Multilevel two quadrant DC/DC converter for regenerative braking in mobile applications

In this paper different cascaded and multilevel topologies are compared for regenerative braking systems using supercapacitors (SC). It shows that the multilevel buck derived topology can beneficiate from both reduced voltage across the inductor and increased frequency to reduce the output inductance, even if there is the need for an input LC filter to reduce harmonic content in the SC. Also, the proposed control scheme is able to control the energy flow between SC and the DC bus, balancing the voltage in the SC banks. Experimental results verify the performance of the proposed converter and its control algorithm.