A bidirectional multi-phase multi-input DC-DC converter

In this work, a bidirectional non-isolated multi-phase multi-input dc-dc converter is proposed. This converter can easily construct hybrid power systems by means of utilizing different power sources and energy storage elements with different characteristics and voltage levels. The proposed converter can work in both buck and boost modes in both directions. Compared to the single phase version, the multi-phase structure helps to decrease the current ripples, thus the sizes of inductors, filter requirements, and semiconductor losses are essentially reduced. In this work, an analysis for the proposed converter concerned its operation modes is presented and details of a simulation study are given to test it for a hybrid energy system.