Received April 15, 2022, accepted May 9, 2022, date of publication May 17, 2022, date of current version

May 23, 2022.

Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/ACCESS.2022.3175890

Efficiency Optimization Method for Cascaded

Two-Stage Boost Converter
HAILONG ZHANG 1, (Member, IEEE), AND SUNG-JUN PARK2 , (Member, IEEE)
1 Department of Information and Control Engineering, Qingdao University of Technology, Qingdao 266525, China
2 Department of Electrical Engineering, Chonnam National University, Gwangju 61186, South Korea

Corresponding author: Hailong Zhang ([email protected])

ABSTRACT A method of optimal intermediate voltage tracking (OIVT) is proposed in this paper to
improve efficiency for the cascade boost converter. The intermediate voltage can be adjusted by regulating
the duty cycle of front stage and rear stage converters. To improve the control speed of the algorithm,
the intermediate voltage range is determined by calculating the overall system loss. In addition, with the
input-output relationship maintained, the root-mean-square (rms) current of the intermediate capacitor can
be reduced by changing the phase difference between front and rear side PWM signals. On this basis,
a method of optimal phase-shift angle tracking (OPAT) is proposed to further improve efficiency for the
system and extend service life for the capacitor through relatively simple implantation. Besides, the proposed
OIVT and OPAT method is applicable to other cascade topologies. A 1-KW prototype is constructed in the
laboratory to verify the proposed control method. As confirmed by the experimental results, the maximum
efficiency reaches 95.23% when the proposed control method is adopted, which is 2% higher than under
the uncontrolled condition. It is demonstrated that the proposed OIVT and OPAT method is effective in
improving efficiency for the system without needing any additional components.

INDEX TERMS Capacitor current ripple, dc/dc power conversion, optimal phase-shift angle tracking,
optimal intermediate voltage tracking, two-stage converters.

I. INTRODUCTION
Photovoltaic (PV) cell is one of the most important energy in
the sustainable energy system. However, the voltage level of
this source is too low and unpredictable unstable. In addition,
the output voltage of the photovoltaic cell is changed with
climate conditions. Therefore, converters with high voltage FIGURE 1. Typical two-stage power-conversion system.

conversion ratio are essential in new energy resources system

as shown in Fig.1 [1], [2]. A classical boost converter
is widely used in these applications, but high conduction coupled inductor can not be neglected for transform-based
losses on the power devices and serious reverse recovery converters.
problems can be occurred under the extremely large duty Cascade converters are adopted in many power systems to
cycle condition. manage sources and loads at different voltage levels simul-
Although both transformer-based and transformer-less taneously. In terms of cascade boost converter, the voltage
dc/dc converters can be applied in high voltage gain conversion ratio is high enough with low conduction loss
condition. The requirements in power density, weight, size on the power devices [7]–[9]. In addition, the cascade boost
and cost of the power devices make the transformer-less converter represents a good trade-off between efficiency
topologies to become a better choice [3]–[6]. In addition, and duty cycle operating range. A robust controller design
voltage spike generated by the leakage inductance of the to obtain output voltage regulation in a quadratic boost
converter with high DC-gain is discussed in [10]. However,
The associate editor coordinating the review of this manuscript and the implementation of the proposed hybrid control method
approving it for publication was Turgay Celik . is difficult to implement. In addition, the output power is

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. For more information, see https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
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 H. Zhang, S.-J. Park: Efficiency Optimization Method for Cascaded Two-Stage Boost Converter

