Design and Validation of a Bidirectional DC-DC Converter Control for Electric Vehicles Using FPGA-in-the-Loop Methodology

Electric vehicles (EVs) are an alternative to fossil-fuel-powered vehicles.However, high prices make them inaccessible for mass market adoption.Power electronics are a key enabler of vehicle electrification.In this work, the design of a bidirectional converter control is performed for application in EVs.A bidirectional topology with step-up and step-down capabilities is designed.Proportional-Integral-Derivative (PID) is the elementary control method and the most popular in power converters due to its ease of implementation, scalability, low hardware-resources requirement, and high switching frequency capability.New Wide Band Gap semiconductor devices allow to increase switching frequency to reduce the size of the converter.Design validation through in-theloop methodologies verify that algorithms are ready for chip deployment identifying design flaws early through its development.In this work, the control algorithm for a bidirectional DC-DC converter employing WBG devices at EV power ratings is implemented.Step-up and step-down modes of operation in a cascaded bidirectional topology are analyzed with input voltage of 400 VDC, 13kW power rating, 500 kHz switching frequency and FPGA-in-the-loop (FIL) validation.FIL methodology proved a cost-effective approach to verify that control algorithms are capable for hardware deployment without the need for expensive hardware setups.