Dual-Buck Bipolar Buck–Boost AC–AC Converter With Reduced Semiconductor Devices

Dual-buck (DB) structured ac–ac converters are becoming advanced due to their inherent protection from open- and short-circuit risks, and elimination of commutation issue. However, the existing DB ac–ac converters provide restricted bipolar voltage operations with a large semiconductor device count and underutilized inductors. This article proposed a new reduced switch DB ac–ac converter without commutation issue. The propose converter provides multiple buck–boost voltage operations with noninverting and inverting outputs, making it a flexible topology for various ac voltage applications. The propose converter exhibits the continuous input and output currents irrespective of operation mode, and performs well with nonunity power factor loads. The positive and negative voltage gains of the proposed converter can address the grid voltage sag and swell issues, respectively, making it right candidate for application as dynamic voltage restorer. A detailed comparative evaluation is carried out with existing DB converters, which validated the effectiveness of the proposed converter, including; reduced semiconductor device count and their power ratings, reduced inductor sizes with improved magnetic utilization, enhanced voltage compensation ranges, and better efficiency. A laboratory scale hardware prototype of the proposed converter is built and thoroughly tested to validate its operation.