only 100-W and it has not been verified at high power

rating. A hybrid control method for the voltage regulation
of conventional boost converter is presented in [11]. The
mathematical model and the control process are simple, but
the implementation is difficult because many detect sensors
and control elements are applied in the proposed control
method.
Buck, boost, buck-boost, and Cúk converters are analyzed
and compared as dc–dc converters that can be cascaded FIGURE 2. Circuit diagram of the cascade boost converter.
in [9], The buck and boost converters are shown to be the
most efficient topologies for a given cost, while flexible in
voltage ranges, buck-boost, and Cúk converters are always Some methods have been proposed in [23-26] in order to
at an efficiency or alternatively cost disadvantage. However, increase efficiency of the dc-dc converter, however, additional
the voltage gain ratio and power ratio of the traditional components are required in terms of these studies which
topologies are relatively low. In addition, maximum power increases the difficulty of design.
point tracking (MPPT) method is applied to many PV panels According to the literature presented above, the dc-dc
which is difficult to realize. converter applied to renewable energy should satisfy the
A generalized switching modification method is proposed following requirements.
in [12] to reduce the rms current flowing into a dc-link (1) The voltage conversion ratio is high enough in order to
capacitor in a dc-dc-ac structure consisting of a boost matching the dc-bus voltage.
converter and a three-phase inverter, the proposed method has (2) The control method is simple and accurate in order to
a better capacitor rms current reduction performance in the easy to implement.
mid-power factor level (0.95 to 0.1). However, the proposed (3) The output power and efficiency of the overall system
method is hard to implement and the control accuracy is not should be high enough.
guaranteed. (4) The proposed control method is effective in improving
Kolar and Round [13] analyzed the current stress on the dc- efficiency without needing any additional components.
link capacitor in a voltage PWM converter system. The paper In order to solve the problems presented above. This paper
focuses on a one-stage inverter system and states that the focus on analyzing the influence of different intermediate
capacitor RMS current is determined by the load current. The voltage and phase-shift angles of two-stage boost converter.
bus capacitor ripple current of cascaded two-stage converters The intermediate voltage can be adjusted by regulating the
for dc systems is analyzed in [14], the capacitor RMS current duty cycle of the front stage and rear stage converters.
value can be reduced without affecting the converter normal In addition, the rms current of the intermediate capacitor can
operation or the need for extra sensing circuits. However, be decreased by changing the phase difference between the
the intermediate voltage is not considered and the proposed front and rear side PWM signals. Therefore, OIVT and OPAT
method is not verified under high power rating. control method are proposed to improve the system efficiency
Lu et al. [15] propose a carrier modulation method to syn- quickly and accurately and prolong the capacitor lifetime
chronize the dc/dc converter and sinusoidal PWM (SPWM) with relatively simple implantation. A 1-KW prototype was
inverter in order to reduce the dc-link capacitor ripple current. set up in the laboratory in order to verify the proposed
This modulation method is only designed for an ac inverter to control method. The results of the experiment confirmed that
be the rear stage. Focusing on the three-phase back-to-back the maximum efficiency of the proposed control method is
ac/dc/ac conversions, Gonzalez et al. [16] analyzed the dc- 95.23% which is 2% higher than the uncontrolled condition.
link current and proved that synchronizing PWM signals of
the rectifier and inverter either in phase or antiphase would II. OIVT AND OPAT METHOD OF THE CASCADE BOOST
provide the lowest RMS current. This paper also only focuses CONVERTER
on the ac/dc/ac topology and it is not suit for other topologies A. VOLTAGE REGULATION METHOD OF THE CASCADE
and dc-dc conversions. BOOST CONVERTER
The current and voltage ripple of a capacitor can be reduced Circuit diagram of the cascade boost converter is shown in
by attaching an additional circuit composed of an energy Fig.2. Vin and IL1 are the input voltage and current obtained
storage element and a switch element to a dc-link capacitor in from photovoltaic cell, Vo and Io represent the output voltage
series or in parallel [17]–[21]. This method has the advantage and current, and Vm is the intermediate voltage of the
of effective control of the power flow between the converters cascade boost converter. Based on the operating principle
through the switching device and energy storage element. of the cascade boost converter, under different intermediate
However, the cost and volume increase due to the additional voltage, the losses of each component are different because of
auxiliary circuit, the complexity increases owing to additional different voltage and current stresses. Therefore, it is difficult
control, and the ripple current generated due to the nonlinear to derive the relationship between the intermediate voltage
characteristic of the switches cannot be reduced. and the efficiency of the system because accuracy is not

