1) The document describes an on-board battery charger system for electric vehicles that reuses components from the vehicle's motor drive system.
2) By reusing these components, the on-board charger can be compact, low-cost, high-efficiency, and reliable while requiring few additional components.
3) The proposed charger system has been implemented on an electric scooter prototype and uses a constant-current control method to charge the vehicle's lead-acid battery pack from a 110V power supply.
1) The document describes an on-board battery charger system for electric vehicles that reuses components from the vehicle's motor drive system.
2) By reusing these components, the on-board charger can be compact, low-cost, high-efficiency, and reliable while requiring few additional components.
3) The proposed charger system has been implemented on an electric scooter prototype and uses a constant-current control method to charge the vehicle's lead-acid battery pack from a 110V power supply.
1) The document describes an on-board battery charger system for electric vehicles that reuses components from the vehicle's motor drive system.
2) By reusing these components, the on-board charger can be compact, low-cost, high-efficiency, and reliable while requiring few additional components.
3) The proposed charger system has been implemented on an electric scooter prototype and uses a constant-current control method to charge the vehicle's lead-acid battery pack from a 110V power supply.
1) The document describes an on-board battery charger system for electric vehicles that reuses components from the vehicle's motor drive system.
2) By reusing these components, the on-board charger can be compact, low-cost, high-efficiency, and reliable while requiring few additional components.
3) The proposed charger system has been implemented on an electric scooter prototype and uses a constant-current control method to charge the vehicle's lead-acid battery pack from a 110V power supply.
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Fig. 2. Proposed EV motor drive with on-board battery charger.
Fig. 1. EV motor drive with off-board battery charger.
electrode structures. In this case, nonuniform current distribu-
tion and severe gassing may occur toward the end of the charge. At a low current, the total charging time may be unacceptably long. With the constant-voltage charge method, the current is high at the beginning of the charge and falls off as the charge proceeds. As a consequence, toward the end of the process, the Fig. 3. Battery charging law adopted in the proposed on-board charger. current flow is likely to be very low. If the charging voltage is too high, Joule heating early in the charge is likely to be exces- from 150 V at deep discharge to 220 V at full charge, whereas sive, leading to rapid deterioration of the cell [5], [6]. the rectified and filtered 110-V grid voltage supply has the av- The entire charging process should be arranged in two erage value of 130 V. phases. The first charging phase is at constant current and Fig. 4 shows how the power devices of the EV propulsion with the battery voltage progressively rises. As soon as the system are used in case of the battery charging operation. The in- battery voltage reaches the trickle level, the constant-voltage verter positive-busbar insulated gate bipolar transistors (IGBTs) charging method should be applied, with the charging current are kept steadily in the off state, whereas the negative-busbar progressively falling down to the maintenance level. The IGBTs are simultaneously switched in order to follow the bat- constant voltage charge phase requires a decoupled and very tery charging control law. accurate (i.e., close to 1/1000) measure of the battery array The switches Ta-, Tb-, and Tc- are to be operated all together voltage involving an expensive control system. as a simple switch. Due to the IGBT’s positive thermal coef- In the proposed on-board charger, a current control along the ficient, the current flow is equally shared among these power whole charging operation is implemented. The charge of the components. Compared to the case with a single IGBT being propulsion battery is achieved by means of a starting constant- used for the total current, the use of paralleled IGBTs results current (SCC) charge until the battery array voltage reaches in reduction of the conduction loss and thereby increases effi- the trickle level; then, the charging current is progressively de- ciency. creased to the maintenance constant current (MCC) charge. The The output capacitor of the stepup battery charger is achieved charging law is shown in Fig. 3, where the starting con- the same used to filter the transient peak currents due to the stant current is 3 A (i.e., 1/4 of the rated battery array ca- motoring mode of operation, whereas the input inductor pacity) and the maintenance current ( ) is 1 A. is achieved by using the motor three phase windings. The The adopted current control allows the process of charge inductance turns out to be the total inductance of the motor equalization by overcharging; equalization is implemented by windings in homopolar configuration. Hall-effect transducer reducing the charge current to small value, as the battery pack and driver circuit used in the control system devoted to battery reaches a state of charge where it is probable that some cells in charging are the same utilized in the motoring mode of oper- the pack are at the top of charge. ation, providing few adjustments in the control circuit board. As shown in Fig. 4, the Hall-effect transducer is positioned in B. On-Board Battery Charger Configuration the dc link between the inverter and the capacitor , allowing The proposed on-board battery charger arrangement operates the measure of the dc current peak value during motoring op- as a stepup dc–dc converter. In fact, the battery voltage spans eration. On the other hand, during battery charging operation,
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Fig. 4. Motor drive arrangement in battery charging mode of operation.
