Design of DC-DC converters for on-board charging applications

Climate change and the greenhouse effect are the major motivational factors for the development of electric transportation systems word wide. The major components in electric vehicles are the motor, energy storage system, and control circuits. Out of all the major research areas in current trend are the charging technologies. Various charging techniques available are static charging, dynamic charging, etc. Using the charging circuits of an electric vehicle, the power can be transferred from grid to vehicle and also from vehicle to grid. The power flow will be from the grid to the vehicle if the battery storage is less. But, it is possible to send back the power from vehicle to grid if the bidirectional charging circuit is employed in the vehicle. This requirement can be utilized during the lack of power produced by renewable energy sources. In this paper, a bi-directional charging circuit for electric vehicles is designed and simulated. The charging circuit can send and receive the power in both directions. The simulation results of the charging circuit are shown and the waveforms related to the charging and discharging are also shown. Entire simulations are performed in SIMULINK.