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guaranteed by calculation. In order to solve this problem,

an optimal intermediate voltage tracking (OIVT) method
is proposed in this paper. The intermediate voltage can be
adjusted by regulating the duty cycle D1 of the front side
converter boost1, the output voltage can be stabled at 380V by
regulating the duty cycle D2 of the rear side converter boost2.
The voltage gain ratio of the cascade boost converter can be
given as
Vo 1 1
Gv = = (1)
Vin 1 − D1 1 − D2
The intermediate voltage can be calculated as
1
Vm = Vin = (1 − D2 )Vo (2)
1 − D1
The inductor current ripple generates an inductor core loss
Pcore , which can be given as
β 1IL · L γ
Pcore = α · fsw · 1Bγ = α · fsw
β
·( ) (3)
N ·A
where α, β, and γ are the coefficient values of the core, B,
IL , L and N are represent the flux density, inductor current,
FIGURE 3. Flowchart of the proposed OIVT method.
inductance and number of wingdings of the inductor. fsw is
the switching frequency, and A is the cross-sectional area of
the core.
The current ripple of the front stage inductor L1 and rear
stage inductor L2 can be expressed as
Vin × D1
1IL1 =
fs × L1
Vm × D2 FIGURE 4. Voltage control loop for the cascade boost converter.
1IL2 = (4)
fs × L2
From (3) and (4), the core losses are different under
different intermediate voltage. In addition, copper losses of until the input power stops decreasing and a maximum
the inductors and other components are also varying with the efficiency point is found.
intermediate voltage. Therefore, it is necessary to propose 4) After waiting the time interval td , a new tracking process
the optimal intermediate voltage tracking (OIVT) method for is presented in case that the load and/or the input voltage Vin
improving the efficiency of the cascade boost converter. have varied.
The flow chart of the proposed OIVT method is described By applying the proposed control method, it is easy to find
in Fig.3. The detailed tracking process is shown as follow: the optimal intermediate voltage value. Compared with the
1) The initial dc input voltage Vin0 and intermediate simulation methods proposed in [14], the proposed method
voltage Vm0 are applied. Vm0 is applied within a reasonable is more accurate than the simulation method because of the
range. The converters on the front side and rear side are real-time characteristic in terms of the tracking process.
automatically adjust duty cycle to generate the designated The voltage control loop is shown in Fig.4, in terms of
intermediate voltage and output voltage. In addition, the input the output voltage Vo , the reference voltage Vo_ref is set to
power Pin0 is measured and recorded by the controller. 380V which is taken as a constant value, the reference voltage
2) The intermediate voltage Vm is then increased (or Vm_ref is calculated from Fig.3 which is obtained from OIVT
decreased) slightly to a new value Vm1 = Vm0 + 1Vm (Vm1 = control method. The output voltage Vo and intermediate
Vm0 − 1Vm ). The duty cycle of boost1 and boost2 are forced voltage Vm can be accurately controlled by adopting the
to regulate the output voltage to 380V. The input power is voltage closed loop control.
measured and record as Pin1 under this condition. From the above analysis, the system efficiency can be
3) Compare Pin1 and Pin0 . When Pin0 is smaller than Pin1 , improved by applying the OIVT control method. However,
then repeat step 2 (Vm1 = Vm0 + 1Vm ) until the input the data processing speed is slow. From part III, the power
power stops decreasing. Then, a maximum efficiency point is loss can be calculated based on the polynomial taken Vm as
found. Otherwise, when Pin0 is larger than Pin1, the tracking the variable. Therefore, the variation range of intermediate
direction is reversed, then repeat step 2 (Vm1 = Vm0 − 1Vm ) voltage can be calculated based on the function (16)-(23),

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then the precise intermediate voltage can be obtained through

OIVT control method rapidly.

B. PHASE DIFFERENCE REGULATION METHOD OF THE

CASCADE BOOST CONVERTER
The efficiency of a system can be improved by applying
the optimal intermediate voltage tracking method and the
loss of power can be reduced by adopting OIVT. However,
the intermediate capacitor as a component plays a vitally
important role in the smooth operation of the two-stage
boost converter. In addition, the service life and operating
conditions of electrolytic capacitor can have a significant
impact on the overall performance of the converter. Accord-
ing to [26], Thot is represented by the ambient temperature
Tamb and the capacitor ripple current denoted as Thot increases
in accordance with the increase of root-mean-square (rms)
current in the capacitor shown as below
n
X
2
Thot = Tamb + Rha ESR(fi )Irms (fi ) (5)
i=1

where Thot is the capacitor temperature under operstion

condition, Rha is the equivalent thermal resistance from
hotspot to ambient, ESR(fi ) is the equivalent series resistance
at frequency fi , and Irms (fi ) is the rms value of the ripple
current at frequency fi .
The equivalent circuits for different opeartion conditions
are shown in Fig.5. According to the ON and OFF states of the
two power switches S1 and S2 , the current of the intermediate
capacitor can be expressed as
(
−iL2 (if Sl ON)
icm = (6)
iL1 − iL2 (if Sl OFF)
It can be inferred that both temperature and power loss
can be reduced for the capacitor by reducing the rms current
acting on the equivalent series resistance (ESR) of the
capacitor. As for the cascade boost converter, the rms current
of the intermediate capacitor is expressed as
s
Z T
 1
(−iL2 )2 dt]


