Design and Control Methodology of a Three-Port Resonant Converter for Electric Vehicles

Three-port converters (TPCs) enable the design of more efficient, power dense,and high-power dc-dc converters. This article investigates the operation of a resonant TPC in electric vehicle applications. Operating conditions of the resonant TPC are presented. The steady-state analysis of the converter with zero-voltage switching consideration is discussed. A controller concept to regulate the resonant TPC is proposed. State-space equations of the resonant TPC are derived, and a nested closed-loop control strategy is implemented. The converter operation is validated in the PLECS simulation environment under step-load and input voltage variation conditions. The resonant TPC can regulate its output voltage under the proposed control strategy and maintain its operation at various operating conditions.