Coupled inductors-based interleaved boost converters for Fuel Cell Electric Vehicles

Fuel cell (FC) is an energy conversion device of zero-emission. It has been increasingly used in many applications, especially in Fuel Cell Electric Vehicles (FCEVs) that use the Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell (PEMFC) as the main power source. Due to the low and unregulated FC stack output voltage, a DC/DC converter is required to boost and regulate the DC bus voltage to a constant value. Reliability and continuity of service remain a major challenge for FCEVs to stand out in the transportation market. In this context, the DC/DC converter should ensure operational safety while increasing power density. Since using coupled inductors can improve the efficiency and reduce size and volume of converters, a comparison study is considered in this paper between different four-phase interleaved boost converter (4IBC) topologies, in both healthy and faulty operation modes. Simulation results show that, compared to the loosely coupled inductors and uncoupled inductors, the cascade cyclic coupled structure is very advantageous in terms of current ripple reduction, which make it well qualified for FCEVs.