 [ (if Sl ON) FIGURE 5. Equivalent circuits under different operation: (a) S1 ON, S2
T

rms 0 OFF. (b) S1 OFF, S2 OFF. (c) S1 ON, S2 ON. (d) S1 OFF, S2 ON.
iCM = s Z (7)
 1 T
(iL1 − iL2 )2 dt] (if Sl OFF)


 [
T 0

(9)-(11), the current of capacitor RMS in the three modes is
Power losses on the intermediate capacitor can be given as calculated and compared, as shown in Fig. 7.
2
Ploss = ICM,rms × ESR (8) The calculated system efficiency is shown in Fig.7, from
which it can be seen that, the optimal system efficiency based
Depending on the exact combinations of phase-shift on phase difference is reached at 600W, 120◦ . The phase
between the two power switches, the overall operating shift angle can be calculated and achieved rapidly using the
principle can be divided into three modes, as shown in Fig.6. calculated value. Therefore, the overall system efficiency can
DT is the phase-shift time of the two PWM signals and d is be calculated and improved by adjusting the phase difference
expressed as the phase-shift ratio. K1,U t and K1,D t denote the value.
upstream slope and downstream slope of the corresponding Regarding cascade boost converter, the rms current of
inductor currents IL1 , respectively. The rms current of the intermediate capacitor can be adjusted by regulating the
the intermediate capacitor is shown in (9)-(11). Based on phase difference of the duty cycle D1 and D2 . In addition,

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FIGURE 8. Inductor and capacitor currents with phase difference

regulation method.

FIGURE 6. Inductor currents when phase shift changes: (a) Mode1:

0 < d < (1 − d2 ); (b) Mode2: (1 − d2 ) < d < d 2; (c) Mode3: d2 < d < 1.

FIGURE 9. Flow chart of the proposed OPAT method.

seen from this figure that as the phase angle changes for the
inductor currents IL1 and IL2 , the current of the intermediate
capacitor varies accordingly. That is to say, the current of
the intermediate capacitor can be changed by regulating the
phase difference of the duty cycle D1 and D2 . The flowchart
FIGURE 7. Calculated system efficiency in relation to output power and
phase-shift angle. is presented in Fig.9 and the tracking process is detailed as
follows.
1) First, the approximate range of the phase-shift angle
the input and output relationship of the converter can be is calculated based on (9)-(11) in order to improve the
maintained even in the case of significant phase angle computing speed.
changes. Taking advantage of this feature, an optimal phase 2) The converters on the front and rear sides are used to
angle tracking (OPAT) method is proposed in this paper. adjust duty cycle automatically for the generation of specified
Fig.8 shows the inductor current IL1 and IL2 and capacitor intermediate voltage and output voltage. In addition, the input
current Icm under different phase-shift conditions. It can be power is measured and recorded using the controller.

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TABLE 1. Comparison between the proposed method with other

methods.

C. CONTROL METHOD OF THE CASCADE BOOST

CONVERTER
Fig.10 shows the block diagram of the proposed control
method. As for the intermediate voltage range, it can be
calculated according to part III for the improvement of control
speed. Then, the optimal intermediate voltage is calculated
and operated using the OIVT control method, while the
intermediate voltage and output voltage are stabilized using
the PI control method. In the meantime, the OPAT-enabled
signal is started. Afterwards, the OPAT control method is
applied. Since OPAT control method has effects only on the
current of the intermediate capacitor, there is not conflict
between the OPAT and OIVT control methods. The optimal
phase-angle θ can be adjusted using the OPAT control
method, while the input and output power is calculated using
the input output voltage Vin and Vo , as well as the input
output current IL1 and Io . With the proposed control method
FIGURE 10. The overall control method of the cascade boost converter.
used, the optimal intermediate voltage and phase-angle can
be determined in a fast and accurate way. In addition, the
proposed tracking method is effective under different input
3) Then, the phase difference θ is increased slightly to a and output conditions.
higher level (1θ = 5◦ ). The duty cycle of boost1 and boost2 In addition, the proposed algorithm can be applied to
is forced to regulate the output voltage to 380V. In addition, other cascade topologies, such as cascade buck converter and
the input power is measured and recorded again using the cascade buck-boost converter, of which the former is applied
controller. at high current and low voltage while the latter is applied
4) A comparison is drawn between Pin(n) and Pin(n+1) . given a wide range of input and output voltage.
When Pin(n+1) is smaller than Pin(n) , step 2 is repeated until Table 1 shows the comparison performed between the
the decline of input power stops. Then, the optimal phase- proposed control method and other control methods. From
angle point is determined. the perspective of overall performance, the proposed method
is clearly advantageous in efficiency, power rating and
complexity. The stability criterion is the adjustment time and
<t < T1

