Kai-Wei Wang

A DC-DC converter with a 16:1 (V_in,max = 16V_in,min) wide input voltage operation is presented for auxiliary power supplies on solar power conversion circuits or railway vehicles. The solar cell output voltage is associated with the solar intensity (day or night) and geographical location. Thus, the wide input voltage capability of DC converters is required for photovoltaic power conversion. For low power supplies on railway vehicles, the nominal input voltages are 24 V~110 V for the electric door system, motor drive, solid state lighting systems and braking systems. The presented converter uses buck/boost and resonant circuits to achieve the wide input voltage range operation from 18 V to 288 V. If V_in stays on a low input voltage range (18 V~72 V), the buck/boost circuit is operated at a voltage boost characteristic. On the other hand, the buck/boost circuit is operated at a voltage buck characteristic when the input voltage climbs to a high voltage range (72 V~288 V). Thus, the buck/boost circuit can output a constant voltage. Then, the resonant circuit in the second stage is worked at a constant input voltage case so that the frequency variation range is reduced. Finally, to investigate the performance and effectiveness of the studied circuit, experiments with a 500 W prototype were conducted to investigate the performance of the studied circuit.