A Novel Reduced Voltage Sensor-Count Control of a DC/DC Converter

This paper presents a new voltage sensing approach for a DC/DC boost converter used as a battery charger. The input DC source is the thermoelectric generator (TEG) and can be of any form like the PV as well. The purpose of the proposed strategy is to reduce the voltage sensors count used. Two different voltages are measured using only one voltage sensor. The proposed strategy can be expanded to different switch mode DC/DC converters. The input and output voltage information are collected from an intermediate switching point in the converter. The reconstructed voltages are used in the control loops as well as for monitoring the battery output or load voltages. Simulation results aid the solid mathematical derivation. Hardware prototype was designed and built in the lab to verify the proposed approach.