A direct AC-DC converter for battery chargers

The prospect of widespread introduction of electric vehicles has prompted the development of public and private access battery charging stations in California and elsewhere. Home charging stations generally aim at obtaining a unity power factor interface with the single phase utility power source to maximize power capacity utilization. The rectified AC source feeds power to an intermediate DC bus. The DC bus power is then converted into high frequency AC which is then coupled to the vehicle using an inductively coupled device. In this paper an alternative approach to the power conversion problem is presented. Operating limitations, design issues and simulation results are presented in the paper.