Efficiency improvement in intelligent multi-converter systems supplying consumer electronics by load detection

Today's society is more energy-hungry than ever. Despite the progress made both on research and technological level and the wide acceptance of energy efficient and "green" technologies and innovations, the global energy consumption figures are on the rise. It is not sufficient to have efficient consumers, the various conversion stages along the distribution network have to be highly efficient too, in order to minimize losses. Another problem in the way of optimum efficiency is the wide range of voltages required by the actual loads. The paper proposes a way for improving the efficiency in the DC/DC converter field by selecting automatically the number of turned on or off converters supplying the current consumer just connected to the DC bus. Several DC/DC converters equipped with intelligence are connected in parallel to the DC bus and only the number of converters required to ensure optimum efficiency will be in operation at a given time. This is possible due to the intelligent agent based digital control implemented into the microcontroller driving the converters. The decisions leading to optimal operation will be taken by the communicating agents through negotiations. Furthermore, the converters will be able to gather information on the load they serve. This will make it possible to determine the voltage level and current requirements of the load, adjusting the operation of the converter(s) to it. After simulation a demonstration unit has been built in the lab, using four converters connected in parallel. Results from simulation and laboratory measurements are presented.