−K1,U t for T0

 accuracy of the control method with the load variation. The
<t < T2

K − K t
1,D 1,U for T1 complexity criteria are the number of devices and complexity
icm(model 1) = (9)


 K1,D t − K1,U t for T2 <t < T3 of the control method.
<t < T4

−K1,U t for T3

−K1,U t for T0 <t < T1 III. POWER LOSS ANALYSIS OF CASCADE CONVERTER

 It is assumed that RS1 and RS2 are the resistance of the power
<t < T2

 −K t
1,U for T1
icm(model 2) = (10) switches S1 and S2 , VF1 and VF2 are the threshold voltage


 K1,D t − K1,U t for T2 <t < T3 of the power diodes D1 and D2 . In addition, RL1 , RL2 and
<t < T4

−K1,U t for T3 RC1 , Rcm , Rco are the ESRs of the L1 , L2 and Cin , CM, Co ,

−K1,U t for T0 <t < T1 respectively. The power loss model of the cascade boost

 converter is shown in Fig.11.
<t < T2

 −K t
1,U for T1
icm(model 3) = (11) The power losses of the cascade boost dc-dc converter are


 K1,D t − K1,U t for T2 <t < T3 mainly consisted by four parts: inductor loss, power switch
<t < T4

K1,D t − K1,U t for T3 loss, diode loss, and capacitor loss.

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Po Po tru + tfi tri + tfu

PSW = (Vm · · fs + Vo · · fs ) · ( + )
Vin Vm 2 2
(17)

The capacitor losses are expressed as

PS = PSC + PSW (18)

where tru , tfu , tri , and tfi are the voltage rise time, voltage fall
FIGURE 11. Power loss model of the cascade boost converter. time, current rise time, and current fall time, respectively.
The power losses in the diodes include the conduction
losses and reverse recovery losses. The reverse recovery loss
is neglected because the reverse recovery time in Schottky
diode is very short.
Po
PD = VF1 · + VF1 · Io (19)
Vm
The intermediate capacitor and output capacitor losses are
calculated as

PC = ICM 2(rms) · Rcm + ICo 2(rms) · Rco (20)

According to the efficiency definite above, the efficiency

can be derived as
FIGURE 12. Calculated system efficiency in relation to output power and Po
intermediate voltage.
η= (21)
Po + PL + PS + PD + PC
The power losses under OIVT control method can be
The copper losses of the inductors are given as expressed as (19). From (19),Vm and Po are treated as
variables.
PLC = IL1 2(rms) · RL1 + IL2 2(rms) · RL2 (12)
The rms current of inductor L1 and L2 are expressed as PLOSS = PL + PS + PD + PC (22)
s
Pm The minimum power loss appears when the derivative of
IL1(rms) = Vm equal to 0.
Vin
v s ∂PLOSS
=0 (23)
u
∂Vm
uV Po
o
IL2(rms) = t (13)
Vm Ro
According to the loss calculation results, the overall
The ripple current of inductor L1 and L2 can be rewritten loss formula is expressed in (19), which is a function of
as intermediate capacitor voltage and output power, it is easy to
Vin analyze the overall efficiency under different Vm and constant
Vin × (1 − Vm )
1IL1 = output power.
fs × L1 The efficiency of the overall system is calculated as shown
Vm × (1 − VVino ) in Fig12. From Fig.12, the optimal efficiency of the system is
1IL2 = (14) appeared at 600W, 130V. According to the calculated value,
fs × L2
the intermediate voltage range can be achieved rapidly, the
The inductor losses are calculated as optimal intermediate voltage can be accurately obtained by
PL = PLC + Pcore (15) OIVT control method.
The OIVT control method obtains the optimal intermediate
The core losses of the inductors are derived in (3) and voltage by calculating and voltage tracking process. OPAT
defined as Pcore . control method contains the optimal phase difference by
The conduction losses and switching losses of the switches calculating and phase-shift angle tracking process with the
S1 and S2 can be calculated as input-output relationship maintained. The control time is
Vin Po Vm shortened by calculation, the two control methods do not
PSC = RDS1 · (1 − ) · ( )2 + RDS2 · (1 − )
Vm Vin Vo interfere with each other, and the optimal efficiency is
Po obtained by adjusting the current and voltage stress of each
· ( )2 (16) component.
Vm
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FIGURE 13. Experiment waveforms of IL1 , VM , and Vo under FIGURE 14. Experiment waveforms of IL1 , IL2 , VM , and Vo under
(a) Vin = 48V, (b) Vin = 60V. (a) θ = 150◦ , Vin = 48V (b) θ = 120◦ , Vin = 60V.