the Hall-effect sensor allows measurement of the filtered dc
current flowing through the stepup output diode and thereby of the battery-charging dc current level. The dc–dc converter arrangement used for battery charging operates in discontinuous conduction mode, allowing more suit- able control of the battery charging current. Such discontinuous conduction operations allow better performance compared to the continuous conduction mode, as can be evinced from the comparison between Fig. 5(a) and (b). During constant cur- rent charge, the battery voltage progressively rises. As a con- sequence, the duty cycle of the switch increases, involving a transient reduction of the output current in the continuous con- duction mode, as shown in areas A and B in Fig. 5(a). In fact, the average value of areas A and B on the switching period cor- Fig. 5. Switch duty cycle rise: (a) transient reduction of charging current in the continuous conduction mode and (b) regulation at constant value in the responds to the average value of the output current. The desired discontinuous conduction mode. value of the output current is restored after a few switching pe- riods, as the transient due to the converter inductor is over. In the discontinuous conduction mode [Fig. 5(b)], the output cur- Thus, maximum endurance of the control circuit supplying is rent is regulated at a constant value by means of the adopted accomplished. control system without any oscillation. In fact, the increase of The dc–dc converter current regulation provides two levels the battery voltage does not cause the transient reduction of the of constant-current charge. Higher current level is applied if the output current as long as the dc–dc converter stays in the dis- battery voltage results lower than 11.5 V, whereas a lower cur- continuous conduction mode of operation. rent charge is provided as soon as the voltage rises to 14 V. The The backhand is the need for higher converter current peaks higher and lower current levels are chosen as a function of, re- for the same output power in discontinuous mode with respect to spectively, the maximum and the minimum power that the aux- the continuous conduction mode of operation. In any case, the iliary battery has to supply; the minimum power is referred to converter current peaks are very low with respect to the rated just to drive and control circuits, whereas the maximum power current of the inverter designed for the motoring mode of oper- is needed to supply the whole vehicle’s electrical equipment. ation. As shown in Fig. 4, the only power devices added to the The two current levels result, respectively, in 3 and 0.8 A for original motor drive arrangement are the power rectifier and the the electric scooter prototype for which this arrangement was line-frequency LC filter. These components are of general-pur- developed. pose type and are very reliable. They thus can be easily posi- As shown in Fig. 6, the dc–dc converter is accomplished by tioned onboard or avoided should a suitable dc bus be acces- means of the cascade of a buck converter with a full-bridge con- sible. verter. The buck converter is operated with a fixed value of duty cycle, whereas, by means of pulse-width modulation regulation, the duty cycle of the full-bridge converter is adjusted to keep the III. AUXILIARY BATTERY CHARGER output current at the desired value. In EVs, a 12-V auxiliary battery is needed to supply drive and The cascade of two dc–dc converters is required to cover the control circuits as well as various vehicle electrical equipment. large difference between input and output voltage levels, which The auxiliary battery of the proposed prototypal drive is oper- is the electrical isolation provided by a high-frequency trans- ated in a buffer mode. In fact, every time the vehicle is switched former. The full-bridge topology assures bidirectional core exci- on, the 12-V battery provides power to the load, whereas, by tation, allowing a greater peak swing in the flux den- means of a dc–dc converter, it is supplied by the propulsion bat- sity around its average value during each cycle of the switching tery array. The adopted charging system assures that charging frequency . The duty cycle of the buck converter is set at 0.23, current is provided to the auxiliary battery during both motoring allowing the use of low-voltage switches for the full-bridge con- and charging mode of operation of the motor drive arrangement. verter (50.6 V at propulsion battery maximum voltage). Selec-
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Fig. 6. Auxiliary battery charger arrangement—cascade of buck converter
with full-bridge converter.
Fig. 8. IGBT’s duty cycle (trace 3) and converter input current (trace 4, 5 A/div) at MCC charge.
Fig. 7. IGBT’s duty cycle (trace 3) and converter input current (trace 4, 5 A/div) at SCC charge.
tion of a transformer ratio of 1.6 allows full-bridge operation
with duty cycle values close to 0.5 (0.38–0.56) in every condi- Fig. 9. IGBT’s duty cycle (trace 3) and converter output current (trace 4, 1 tion. Both buck and full-bridge converters use MOSFETs and A/div) at SCC charge. switching frequency of 50 kHz. This frequency value is a good compromise between switching losses and sizing of inductors, capacitors, and the transformer.
IV. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
A. Propulsion Battery Charger An experimental test campaign on the proposed onboard bat- tery charger was carried out by using a 6-kW axial flux perma- nent magnet (AFPM) motor, a 180-V 12-Ah lead-acid battery array, and a 50 A–600 V intelligent power module (IPM) IGBT inverter [5]. The IPM inverter was operated in stepup configu- ration at switching frequency kHz; motor windings in homopolar configuration were used as the dc–dc converter input inductor (0.1 mH), and the output electrolytic capacitor was rated 4700 F-250 V. For both SCC (3 A) and MCC (1 A), charge current and con- trol signal waveforms across the power electronic interface were Fig. 10. IGBT’s duty cycle (trace 3) and converter output current (trace 4, 1 sensed by means of an oscilloscope. Figs. 7 and 8 show the A/div) at MCC charge. inverter bottom IGBT’s duty cycle (trace 3) and the inductor current (trace 4) in battery charging mode of operation, respec- battery input current (trace 4). The inductor current waveform tively, during SCC and MCC charge. Figs. 9 and 10 show the relates to discontinuous current conduction mode with 13 A of
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Fig. 11. IGBT’s duty cycle (trace 3) and converter input current (trace 4, 5 A/div) at SCC charge with auxiliary inductor of 1 mH. Fig. 13. Switch drain-source voltage (trace 2, 50 V/div) and output current (trace 4, 500 mA/div) of buck converter.
