A Platform for the Behavioural Analysis of DC-DC Power Converters for Electric Cars

The evolution in the market of cars with electric power trains requires accurate optimization of power management sections. In electric cars, the power is collected and stored in a 400V battery, and then, from this battery, it is downscaled to lower voltage domains like 48V, 12V, 5V 3V, etc employing complex multi-stage switching DC-DC Converters. This operation could result in severe power losses and then topology optimization is mandatory. In this paper, a platform for a fast study and optimization of different DC-DC converter topologies developed in MATLAB environment is proposed. In the platform, basic DC-DC converter building blocks (inductive, and switched-capacitor) are available to compose complex DC-DC converter structures and to evaluate their fundamental limit performance and passive component values. Building block models are validated by circuit-level simulations. As example, the complete example of a DC-DC Converter from 400V down to 3V is proposed.