A Step-Up Nonisolated Modular Multilevel DC–DC Converter With Self-Voltage Balancing and Soft Switching

Evolving from the popular modular multilevel ac–dc converter, the single-stage nonisolated modular multilevel dc–dc converter (MMDC) is advantageous for medium- and high-voltage applications. However, exploiting ac circulating power to balance the submodule energy, when utilized for high step ratio applications, existing MMDC topologies suffer from circulating current through the arms and large filter inductor at the low-voltage side. To overcome these issues, this article presents a new power transfer mechanism to balance the submodule energy automatically by reconstructing the half-bridge submodule into a quasi-resonant circuit. Based on this submodule structure, a new MMDC topology for step-up applications is proposed. Compared to the existing MMDCs, the proposed one offers the following advantages. First, the common-mode circulating current through the lower and upper arms is avoided. Second, the self-balancing of the capacitor voltages is guaranteed by the proposed modulation method to insert and bypass adjacent submodules in a complementary manner. Third, the soft-switching operation is achieved for the majority of the switches to alleviate switching losses. Fourth, the voltage stress across the input side inductor is limited to the submodule voltage, thereby reducing the size of the inductor. Simulation analysis and experimental results verify the performance of the proposed MMDC.