Fig. 12. IGBT’s duty cycle (trace 3) and converter output current (trace 4, 2 A/div) at SCC charge with auxiliary inductor of 1 mH. Fig. 14. Voltage (trace 2, 50 V/div) and current (trace 4, 1 A/div) of high frequency transformer primary winding. peak value, whereas the battery charge current is continuous and suitably follows the control law. Experimental results concerning the auxiliary battery charger Figs. 11 and 12 show, respectively, the waveforms of the con- were achieved by assuming three different operating conditions: verter input and output current (traces 4) with a 1-mH auxiliary 1) propulsion battery fully charged (220 V) and high load inductor being used instead of the motor phase windings. current (3 A); The use of an external inductor results in continuous con- 2) propulsion battery fully charged (220 V) and low load duction mode of operation but causes low-frequency undamped current (0.8 A); oscillations of the battery current. In this case, the control cir- 3) propulsion battery at minimum charge (150 V) and low cuit was not able to regulate the output current, being the duty load current (0.8 A). cycle hunting between 0 and 1 with the frequency imposed by Voltage and current waveforms sensed in operating condition the LC power circuit. The achieved experimental results are in 1) are shown in Figs. 13 and 14. good agreement with the theoretical analysis briefly discussed At turning off, the drain-source voltage of the buck converter above. switch (Fig. 13) exhibits some overvoltages (about 25 V), but this is not dangerous for the used MOSFET. The output cur- B. DC–DC Converter for Auxiliary Battery rent waveform has 200 mA current ripple. The measured switch The buck converter, full-bridge converter, and control and conduction and switching losses were 71 mW and confirmed the drive circuits forming the auxiliary battery charger were all as- prediction that heatsink is not needed for this particular appli- sembled on the same circuit board. Thus, the resulting outline cation. Transformer primary winding voltage and current wave- dimensions (100 160 40 mm) were suitable for the use of forms (Fig. 14) were achieved by using a 10- F capacitor con- the dc–dc converter on small-size EVs. nected in series with the winding. The series capacitor avoids
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the flowing of the current continuous component, due to the im- REFERENCES perfect symmetry of the primary winding voltage, assuring the [1] O. Honorati, F. Caricchi, F. Crescimbini, and L. Solero, “Lightweight, linear mode of operation of the transformer magnetic core. compact, three-wheel electric vehicle for urban mobility,” in Proc. 1998 Int. Conf. Power Electronics Drives and Energy Systems for Industrial Growth, Perth, Australia, 1998. V. CONCLUSION [2] J. Burba and C. Ochocinski, “Issues with fast charging electric vehicle batteries,” in Proc. 1997 Int. Electric Vehicle Symp., Orlando, FL, Dec. Concerning the EV application, battery chargers having an 1997. onboard topology are highly desirable, as they allow battery [3] F. Schope, A. Nagel, and U. Esser, “High efficiency on-board charger charging everywhere given the availability of the supply grid. with sinusoidal line current and fast switching resonant converters,” in Proc. 1996 Int. Electric Vehicle Symp., Osaka, Japan, Oct. 1996. In consideration of that, this paper has discussed a novel on- [4] F. Caricchi, F. Crescimbini, G. Noia, and E. Santini, “Prototype of an board battery charger configuration. The peculiar arrangement innovative electrical scooter for application in zero-emission urban mo- of the proposed battery charger is achieved by means of the same bility,” in Proc. 1994 Int. Electric Vehicle Symp., Anaheim, CA, 1994. [5] R. Crompton, Battery Reference Book: SAE, 1996. power devices used in the EV propulsion drive. Battery charger [6] Handbook of Batteries, McGraw-Hill, New York, 1995. regulation law is achieved by implementing a reliable and not expensive current control along the whole charging operation. This includes starting constant current charge until the battery array voltage reaches the trickle level and then maintenance con- Luca Solero (M’98) received the electrical engineering degree from the Uni- stant current charge. versity of Rome La Sapienza, Rome, Italy, in 1994. A small-size dc–dc power electronic converter is also used to Since 1996, he has been with the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, University of Roma Tre, Rome, Italy, where he currently is an As- provide the charge maintenance of a 12-V auxiliary battery from sistant Professor. His research interests include permanent magnet motor drive, the propulsion battery array during both motoring and charging power converter topologies, and control systems design for unconventional ap- mode of operation of the motor drive. The experimental results plications such as electric and hybrid vehicle and renewable energy systems. Dr. Solero is a member of the IEEE Power Electronics Society, IEEE Industry achieved from a prototypal system confirm the validity of the Applications Society, IEEE Electromagnetic Compatibility Society, and IEEE proposed solution. Vehicular Technology Society.
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