Inductorless Bidirectional Switched-Capacitor Power Electronics Transformer

The objective of this article is to propose a new inductorless bidirectional switched-capacitor power electronics transformer (IBSCX) for low-power commercial and residential applications. The proposed IBSCX is composed of multiple switched-capacitor converters (SCCs) and two bidirectional unfolders. Compared with the traditional solution which is the use of a low-frequency transformer, the advantages of the proposed IBSCX include control circuit simplicity, high conversion efficiency, and volume and weight reduction for low-power applications. The principle of operation, voltage gain analysis, and design methodology are described in this article. Also, with the interleaved operation between SCCs, the output current ripple can be reduced. Finally, the computer simulations and hardware experimental results are shown to verify the performance of the proposed IBSCX. A prototype IBSCX is built and tested, and the peak and rated power conversion efficiency are 98.26% and 97.95%, respectively.