Research on Fast Charging Control Strategy Based on Three-level DC /

DC Converter
Caoyang Wang, Shengyong Liu*,Pingfei Chen
School of Electrical and Information Engineering, Guangxi University of Science and Technology, Guangxi Key Laboratory of Automotive
Parts and Vehicle Technology, Liuzhou 545616, China
E-mail: liusypp@163.com

Abstract: Aiming at the current problems of low charging efficiency and slow charging speed of electric vehicles, this paper uses
a half-bridge three-level LLC resonant converter as the main circuit, and uses the positive pulse charging with stop charging
method. The switching stress on the primary side of the topology is only half of the input voltage, and it is easy to achieve
soft switching, and the secondary side is an uncontrolled rectifier composed of diodes. A hybrid control strategy
combined with phase shift control is proposed in order to solve the problem that the voltage can be adjusted in a small
range when the frequency modulation control strategy is adopted in this topology. Using the model of a half-bridge
three-level LLC resonant converter, the positive pulse charging and stop charging are compared with constant current charging
through simulink, the correctness and effectiveness of positive pulse charging with stop charging were verified. The system
efficiency and charging speed were improved.
Key Words: Half-bridge three-level LLC, hybrid control strategy, fast charging

with a lower withstand voltage, which has advantages over

1 Introduction
In recent years, with the increasing consumption of
non-renewable resources, the popularization of new energy
will inevitably develop in the future. In the automobile
industry, compared with fuel vehicles, electric vehicles
have many advantages, such as environmental protection,
low noise and high efficiency, but there are also many
problems, such as shorter battery life and long charging time.
Therefore, reducing the charging time and prolonging the
battery life has become the focus of the electric vehicle
industry research. The traditional charging methods include
constant current charging method and constant voltage
charging method, but the charging time of these two methods
is too long to meet the demand. So the fast charging methods
emerge as the times require [1-3]: segmented constant
current charging method, pulse charging method, negative
pulse charging method and intermittent charging method.
Some studies and analyses show that pulse charging can
improve the batteries’ charging acceptance rate on the
premise of ensuring the charging efficiency.
With the continuous development of the power
electronics industry, the traditional two-level converter
can no longer work under the condition of high voltage
and high power. In order to reduce the voltage stress of the
power switch tube, the midpoint clamped half-bridge
three-level structure is adopted in this paper. This
topology can reduce the voltage stress of the switch tube to
half of the input voltage. So it can choose a switching device
National Natural Science Foundation of China (61563006) Guangxi
Scientific and Technological Research Project (Gui Ke Attack 1599808-2);
Guangxi Graduate Innovation Project (GKYC201801)
*Corresponding Author: Shengyong Liu
the traditional two-level topology. The full-bridge
three-level converter adopts phase-shift modulation to obtain
a wider voltage regulation range[4-5], but this topology has
more switching tubes. While the three-level half-bridge
converter can save half of the switching tubes, but the range
of soft switching is small when the three-level half-bridge
adopts phase-shift modulation. Reference [6-8] increased the
soft switching range by introducing LLC resonance into the
half-bridge three-level converter. LLC resonant converter
can realize zero voltage switch of power switching in the full
load range and zero current switching of secondary side
diode, thereby reducing switching loss and improving
efficiency. Reference [9] added an inductor to the LLC
resonator, and its operating state and characteristics under
variable frequency voltage boost and phase shift
step-down are analyzed. It also proposed a simple logic and
easy to implement hybrid control method, but the circuit is
too complicated.
In this paper, a half-bridge three-level LLC converter is
designed as the main circuit. In addition, positive charging
with stop charging is used as the charging method to achieve
the purpose of fast charging.
2 Topological Structure And Its Characteristics
2.1 Half-bridge three-level LLC converter topology
The topology of the half-bridge three-level LLC
converter is shown in figure 1. Q1~Q4 are MOS transistors,
D1~D4 are parasitic diodes connected in reverse parallel to
the MOS transistors. C1~C4 are parasitic capacitances of
MOS transistors, resonant capacitor Cr, and resonant
inductor Lr and magnetic inductor Lm (can be replaced by the
magnetic inductor in the transformer). n is the ratio of the
number of turns on the primary side and the secondary side

