A High-Efficiency 3.

3-kW Bidirectional On-Board Charger

Jih-Sheng Lai', Lanhua Zhang', Zaka Zahid', Nan-Hsiung Tseng2 , Chi-Seng Lee2 , and Chin-Hone Lin2
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA 24061'
Industrial Technology Research Institute, Hsinchu, Taiwan ROC

Abstract-A bidirectional on-board charger (BODC) using a full-bridge bidirectional dc-ac inverter and a
bidirectional CLLLC dc-dc converter has been designed and built for electric vehicle (EV) on-board charger
applications. The dc-ac inverter can be operated in ac-dc with power factor correction (PFC) function. The
CLLC dc-dc converter is modified from LLC converter with two separate resonant capacitors on both side of
the transformer. A 3.3 kW bidirectional on-board charger prototype has been designed and built.
Experimental results show al different operating modes including (1) battery charging mode, (2) vehicle to
grid (V2G) mode, and (3) vehicle to house (V2H) mode.

I. INTRODUCTION

Recently, electric vehicles (EVs) and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PREVs) have gained popularity because
of their advantages, such as more environmentally friendly, less noisy and more efficient. The batteries in these
vehicles are charged by power converters powered from utility. EVs and PHEVs equip with sufficient battery
capacity that can be used for regeneration applications such as vehicle-to-house (V2H) and vehicle-to-grid (V2G)
applications. In these applications battery chargers are bidirectional, capable of transferring power back to the
standalone load and the utility grid. Vehicles with V2H and V2G capability can serve as a distributed energy
resource providing power to utility loads, regulate the voltage and frequency, and help the utility load leveling.
These vehicles can absorb excessive energy produced by renewable energy sources like wind and photovoltaic.
The bidirectional battery charger consists of a bidirectional ac-dc converter followed by a bidirectional dc-dc
converter. The ac-dc converter may operate in power factor correction (PFC) mode and let dc-dc converter operate
in a conventional battery charging mode. It can also operate in inverter mode to produce ac voltage for standalone
to ac load or to send the ac current to utility grid.
The dc-dc converters manage power flow between the dc bus and the battery. A number of bidirectional dc-dc
converters can be found in the literature. The main focus in these converters is on achieving soft-switching in the
power switches for a wide range of load to get rid of EMI and to enable very high-frequency operation so that the
size, and thus the cost, of the magnetics and output filter is minimized. Both isolated and non-isolated converters are
proposed. The advantages with the non-isolated converters are fewer numbers of components and high efficiency.
However, in some applications, galvanic isolation is required for safety between the primary side and the secondary
side.
The proposed dc-dc converter is to use two resonant capacitors on both side of the conventional LLC converter.
The paper describes the design methodology of the power stage for wide input and wide output voltage range. An
equivalent model for the converter operating in battery charging mode is developed for steady-state analysis. As a
design example, a 3.3 kW converter is designed following the proposed designed methodology for the voltage gain
requirement that is a buck-boost in either direction. The experimental results for converter operating in the battery
charging mode and in the regeneration mode are presented to validate the design methodology and the derivation of
CLLC network.

II. SYSTEM CONFIGURATION AND CIRCUIT TOPOLOGIES

Figure 1 shows the system architecture of the bidirectional charger. For initial testing as the V2H mode, the
system was operated in inverter mode. A dc power supply can be used as a battery. A resistive load was utilized for

978-1-4799-7657-7/15/$31.00 ©2015 IEEE

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the ac load. The mid-bus voltage was regulated to 400Vdc. The ac voltage was regulated to 220Vac circuit topology
for the resonant converter capable of transferring power in both directions.

Isolated
Bidirectional
AC 400V Bidirectional DC
AC·DC
DC·DC

Figure l. System architecture of the bidirectional charger.

Figure 2 shows the complete circuit topology for the bidirectional charger that includes a conventional dc-ac
inverter and a resonant dc-dc converter. The dc-ac inverter, which consists of Q" Q2, Q3, and Q4 devices, can be
operated as an ac-dc converter to supply the power for battery charging. The use of conventional dc-ac inverter
allows bidirectional power flow. In this design, all switches are insulated-gate-bipolar-transistor (lGBT) in
paralleled with silicon carbide (SiC) Schottky diode.

Figure 2. Complete schematic circuit diagram of the bidirectional charger.

The dc-dc converter consists of primary and secondary converter circuits. The primary side converter consists of QA,
Qs, Qc, and QD devices, which are also IGBT in parallel with SiC diode. The secondary side consists of QE, QF, Qc,
and QH devices, which are super-junction power MOSFETs. The reason for asymmetrical device selection is
because of unequal voltage conversion ratio in both directions. From primary to secondary, the input is fixed, and
the output is variable voltage. From secondary to primary, the input is variable, and the output is fixed. Therefore,
the resonant frequency range is different, and the soft-switching condition changes in either direction.

III. BASIC OPERATIONAL PRINCIPLES OF THE NOVEL CONVERTER

Without a thorough theoretical analysis of the resonant converter, it is quite difficult to achieve good designs of
the converter. The steady-state model for the converter operating in battery charging mode is derived here. The model
for the converter operating in the regeneration mode can be derived in a similar fashion. The equivalent model of the
resonant converter operating in battery charging mode is shown in Figure 3.
i1 i2
VI -
+ �
� ---+ + V2-
+
C1 L1 L2 C2
1
·.51 Lm n Va

Figure 3. Equivalent circuit for resonant converter operating in battery charging mode.
The output voltage versus operating switching frequency curve and the output current versus the operating
switching frequency curve for the bidirectional converter can be plotted using (4) and (5). Figure 4 shows the
voltage gain curves for the converter under different load conditions with transformer turns ratio equal to 1. The gain
of the converter is unity at primary side series resonant frequency,lser. The gain of the converter is more than unity
for frequencies lower thanlsm and the gain is less than unity for frequencies greater thanlser. These gain curves can
be divided into three regions, namely, Region 1, 2 and 3.
 3

Large RL

Series Resonant
Frequency

Small RL

Figure 4. The voltage gain versus operating switching frequency curves under different load conditions.

