Keywords

power electronics, dc-dc converter, multi-port, digital control

Abstract

This work is focused on exploring advanced solutions for space power management and distribution (PMAD) systems. As spacecraft power requirements continue to increase, paralleled by the pressures for reducing cost and overall system weight, power electronics engineers will continue to face major redesigns of the space power systems in order to meet such challenges. Front-end PMAD systems, used to interface the solar sources and battery backup to the distribution bus, need to be designed with increased efficiency, reliability, and power density. A new family of integrated single-stage power converter structures is introduced here. This family allows the interface and control of multiple power sources and storage devices in order to optimize utilization of available resources. Employing single-stage power topologies, these converters control power flow efficiently and cost-effectively. This is achieved by modifying the operation and control strategies of isolated soft-switched half-bridge and full-bridge converters--two of the most popular two-port converter topologies. These topologies are reconfigured and utilized to realize three power processing paths. These paths simultaneously utilize the power devices, allowing increased functionality while promising reduced losses and enhanced power densities. Each of the proposed topologies is capable of performing simultaneous control of two of its three ports. Control objectives include battery or ultra-capacitor charge regulation, solar array maximum power point tracking (MPPT), and/or bus voltage regulation. Another advantage of the proposed power structure is that current engineering design concepts can be used to optimize the new topologies in a fashion similar to the mother topologies. This includes component selection and magnetic design procedures, as well as achieving soft-switching for increased efficiency at higher switching frequencies. Galvanic isolation of the load port through high-frequency transformers provides design flexibility for high step-up/step-down conversion ratios. It further allows the converters to be used as power electronics building blocks (PEBB) with outputs connected in different series/parallel combinations to meet different load requirements. Utilizing such converters promises significant savings in size, weight, and costs of the power management system as well as the devices it manages. Chapter 1 of this dissertation provides an introduction to the requirements, challenges, and trends of space PMAD. A review of existing multi-port converter technologies and digital control techniques is given in Chapter 2. Chapter 3 discusses different PMAD system architectures. It outlines the basic concepts used for PMAD integration and discusses the potential for improvement. Chapters 4 and 5 present and discuss the operation and characteristics of three different integrated multi-port converters. Chapter 6 presents improved methods for practical digital control of switching converters, which are especially useful in complex multi-objective controllers used for PMAD. This is followed by conclusions and suggested future work.

Notes

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Graduation Date

2007

Semester

Summer

Advisor

Batarseh, Issa

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)

College

College of Engineering and Computer Science

Department

Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

Degree Program

Electrical Engineering

Format

application/pdf

Identifier

CFE0001784

URL

http://purl.fcla.edu/fcla/etd/CFE0001784

Language

English

Release Date

September 2007

Length of Campus-only Access

None

Access Status

Doctoral Dissertation (Open Access)

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