Efficient AC-DC power factor corrected boost converter design for battery charger in electric vehicles

Abstract

With the widespread use of electric vehicles (EVs), the design of a highly quality and efficient battery charger has become an important research topic. In this study, an efficient AC-DC power factor corrected (PFC) boost converter with active snubber cell (ASC) is proposed for the battery charger. ASC integrated into the AC-DC PFC boost converter turns on the main switch with zero voltage transition (ZVT) and turns off with zero current transition (ZCT), which among soft switching techniques for eliminating the switching losses. In addition, it has been provided that other switching elements are operated with soft switching. Soft switching conditions and unity power factor (PF) are achieved from light load to full load conditions. Unlike the soft-switched PFC converter circuits in the current literature, no current and voltage stresses have been observed on any component in the main converter and ASC circuits. The paper also presents the steady-state operating principles and design guidelines of the proposed converter in detail. The efficiency improvement between the hard switched counterpart has been verified by making detailed loss analysis. The proposed converter has been constructed as 3.3 kW and tested according to European efficiency standards with various case studies. The total harmonic distortion (THD) of input current has been measured as less than 5% in compliance with EN 6100-3-2 Class D Limits (A) standards.