Sliding mode control of a solar powered switched-inductor based quadratic DC-DC converter for sustainable EV battery charging application

Abstract

The growing demand for sustainable transportation and fast charging solutions requires efficient power conversion technologies for solar electric vehicles or electric vehicles (SEVs/EVs). A non-isolated solar-powered switched-inductor quadratic DC-DC converter is proposed here to achieve high voltage gain in a practical way under reduced stress on power devices. A switched-inductor network blended with CCM operation avoids the extremely high duty cycles and high electromagnetic interference in conventional boost converters. A sliding mode control (SMC) strategy is applied here to improve robustness against parameter variations, ensure stable operation against dynamic load variations, and extract maximum power during solar-powered charging operation. This makes the topological platform proposed in this study especially suitable for a wide variety of applications, such as for SEVs and fast-charging applications of EVs. Detailed MATLAB/Simulink analyses along with a laboratory-scale prototype verify the performance of the converter under practical operation conditions and confirm the high efficiency of 91-96% at varied irradiance, low voltage ripple of 0.5-1.5% of output voltage and input current ripple of 5-12% of input current, reduced switching losses of 1-4%, and suitability of the presented converter for renewable-energy-based transportation systems.