Performance Analysis of Multiphase Interleaved boost converter topologies for FCEV applications

This paper investigates the performance of multiphase interleaved boost converter topologies for fuel cell electric vehicle (FCEV) system. Fuel cells (FC) have a low voltage and high current characteristics. The output voltage of a fuel cell stack must be increased to approximately 400V$\sim$700V to be suitable for the motor drive system. Therefore, a DC/DC step-up converter is crucial for interfacing fuel cell stack with the DC bus of the vehicle.Owing to the volumetric constraints and other performance requirements, the FC connected DC/DC converter is expected to possess high power density, low weight, high efficiency and good thermal performance. Further, it is of paramount importance to maintain the output current ripple of FC for its enhanced life span. Interleaved boost converter (IBC) topologies are found to satisfy all these requirements of FCEV application. Hence in this paper, a performance comparison of few interleaved topologies appropriate for FCEV drive train is presented. It is observed that six phase IBC is superior to other two variants namely two phase and four phase IBC. The output voltage, input current and losses are analysed for all the three topologies. The design of the closed loop control algorithm is discussed lucidly. The results of extensive simulations carried out in MATLAB environment are presented.