A High-Efficiency Control of a Double-Input Converter for Renewable Energies and Hybrid Vehicles

A double-input DC-DC converter is taken into account in this paper. The converter is bidirectional and both currents can be controlled independently. On the one hand it allows to reduce the number of switches, on the other hand, it exhibits a higher efficiency in comparison to a traditional solution with two half-bridge converters in parallel connection. However, the control strategy proposed in the technical literature forces the converter to work in Continuous Conduction Mode at low-load, which leads to a low conversion efficiency. In this paper, a novel control, which exploits Discontinuous Conduction Mode, is presented. Efficiency increase is evaluated with a thermal model in MATLAB/Simulink Plecs environment and the control algorithm is then validated with experimental tests on a converter prototype.