IV. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS

In order to verify the performance of the proposed control
method, a 1-KW prototype is constructed in the laboratory.
The component parameters of the cascade boost converter are
listed in Table 2.
Silicon carbide power MOSFETs IRFP4137PBF and
IPW60R280P6 are applied as S1 and S2 . In addition, fast
recovery diode HER3004C and IDW30G65C5 are used as
D1 and D2 . The dc electronic load serves as a resistance load.
The efficiency is measured as the dc load power divided by
the supplied dc power.
The (Equivalent series resistances) ESRs of the capacitors
are denoted as Rcm and Rco , as measured using the ESR
meter at the operating frequency. The parameters of the
semiconductors are obtained from datasheets.
The experimental waveforms of IL1 , Vm , and Vo at different
dc input voltages are shown in Fig.13. According to the
measurement performed at the minimum dc input voltage,
the output voltage Vo stabilizes at 380V when the proposed FIGURE 15. Transient waveforms of proposed tracking algorithm from
control method is used. In addition, Fig.13(a) shows the 500-W to 1-KW under (a) Vin = 48V (b) Vin = 60V.

intermediate voltage Vm = 130V and D1 = 0.63 when

the OIVT control method is adopted. From the experimental
results shown in Fig.13(b), it can be found out that the Fig.15 shows the transient waveforms of the proposed
intermediate voltage Vm = 120V and D1 = 0.5 at the tracking algorithm from 500-W to 1-kW at different dc
maximum dc input voltage when the OIVT method is applied. input voltages. According to Fig.15, given the maximum and
Fig.14 shows the experiment results of IL1 , IL2 , VM , and minimum input voltages, as well as load variation, the output
Vo at different phase-shift angles. The phase-shift angle is voltage maintains stability after transient adjustment made
adjusted to 150◦ using the proposed OPAT control method to the proposed OIVT and OPVT control method, which
at the minimum input voltage, as shown in Fig.14(a). evidences the effectiveness of the proposed control method.
Differently, the phase-shift angle is adjusted to 120◦ using Fig.16 shows the capacitor temperature as measured under
the proposed OPAT control method at the maximum input the controlled and uncontrolled conditions. As show in
voltage, as shown in Fig.14(b). Fig.16(b), the temperature of the intermediate capacitor is

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FIGURE 17. Calculated and measured efficiency of the proposed control

method (a) under different intermediate voltage. (b) under different
phase angle.

