Available Technologies

Executive Summary

For power control applications where the available dc voltage is limited, an additional dc-dc boost converter is needed to obtain the desirable final voltage. This technology is a switch-capacitor voltage boost (SC) converter and its control methods for implementing power conversion. The SC converter employs a switch capacitor circuit augmented with the main converter circuit to the power source, thus providing unique features that cannot be attained by traditional voltage-source inverter (VSI) or boost VSI. The additional features include doubling the area of the linear modulation region. The SC converter eliminates the need for the large inductor in the boost dc-dc stage and the large filtering capacitor; leading to a higher energy density and lower cost. The SC converter concept can be applied to all dc-to-ac, ac-to-dc, ac-to-ac, and dc-to-dc power conversion.

Description of Technology

The voltage converter includes a switch capacitor coupled to a voltage source and configured to switch between a discharging and charging state. The switch capacitor is used without any output filter capacitor and without a reverse blocking diode. The switch capacitor is not an isolated stage of the DC-DC boost converter. Rather, the switching capacitor and the inverter legs form one unit that is controlled in a fashion similar to multilevel converters.

Key Benefits

• Eliminates need for large inductor in boost dc-dc power conversion
• Eliminates large filtering capacitor
• Higher energy density
• Lower cost

Applications

• DC-AC power conversion
• Voltage boost converter
• Power conversion for machine drive

Patent Status

Patent Pending

Licensing Rights Available

Full licensing rights available

Inventors:

Ameer Janabi and Bingsen Wang

Tech ID:

TEC2019-0092