Multilevel buck/boost-type DC-DC converter for high-power and high-voltage application

This paper presents a new nonisolated buck/boost-type multilevel dc-dc converter suitable for high-power and medium/high-voltage application. The main features of the proposed topology are as follows: low voltage across the semiconductors, low switching losses, and reduced volume of the output filter. The theoretical analysis is carried out for a five-level bidirectional structure of the proposed converter, operating in Buck mode. The proposed topology presents some capacitors, and their voltage must be balanced for proper operation of the converter. Thus, a capacitor voltage balancing active control using a feedforward technique is proposed and analyzed in detail. In order to validate the theoretical analysis, a prototype with 10 kW output power capability, 1.3 kV to 800 V input-to-output voltage, and 20 kHz of switching frequency was built and experimented. The results attest the advantages of the new dc-dc topology, as well as the new capacitor voltage control technique.