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 of the transformer. D7~D10 are secondary-side rectifier
diodes, Uin is the input voltage, C6 is the voltage stabilization
filter capacitor of the secondary side load, R0 is the load
resistance, and U0 is the output voltage. Clamping capacitors
C5 and C6 are connected in series with the input voltage Uin in
series. In order to achieve voltage equalization, diodes D5,
D6 and flying capacitor C7 are used to clamp the switching
tube to achieve a switching tube voltage stress of half the Fig.3.Equivalent model under variable frequency control
input voltage.
The resonant part of the half-bridge three-level LLC
converter consists of a resonant inductor Lr, a resonant
capacitor Cr and a magnetic inductor Lm. It has two
resonance processes, when the resonance current and the
magnetic current are not the same, only the resonant inductor
and resonant capacitor participate in the resonance, resulting
in a series-parallel resonant frequency fr, and when the
resonance current is the same as the magnetic current, the
whole resonance part participates in the resonance to
generate a series-parallel frequency fm:
1 1 (1)
fr = ǂǂǂǂǂf m =
2± Lr Cr 2±˄Lr + Lm˅Cr
 
Fig.1.Half-bridge three-level LLC converter topology The output voltage regulation range of the transformer
under frequency conversion control, that is, voltage gain, can
2.2 Variable Frequency control
be defined from figure 3[10]:
The working waveform of the converter under 2nU 0 1 (2)
G= =
frequency control is shown in figure 2. Upon starting the U1 k 2 1
operation, the MOS transistors Q1 and Q2 are simultaneously ˄1 + k − ˅ + Q˄
2
f n − ˅2
f n2 fn
turned on. Q2 is turned off first, and then turned off in order
Where fn is the normalized frequency: fn = fm / fr; k is the
to ensure that the voltage stress of the two switch tubes is half
inductance: k = Lm / Lr; Q is the quality
of the input voltage, thereby making current flow through the
switch tube Q1 flows into the clamping diode D5, so that the factor: Q = Z r = Lr / Cr
switch voltage stress clamp in Ui / 2. The principle of Q4 and R1 n 2 R0 
Q3 is same to Q1 and Q2. It can be known that the output
voltage can be changed by changing the switching frequency
of the half-bridge three-level LLC converter.

Fig.4.Gain curve of LLC resonant converter

The gain curves under different quality factors can be

Fig.2.Working waveform under variable frequency control
The equivalent model under converter frequency
control is shown in figure 3.
obtained from (2), which is shown in figure 4. As can be seen
from the graph˖when in a light load state, the voltage gain is
small and the adjustable output voltage range is small. When
in the heavy load state, soft switching cannot be implemented
on the fn> 1 side. Therefore, wide-range voltage regulation
cannot be achieved by using the frequency conversion mode
alone.

