Patent ID: 7508087

Claim:
A vehicle electric-power conversion apparatus comprising: an electric-power conversion unit, having a plurality of switching elements each connected between an armature winding of a rotating electric machine equipped in a vehicle and a DC load and a plurality of diodes each connected in parallel with a corresponding switching element, for performing electric-power conversion between the rotating electric machine and the DC load, by means of switching operation of the plurality of switching elements; a diode-conduction-state detection unit for detecting diode-on timings and diode-off timings corresponding to conduction states of at least one of the plurality of diodes in the case where the rotating electric machine is in electric-power generating operation and the plurality of switching elements are off; a gate-command creation Unit for creating gate command signals for the plurality of switching elements, based on the diode-on timings and the diode-off timings detected by the diode-conduction-state detection unit, and for feeding the gate command signals to the plurality of switching elements; and the electric-power conversion being performed by means of switching operation, of the plurality of switching elements, in accordance with the gate command signals.