Design of Fast Charging System for Super Capacitor Bank Using High Frequency Matrix Converter

Super-capacitors are now widely accepted as efficient and high power energy storage devices and are being used in variety of applications. They have very high power density as compared to conventional batteries and can be charged and discharged very quickly. However, fast charging techniques specially designed for charging super-capacitors have not yet fully evolved and they rely on conventional charging techniques for this purpose. This paper proposes a novel alternative approach to charge super-capacitors using a high frequency matrix converter. The 6 bi-directional switch matrix converter either be connected to single phase or three phase power frequency AC input source and can convert it to high frequency AC output which is then rectified to DC for charging the super-capacitor bank. This technique tends to produce less voltage and current ripples and thus eliminates the need for additional filters for smoothening the output voltage. The pulse width of the gate pulses is controlled using PID controller with strict saturation limits to prevent over-voltage from being applied to the supercapacitors. The meaningful simulation results shown in this paper verify the overall effectiveness and functionality of the proposed architecture.