High-frequency, high-efficiency converter with recirculating energy control for high-density power conversion

Abstract

Abstract A front-end converter processes only a fraction (e.g., about 10%) of the power delivered by an efficient output (i.e., the main) converter in order to control the output voltage thereof. Because only a fraction of the delivered power is processed, the losses associated with the front-end converter are a very small fraction of the total delivered power, leading to very high overall efficiencies. The input power to the front-end converter (12) is provided from the output of the main converter; this reduced power is thus circulated within the converter. Regulation of the output voltage (V o ) by controlling (11) the dc voltage relieves the regulating function from the main converter, allowing the main converter to be selected strictly on the basis of efficiency and small size. The result is an overall efficient, compact dc-to-dc converter with minimal output filter requirements and protection against output short circuits. Additionally, the converter bandwidth is determined by the bandwidth of the low-power front-end converter which can have a higher bandwidth than a full-rated converter. Therefore, a significantly higher bandwidth can be achieved as compared with presently available converters, advantageously resulting in a reduced output filter size and faster speed of response.

Inventors

• 👤 Robert Louis Steigerwald
• 👤 Sriram Ramakrishnan

Bibliographic Details