Reconfigurable three state dc-dc power converter for the wide output range applications

Improving the dc voltage gain of power converters has been the primary focus of the current and past research in the area of power electronics. This work presents another solution to widen the range of the output voltage. It proposes three reconfigurable steps for the output voltage. The range of the output voltage varies up to four times the base level. These configurations together vary the output voltage from 15 to 96 volts. A soft switched dc-dc power converter is built with the traditional topology of phase shifted full bridge converter along with improved characteristics. For better management of the transformer loss, a configuration of four transformers has been employed. The proportional gate drive approach is implemented to obtain four similar isolated blocks of the output voltage. This makes it possible to either configure these blocks all in series, parallel or in series/ parallel combination of two. The concept is verified in a low-profile prototype. The hardware is characterized up to the load power of 1kW for the input voltage of 400Vdc. The converter reports better efficiency over the complete range of output voltage.