Open-Circuit Fault Diagnosis in Interleaved DC-DC Boost Converters and Reconfiguration Strategy

The use of electronic equipment and other DC-compatible appliances in dwellings and offices is increasing at a very fast rate, as well as the distributed generation of energy. These two statements will certainly trigger, in a near future, the adoption of district-scale DC grids, connecting DC micro-generation plants and consumers, in an effort to cut the number of conversion steps required to deliver power to DC appliances. DC-DC converters will be fundamental in these systems, allowing the creation of several voltage levels. The reliability of these converters plays a key role, ensuring service continuity of the loads connected to them. With the increase of reliability in mind, this paper applies an open-circuit fault-diagnostic method suitable for several DC-DC converter topologies. A new reconfiguration strategy is proposed to mitigate the adverse impacts of such faults. To prove the effectiveness of these strategies, a three-phase interleaved boost converter prototype was used in the experiments.