Low Cost and Small Component Count Hybrid Converter with Energy Management Control for Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Applications

Abstract

This paper proposes a novel non-isolated three-port converter having dual-input and single-output (DISO) for low cost and small component counts. A combination of power sources, including a fuel cell and battery, can be widely used in various applications to achieve high energy density and extend a battery lifetime. However, its power systems can be complex because two independent power converters are required. Therefore, the simple non-isolated DC/DC power converter is proposed in this paper It can have three essential functions: 1) charging and discharging operations for battery, 2) a regulation of the output voltage, and 3) energy management control according to three operational states. The proposed converter can achieve high power density and low cost from a small number of components. The proposed converter operates under an energy management mechanism proposed to utilize multiple power sources efficiently. The feasibility of the proposed method was verified with a 400 W prototype converter (16.8 V/24 A), and the experimental results validated the theoretical analysis and showed the effectiveness of the proposed converter.