Efficiency evaluation of MMSPC/CHB topologies for automotive applications

As an increasing amount of research is investigating the replacement of conventional combustion engines in automobiles with an electric power train, there has been significant interest in novel inverter topologies to replace two-level inverters. This paper compares two multilevel topology systems with integrated batteries, and evaluates their application in an electric vehicle. A state-of-the-art two-level inverter is considered for reference. Comprehensive simulations of both the converter power electronics and the battery are performed, in order to compare each topology over a wide power and switching frequency range. We have shown that battery-integrated multilevel converter systems can achieve higher efficiencies than two-level inverters, especially at low output power. This makes them very well suited for Electric Vehicle (EV) use, as most of the driving cycle occurs at low loads.