francisco Canales (M’96) received the B.Sc. de-
grees in mechanical and electrical engineering from
the Universidad Veracruzana, Veracruz, México, and
the M.Sc. degree in electronic engineering from
the Centro Nacional de Investigación y Desarrollo
Tecnológico (CENIDET), Cuernavaca, México, in
1989 and 1994, respectively.
Since 1994, he has been with the Department
of Electronic Engineering, CENIDET, where he is
involved in teaching and research in the areas of
high-frequency power conversion, distributed power
systems, and power-factor correction techniques.
Jaime Arau (M’91–SM’97) was born in Veracruz,
México, in 1960. He received the B.Sc. degree
in electronic engineering from the Instituto Tec-
nológico de Minatitlan, Minatitlan, México, and
the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from the
Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Madrid, Spain,
in 1982 and 1991, respectively.
He is currently a Professor at the Centro Na-
cional de Investigación y Desarrollo Tecnológico
(CENIDET), Cuernavaca, México, where he teaches
and conducts research in the area of power elec-
tronics. His fields of interest are power-factor correction and soft-switching
techniques, electronics ballast, and other topics related to power electronics.
Dr. Arau was the founding President of the IEEE Morelos, México, Section
Power Electronics Chapter and is currently serving as the PELS AdCom
Region No. 9 Liasion. He is also the President of the Mexican Academy
of Research in Electronic Engineering.
 AGUILAR et al.: INTEGRATED BATTERY CHARGER/DISCHARGER
Javier Sebastián (M’87) was born in Madrid,
Spain, in 1958. He received the M.Sc. degree from
the Polytechnical University of Madrid, Madrid,
Spain, and the Ph.D. degree from the University
of Oviedo, Oviedo, Spain, in 1981 and 1985,
respectively.
He was an Assistant Professor at the Polytech-
nical University of Madrid in 1982 and at the
University of Oviedo from 1983 to 1986. He
was an Associate Professor at the University of
Oviedo from 1987 to 1989 and at the Polytechnical
University of Madrid from 1990 to 1992. In 1992, he again joined the
University of Oviedo, where he is currently a Professor. His research interests
include switching-mode power supplies, resonant power conversion, converter
modeling, and high-power-factor rectifiers.
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603
Javier Uceda (M’83–SM’91) was born in Madrid,
Spain, in 1954. He received the M.Sc. and Ph.D.
degrees in electrical engineering form the Universi-
dad Politécnica de Madrid, Madrid, Spain, in 1976
and 1979, respectively.
From 1976 to 1981, he was an Assistant Professor
at the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid. In 1982,
he became a Professor at the Universidad de Oviedo,
Oviedo, Spain. Since 1986, he has been a Professor
at the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid. His re-
search interests include high-frequency high-density
power converters, high-power-factor rectifiers, and modeling of magnetic
components.
Dr. Uceda is a member of the Editorial Board of the European Power
Electronics and Drives Journal and of the Steering Committee of the European
Power Electronics and Drives Association. From 1988 to 1991, he was an
Associate Editor of the IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS. He
was also the Vice President of Technical Activities of the IEEE Industrial
Electronics Society for 1991. He was Technical Program Committee Chairman
of the IEEE Power Electronics Specialist Conference in 1992 and General
Chairman of the European Conference on Power Electronics and Applications
in 1995. He is a member of the AdComs of the IEEE Power Electronics and
IEEE Industrial Electronics Societies.