Bidirectional Non-Isolated Fast Charger Integrated in the Electric Vehicle Traction Drivetrain
Creators: Eull, William-Michael
Publisher: name: Columbia University
Year: 2021
Subjects: Electrical engineering
Electric power systems--State estimation
Electric vehicles
Stray currents
Permanent magnet motors

description: Electric vehicles present an opportunity to reduce the substantial global footprint of road transportation. Cost and range anxiety issues, however, remain major roadblocks to their widespread adoption. One of the simplest ways to reduce cost is to remove components from the vehicle via novel topologies, estimation and control; to reduce range anxiety, charging infrastructure needs to be simplified and the power electronics in the vehicle made more efficient. This thesis proposes a bidirectional non-isolated fast charger integrated in the traction drivetrain of an electric vehicle that is enabled by a modular power electronic converter topology called the autoconverter module. The autoconverter module is an evolution of previous modular power electronic concepts with the goal of a highly integrated, high performance converter capable of being used in a number of applications through simple parallelization. By simplifying system design through the use of one base power conversion block, overall system cost can be reduced. Key to the realization of the power module is state estimation. To enable high performance operation of the system, low noise state information must be provided to the controller. State estimation is capable of filtering measurement noise to achieve this goal. However, conventional estimation techniques typically have low bandwidth and a convergence time associated with them, limiting the overall control system's performance. Higher performance techniques, such as receding horizon estimation, offer near-instantaneous estimation with noise rejection capabilities, which makes it an attractive solution. State estimators can also realize a cost reduction through the removal of sensors with little to no performance degradation. Using high performance state estimation and three autoconverter modules in parallel, a novel three-phase inverter/rectifier topology is conceived. Using this topology, a bidirectional non-isolated integrated fast charger capable of universal, i.e. single- and three-phase AC and DC, electric vehicle charging is realized. To interface with the AC power grid and AC traction motor, a novel three-phase common mode voltage controller is developed. By controlling the common mode voltage, leakage currents, which are generated by the fluctuation of the common mode voltage across a parasitic capacitance, can be attenuated and the transformer safely removed from the system. The removal of the transformer presents a significant cost and efficiency gain for both on-board chargers and dedicated charging units. With no transformer, the need for a dedicated on-board charger is obviated; instead, the existing high power traction inverter can be used as the primary charging interface, significantly reducing the cost, size and weight of on-board charging. High efficiency in charging mode is demonstrated, with a peak efficiency of 99.4% and an efficiency at rated power of 11kW of 98.4% shown. Traction mode efficiency with the proposed integrated charger is increased by 0.6% relative to a standard drive at the motor's rated power of 5kW. Damaging leakage currents and shaft voltages are reduced by over 90% because of the common mode voltage control, which will increase drive reliability and lifetime. The topology can be applied to motor drive applications outside automotive to increase efficiency and reliability. State estimation theory for permanent magnet synchronous machine drives is expanded upon and guarantees for estimatability and stability of the estimators are provided. Two estimation schemes, a Luenberger observer and a receding horizon estimator, are studied for sensor removal and the development of a failsafe operating mode involving one phase current sensor. Both estimators function equivalently in the steady state with the receding horizon estimator having slightly better transient performance. The Luenberger observer has conditions on estimatability, whereas the receding horizon estimator has none. Both estimators permit the removal of one current sensor for cost reduction. In regular operation, there is no performance degradation.