Configurable Wide Voltage Range Isolated Converter Configuration for Electric Vehicle Drive Train Evaluation and EVSE Validation with Back-to-Back Test Functionality

Due to the rapid advancements in Electric Vehicle (EV) and EV subsystem development, the requirement of test platforms for Electric vehicle level testing; Drive train system development and evaluation, Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment (EVSE) validation etc. are on the rise. EV manufacturers, OEMs of various drive subsystems, and the automotive certification agencies test the electric vehicle subsystem in terms of performance and standards for certification. Extensive and rigorous use of energy storage systems is needed in EV subsystem testing, which is time consuming and expensive. A high frequency, high power DC-DC converters with isolation and back-to-back test functionality can replicate the behaviour of energy storage systems for EV level testing. Such a configurable wide voltage range isolated converter configuration with back-to-back test functionality is discussed in this paper. Series resonant dual active bridge DC-DC converter is one of the most researched topologies in this regard due to their high power density and efficiency. But over a wide voltage range operation there is alarming rise in the inductor currents. In order to achieve wide output voltage range, a multiphase DC-DC converter is cascaded with the SR - DAB converter. In this design, two SR-DABs are connected in input-parallel output-parallel configuration and at the output of this a two-phase interleaved bidirectional DC-DC converter is cascaded. Due to the modular structure of the converter configuration, higher power and current levels can be achieved by adding more parallel modules of SR-DAB and bidirectional DC-DC converter, using the same configuration. The converter configuration, design, and simulation results are presented in this paper.