An Integrated Bidirectional Three-Phase AC Charger for Vehicle Applications with Buck-Boost Capability

On-board integrated chargers for electric and plugin hybrid electric vehicles are advantageous in that they have the potential to significantly reduce the external charging infrastructure requirements for charging a vehicle. This is made possible by re-using the power electronics and cooling systems already on-board the vehicle for charging. The disadvantages of on-board chargers, however, include added weight, volume and cost to the vehicle. In this paper, a novel on-board integrated three-phase ac charger topology is presented with buck-boost and vehicle-to-grid charging capability with minimum impact to the vehicle. Through use of a current source converter front-end, an input filter, a polarity inversion module and a differentially connected dual-inverter drive, a charger of three-port structure is realized with level-3 charging capability. This paper focuses on developing the operating principles of this novel topology. The operating principles are validated through PLECS simulations.