A. Region 1

This region consists of the frequencies higher than the Iser. The gain of the converter in this region is always less
than unity under any output load conditions. Voltages and currents for converter operating in this region are shown
in Figure 5. Figure 6 shows the voltages and the currents for converter operating atlser. Primary side switches turn
on at zero voltage condition whereas the secondary side switches turn on and turn off at zero currents.

Figure 5. Voltages and the currents for converter operating in Region 1.

Vn � :==
�=F�F
����
--� =-
--- +--+
��- � -�
-
�

-Vin - -===-
�
L-__L-__________�__________�__________�__________�
-

Figure 6. Voltages and the currents for converter operating at primary side series resonant frequency.

B. Region 2

This region consists of gain curves with negative slope, and operating frequencies lower than the Iser. The gain
of the converter in this region is always equal to or more than unity. The voltages and the currents for converter
operating in this region are shown in Figure 7. Primary side switches turn on at zero voltage condition whereas the
secondary-side switches turn on and turn off at zero currents. The secondary-side current is in discontinuous
conduction mode.
 4

Figure 7. The voltages and the currents for converter operating in Region 2.

C. Region 3
This region consists of operating frequencies lower than the Iser. In this region, the gain of the converter can be
more than 1 or less than 1. This is the ZCS region where the primary side switches turn off at zero currents. This
converter is never operated in this region.

IV EXPERIMENTAL VERIFICATION

To validate the converter design, a 3.3 kW bidirectional resonant converter was fIrst built in lab. The resonant
capacitance in the dc bus side consists of two capacitors each 68 nF, SPT46L683, in parallel. And in the battery side,
two capacitors each of 100 nF, SPT46Ll04, are in parallel. For CLLLC confIguration, the inductances in resonant
network consists of L/, L2 and Lm. Whereas, for CLLC confIguration, the inductances are Lr and M.

For experiments, a programmable electronic load is used. In the battery charging mode (BCM), the e-Ioad is
programmed as a battery load whose voltage is varied from 2S0V to 4S0 V. In the regeneration mode (RM), the e­
load is programmed as a current source to emulate the ac-dc stage. The circuit parameters for the designed converter
are listed in Error! Reference source not found. . Figure 10 shows photograph of the 3.3-kW bidirectional chargers.

Table 1 Circuit Parameters

VDC 400 V nCLLLC 1 Vsatt(e-Ioad in BCM) 2S0 V�4S0 V
L, 18.87 IlH Lr 34.81lH iDde-load in RM) O.S A�8.S A
L2 19.161lH M 78.28 IlH QA�QD IKW40N6SFS
C, 2 x 68 nF nCLLC 1.2 QE�QH FCH041N60F
C2 2 x 100 nF CDC 30 IlF
Lm 94.2 IlH C[ 30 IlF

AC-DCstage DC-DCstage

lOS'
1
1
Figure 83. Photograph of the 3.3 kW bidirectional battery charger built in lab.

Figure 9 shows ac output voltage and current waveforms under 3.3-kW V2G operating conditions. The output
voltage is 22S Vrms, and the input current is IS Arms. The output is connected to utility grid through a transformer.
The reason for a higher voltage is because the regeneration current tends to boost the terminal voltage.
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IIlr!MU. PIIII'I$(C(J P:1rr.ts(C3) P,31r'1'1$(CZI P.(/rI)I!IlC.'l P�II'I."L'III;)Itl) Pl5rne���lh)

'fiI11.JI :n. IiJ:I V 5YiNUIIH:t '.Y-.(7A M1'U�05H:1: .1:rH�W .JJ1.(wt
� A � � � �

Figure 9. Output voltage and current waveforms of the inverter operating under V2G 3.3 kW condition.

Figure 410 shows the measured current and voltage waveforms for the converter operating in the battery
charging mode under different battery voltages.

(a) VBan 250 V and IBan 10 A

= (b) VBan 350 V and IBan 10 A (c) VB•n 450 V and IBatt 7.5 A
= = = = =

Figure 4. Yellow Primary side bridge voltage, VAS, Red Primary side current, if, Blue Secondary side
= = =

bridge voltage, VCD, and Green

Figure 5 shows complete system efficiency for (a) V2H mode and (b) battery charging mode. For lower battery
voltage, the efficiency is lower as the converter operates at frequency much higher than!ser' The peak efficiency is
higher than 94.5% for both modes.
0.95 96%
0.945 95%
0.94 94% -;;:;-- .
• . .......
•
0.935 93% - •
1'>'
0.93 c:
Q) 92%
>-
�.. 0.925 '5 91%
it: -250Vo
0.92 W 90%
� 0.915
89%
--300Vo

-350Vo
0.91
88% 400Vo
0.905
-

87% -430Vo
0.9
86%
0.895
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4
0 1000 2000 3000 4000
Output Power (W) Output Power (kW)
Figure 5. Efficiency of the power stage for different battery voltages under different load conditions.

V. CONCLUS[ON

This paper presents a bidirectional on-board charger with circuit topology, design methodology, and hardware
implementation. Voltage and current waveforms show that dc-dc converter operates in soft switching over the entire
range, which verify the depicted operating principle. Experimental results showed that the 3.3-kW design has
efficiency exceeding 94.5% in both battery charging and discharging modes.