Fault-Tolerant Reconfigurable Multiport Converter for Hybrid Power Applications

This brief proposes reconfigurable multiport dc-dc converters that are multiple-switch fault-tolerant for hybrid power applications. Two such reconfigurable topologies have been proposed, and the operations have been studied in detail for various combinations of single and multiple switch faults. The first proposed topology has been designed to handle single and multiple switch faults. However, it fails to be completely fault-tolerant. Hence, another topology has been proposed to deal with all possible combinations of multiple switch faults, making it a completely fault-tolerant topology (FTT). A laboratory prototype has been developed to validate the proposed topologies. The experimental results of the proposed topologies ensure an uninterrupted power supply with regulated output voltage for various operating scenarios. The performance analysis and a comparative study with similar existing topologies to prove their superiority has been presented.