FIGURE 16. Measured capacitance temperature (a) with the proposed

control method. (b) without the proposed control method.
control method is effective in reducing the RMS current
TABLE 2. Essential parameters of the cascade converter.
value of the intermediate capacitor without affecting the
normal operation or needing additional sensing circuits for
the converter.
The efficiency of the proposed control method is shown
in Fig.17. According to Fig.17(a), when the OIVT control
method is adopted and the intermediate voltage varies, the
maximum efficiency of the overall system reaches 93.33%
at Vm = 130V and Vin = 48V. In addition, the maximum
efficiency of the overall system reaches 94.87% at 120V
when Vin = 60V.The calculated efficiency is close to
the measured efficiency. As shown in Fig.17 (b), with the
OPAT control method used and the phase-angle changing, the
maximum efficiency of the overall system reaches 93.47% at
TABLE 3. Efficiency comparison of the two control methods. 150◦ when Vin = 48V. In addition, the maximum efficiency
reaches 95.23% at 120◦ when Vin = 60V. Therefore, it can be
concluded that with the proposed control method applied, the
maximum efficiency is 2% higher than under the uncontrolled
condition (Vm = 90V, θ = 30◦ ). As for the uncontrolled
voltage, it is set to 90V because the optimal range of duty
cycle is 0.35-0.7 for the traditional boost converter. Upon
a comparison with the proposed OIVT and OPAT control
method, it can be discovered that the OIVT control method
can improveefficiency to a more significant extent. To be
47◦ when the proposed control method is not used. From specific, it is is 5 times higher than the OPAT control method.
Fig.16(a), it can be seen that the measured temperature is Efficiency comparison of the two control methods is shown
42◦ which means it is 5◦ lower under the controlled condition. in Tab.III. The maximum efficiency improvement of OIVT
These results demonstrate that using the proposed OPAT and OPAT are 1.35% and 0.4% respectively. The average

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overall efficiency for the system. The model and analysis

presented are of generic nature and thus applicable to most
of the existing cascaded two-stage converters.
In the future work, in terms of the control method,
the current and voltage acquisition process need to be
simplified, and the angle calculation needs to be more
accurate. Moreover, the control method proposed in this paper
needs to be extended to the inverter in the future.

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H. Zhang, S.-J. Park: Efficiency Optimization Method for Cascaded Two-Stage Boost Converter

[18] M. A. Vitorino, L. F. S. Alves, R. Wang, and M. B. de Rossiter Correa, HAILONG ZHANG (Member, IEEE) received the
‘‘Low-frequency power decoupling in single-phase applications: A B.S. degree in electronic engineering and automa-
comprehensive overview,’’ IEEE Trans. Power Electron., vol. 32, no. 4, tion from the China University of Petroleum,
pp. 2892–2912, Apr. 2017. Dongying, China, in 2013, the M.S. degree in
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design of series voltage compensator for reduction of DC-link capacitance Qingdao University of Science and Technology,
in grid-tie solar inverter,’’ IEEE Trans. Power Electron., vol. 30, no. 5, Qingdao, China, in 2016, and the Ph.D. degree
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in electrical engineering from Chonnam National
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University, Gwangju, South Korea, in 2020. He is
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power density series-stacked energy buffer for power pulsation decoupling Qingdao. His research interests include wireless power transfer system for
in single-phase converters,’’ IEEE Trans. Power Electron., vol. 32, no. 6, UAVs, power conversion system for EVs, and renewable energy storage
pp. 4905–4924, Jun. 2017. systems.
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noninverting buck–boost converter with reduced component values,’’ IEEE engineering and the Ph.D. degree in mechan-
Trans. Circuits Syst. II, Exp. Briefs, vol. 62, no. 7, pp. 716–720, Jul. 2015. ical engineering from Pusan National Univer-
[26] M. A. Vogelsberger, T. Wiesinger, and H. Ertl, ‘‘Life-cycle monitoring
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converters,’’ IEEE Trans. Power Electron., vol. 26, no. 2, pp. 493–503,
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[27] T. Tanaka, H. Wang, and F. Blaabjerg, ‘‘A DC-link capacitor voltage ripple of Electrical Engineering, Koje College, Koje,
reduction method for a modular multilevel cascade converter with single South Korea. From 2000 to 2003, he was an Assis-
delta bridge cells,’’ IEEE Trans. Ind. Appl., vol. 55, no. 6, pp. 6115–6126, tant Professor with the Department of Electrical
Nov. 2019. Engineering, Tong-Myong College, Busan. Since 2003, he has been a
[28] Y. Gu, D. Zhang, X. Wu, and X. Zhang, ‘‘Research on stability Professor with the Department of Electrical Engineering, Chonnam National
improvement of the cascaded DC–DC converters based on AC signal University, Gwangju, South Korea. His research interests include power
sampling control method,’’ IEEE Trans. Power Electron., vol. 33, no. 5, electronics, motor control, mechatronics, and micromachine automation.
pp. 4547–4559, May 2018.

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