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 2.3 Phase shift control
To improve the LLC converter frequency mode
regulator can not be achieved in a wide range of
disadvantages, phase shift control is introduced in the high
frequency part of LLC resonant converter. When the
frequency of the switching device reaches a certain value, if
the voltage gain is still too high, the switching frequency is
kept unchanged. The fundamental effective value of input
voltage is changed by changing the phase-shift angle
between the leading and lagging bridge arms, so as to
reducing the output voltage gain[11].
The working waveform of the converter under
phase-shift control is shown in figure 5. The switches Q1 and 
Q4, Q2 and Q3 are turned on in a complementary manner, and
Fig.7.GD variation curves at fs=100kHz
Q2 lags Q1 by a certain angle, duty cycle is D( 0İDİ1).
When the switching frequency is constant, change the duty
cycle to control the output voltage. The voltage gain The switching frequency is set as fs=100kHz, according
increases as the duty cycle D decreases. to the relationship between voltage gain GD and duty cycle
D, figure 7 shows.It can be known from (3) that when 0İD
İ1, then 0İGİ1, the output voltage adjustment range of
the phase shift control is wide.
3 Variable Frequency And Phase Shift Hybrid
Control Strategy
It can be known from the previous article that only if
adopting a hybrid control strategy combining frequency
conversion control and phase shift control, then it can
broaden the range of voltage regulation well and the soft
switching. It can be divided into three sections: frequency
conversion, phase shift and frequency conversion. That is,
when Gmin <Gİ1, the phase shift control strategy is adopted,
and the remaining voltage gain G is controlled by frequency
Fig.5.Working waveform under phase-shift control conversion. The control strategy method is shown in figure
8:
Under phase-shift control, the fundamental gain
approximation is generally used to analyze the voltage
gain.Its equivalent model is shown in figure 6.

Fig.6.Equivalent model under phase-shift control


The relationship between the output voltage gain G and
the duty cycle D is: Fig.8.Voltage gain curve under hybrid control strategy
nU 0
G d = = cos˄ 0 . 5 π D ˅(3) 4 Fast Charge Control Strategy
U in / 2
4.1 Load transfer power and efficiency
Based on a large number of experimental data, the
scientist Mas proposed maximum charge current curve of the
state of charge of the lithium battery. The graph is shown in
figure 9. As the charging progresses, the maximum
acceptable charging current gradually decreases. When the
charging current is on the upper side of the maximum

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 acceptable charging curve, the gas evolution of the battery
increases, the positive electrode emits oxygen, and the
negative electrode emits hydrogen, and the polarization
reaction becomes heavier. When the charging current is
below the maximum acceptable current curve, damage to the
battery is avoided, but the charging speed is too slow to meet
the fast charging requirements[12].
i = I 0 e −αt (4)
Where I0 is the initial maximum charging current (A); i
is the acceptable current (A); Į is the charging acceptance
rate that determines the decay rate; t is the charging time (s).
In this paper, BYD Qin's 500V / 26Ah lithium iron
phosphate power battery is selected as the research object.
The ITS5000 battery test system is used for testing. Set 570V
as the cut-off voltage, record the charging time and charging
capacity after multiple tests, and take the average value. The
national standard of fast charging requires that the battery's
charging capacity is not less than 80% of the total capacity in
an hour[13], so the charging current is 52A (2C), the average
charging capacity is 18.18Ah, accounting for 69.9% of the
total capacity, and the average time is 1311s.
Figure.9.Best charging curve
In order to achieve fast charging standards, according to
the Mas three laws: it can be known that when the acceptable
charging current is lower than the charging current, stopping
the charging after a period of time can slow down the
polarization phenomenon, and then increase the acceptable
current. Charging stops once time when the current
decreases by 1%. The positive pulse charging time is as
follows:
i0
ln
t = −
I0 (5)
α Lr = 3.72­H, the resonant capacitor Cr =681.04nF, the
Where i0 is the charging current which decreases by
1%(A).
According to (4), the charged capacity of the battery is:
I
C t = ³ I 0 e − α t dt = 0 ( 1 − e − α t ) = C (1 − e − α t ) (6)
t
0 α
Where Ct is the charged capacity (Ah); C is the battery
rated capacity (Ah).
It can be obtained that, the initial maximum acceptable
current using 52A constant current charging is 90.11A, and
the time from 90.11A to 52A can be obtained from formula
(4) is 571s. During this time, constant current charging is
used, and the charging capacity is 8.25Ah.
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Thereafter, as the acceptable charging current is lower
than the charging current, a positive charging with stop
charging process is adopted to reduce the impact of the
polarization phenomenon and accelerate the charging speed.
As the charge of the battery increases, the acceptable rate of
charging changes gradually:
I (7)
α =
C − Ct
Where I is the charging current (A).
From (7), when I0 is reduced to 52A, Ct is 8.25 Ah, C is
26 Ah, and the acceptable charging rate Į is 2.93. The
positive pulse charging time that can be obtained by (5) is
12.35s.
During the charging process, the lithium iron phosphate
battery will produce polarization. When the charging is
stopped, the ohmic polarization and the concentration
polarization will disappear quickly, but the speed of
disappearance is closely related to the interior of the
lead-acid battery.
Therefore, according to the characteristics of lead-acid
battery to be used in the experiment, the shutdown time
should be determined by 52A constant current charging and
discharging experiment. Observe the lithium battery voltage
change during the experiment. When the 52A constant
current charging is switched to stop charging, the voltage of
the lithium battery immediately decreases. After about 7.6s,
the voltage drop rate significantly slows down, indicating
that ohmic polarization and concentration polarization have
disappeared. The purpose has been achieved. To ensure the
effect of charging stop, take the charging stop time for 8s.
5 Parameter Design And Simulation Analysis
5.1 Parameter design
This article designs a converter with a DC bus input of
600V ~ 750V. Its rated input voltage is 700V and its output
is 300V ~ 750V. Its output current is 13A and its rated power
can reach 6.5kW. The converter uses four modules in
parallel to output, and the total output power reaches 26kW.
Selected resonant frequency fr=100kHz, the transformer
ratio n = 0.70, the AC equivalent resistance R0 = 38.46¡,
the quality factor Q = 0.3, the converted primary resistance
Rac = 7.79¡, the inductance k = 5, and the resonant inductor
magnetic inductor Lm = 18.6­H.
5.2 Simulation analysis
According to the theory above, a simulation is
established for charging. The battery current and time curve
of positive charging with stop charging are shown in Figure
10. The SOC value change using the positive charging
method and the SOC under 26A (1C) and 52A (2C) constant
current charging .The comparison is shown in Figure 11.

Figure.10.positive charging with stop charging current curve
Figure.11.positive charging with stop charging and constant
current charging contrast curve
As can be seen from Figures 10 and 11, when using 26A
constant current charging, the capacity that can be charged is
23.68Ah, accounting for 91.1% of the total battery capacity,
and the charging time is 3415s; using 52A constant current
charging, when the cut-off voltage is reached. The capacity
that can be charged is 18.18Ah, accounting for 69.9% of the
total battery capacity, and the charging time is 1331s; when
using 52A positive charging with stop charging, the capacity
that can be charged is 22.58Ah, accounting for 86.9% of the
total battery capacity, and the charging time is 3016s .
Comparing the three charging methods, 52A constant current
charging is the fastest, but its capacity can only reach 69.92%
of the total capacity, and it cannot meet the requirement that
the charging capacity must not be less than 80% of the total
capacity. The 26A constant current charging speed is
significantly slower and cannot meet the requirements of fast
charging. In summary, the 52A positive pulse charging and
stopping speed is the fastest, and at the same time, it can meet
the requirements of fast charging.
6 Conclusion
The requirements for the DC charging post stage DC /
DC converter, this paper designs a multi-module parallel
implementation of a half-bridge three-level LLC converter
module to achieve high power output. Phase-shift
modulation is introduced to the half-bridge three-level
half-bridge LLC conversion device. The working process
and voltage regulation gain under phase shift modulation are
analyzed. Combined with the voltage gain of frequency
conversion control, a hybrid control strategy with the
combination of frequency conversion modulation and phase
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shift modulation is proposed. Based on BYD Qin's 500V /
26Ah lithium iron phosphate power battery as the research
object, combined with the half-bridge three-level LLC
converter and Mas three laws, a positive charging with stop
charging was selected as the charging method in this paper.
The time of charging and power outage is obtained through
the derivation of the formula, and the SOC changes of
positive pulse charge and constant current charging are
compared by simulink. It was verified that the positive pulse
charging with stop charging in the resonant converter
improved the system efficiency and charging speed.
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