ERI: A Novel Solution to Enable High-Voltage DC-Links in Electric Vehicles

ERI：一种在电动汽车中实现高压直流链路的新颖解决方案

• 批准号: 2138606
• 负责人: Hui Zhang
• 金额: $ 18.76万
• 依托单位: SUNY College at Oswego
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2022-01-01 至 2024-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2138606&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: ERI; Novel; Solution; Enable; Voltage

This award is funded in whole or in part under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (Public Law 117-2).The history of electric vehicles can be traced back to the 19th century. After the initial rise, electric vehicles declined with the mass production of cheaper gasoline cars. Until the last century, electric vehicles came back into sight due to fossil fuel shortage and environmental concerns. Besides reducing fossil fuel consumption and environmental benefits, electric vehicles offer numerous other benefits such as increasing fuel diversity, providing opportunities to integrate more renewable energy into the grid, and offering individual benefits including better driving experience and less expensive and frequent maintenance, etc. Today, the wider adoption of electric vehicles will rely on future technological advances to further reduce the cost and charging time of electric vehicles and increase efficiency, power density, and performance at the same time. One of such technologies is to use high-voltage DC links in electric vehicles. It has been reported that using higher DC voltage in electric vehicles gives higher power density, less weight, smaller components, less loss and heat, and faster charging, etc. Thus, using a high DC link voltage has become a new design trend in the electric vehicle industry. The proposed project will focus on the power conversion solutions in electric vehicles to address the challenges encountered in this transition from low-voltage DC links to high-voltage DC links. It will advance the power conversion technology for electric vehicles and other similar power conversion systems, which eventually will improve the United State’s competitiveness in the global electric vehicle market, reduce fossil fuel consumption and CO2 emissions by promoting the adoption of electric vehicles, and increase energy diversity and foster national security and energy independence. The education components in the project will enhance engineering education and produce a highly skilled and qualified engineering workforce, attract more students in STEM learning as the future workforce in the high-need areas, and help improve the competencies of future STEM teachers. The project will also broaden the participation of underrepresented groups, particularly, first-generation college students and children in poverty. The goal of the project is to develop a cost-effective, highly efficient, and easy-retrofit inverter technique to facilitate the faster development and adoption of high-voltage DC links in electric vehicles. More specifically, the goal will be achieved by 1) developing less costly traction inverter solutions for electric vehicles with a high-voltage DC link by using four-switch three-phase inverter topology, 2) investigating and optimizing the control and efficiency of the inverters using simulations, 3) developing prototypes of the proposed inverters and demonstrating their performance as a comparison to traditional solutions to validate the proposed method, and 4) exploring the applications of silicon carbide devices in the proposed inverters for further efficiency improvement and conducting comparative studies in these methods. The project will advance the knowledge of the proposed inverters and providing mathematical insights on their analysis and control. It will also provide a novel, original, and potentially transformative solution to enable high voltage DC-links in electric vehicles, which can facilitate the faster development of high-voltage DC-link designs. The technology that will be developed in the project can also benefit many other systems such as solar and wind generation, energy storage, utilities, and industrial drive, etc. by providing a low-cost alternative. Besides, it provides the possibility to overcome the cost barrier of wide-bandgap devices and promote their applications for better efficiency and more energy savings.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

该奖项的全部或部分资金根据《2021 年美国救援计划法案》（公法 117-2）提供。电动汽车的历史可以追溯到 19 世纪。在最初的崛起之后，随着更便宜的汽油车的大规模生产，电动汽车开始下降。直到上个世纪，由于化石燃料短缺和环境问题，电动汽车才重新回到人们的视野。除了减少化石燃料消耗和环境效益外，电动汽车还具有许多其他好处，例如增加燃料多样性，提供将更多可再生能源纳入电网的机会，以及提供个人好处，包括更好的驾驶体验以及更便宜和频繁的维护等。如今，电动汽车的更广泛采用将依赖于未来的技术进步，以进一步降低电动汽车的成本和充电时间，同时提高效率、功率密度和性能。其中一项技术是在电动汽车中使用高压直流母线。据报道，在电动汽车中使用更高的直流电压可以带来更高的功率密度、更轻的重量、更小的元件、更少的损耗和热量以及更快的充电速度等。因此，使用高直流母线电压已成为电动汽车行业的新设计趋势。拟议项目将重点关注电动汽车中的功率转换解决方案，以解决从低压直流母线到高压直流母线过渡过程中遇到的挑战。它将推进电动汽车和其他类似功率转换系统的功率转换技术，最终将提高美国在全球电动汽车市场的竞争力，通过促进电动汽车的采用减少化石燃料消耗和二氧化碳排放，增加能源多样性并促进国家安全和能源独立。该项目的教育部分将加强工程教育，培养高技能、合格的工程劳动力，吸引更多 STEM 学习的学生成为高需求领域的未来劳动力，并帮助提高未来 STEM 教师的能力。该项目还将扩大代表性不足群体的参与，特别是第一代大学生和贫困儿童。该项目的目标是开发一种经济高效、易于改造的逆变器技术，以促进电动汽车中高压直流链路的更快开发和采用。更具体地说，该目标将通过以下方式实现：1) 使用四开关三相逆变器拓扑为具有高压直流链路的电动汽车开发成本较低的牵引逆变器解决方案，2) 使用仿真研究和优化逆变器的控制和效率，3) 开发所提议逆变器的原型并展示其性能，与传统解决方案进行比较以验证所提议的方法，以及 4) 探索应用 在所提出的逆变器中使用碳化硅器件以进一步提高效率，并对这些方法进行比较研究。该项目将增进对拟议逆变器的了解，并提供对其分析和控制的数学见解。它还将提供一种新颖、原创且具有潜在变革性的解决方案，以实现电动汽车中的高压直流母线，从而促进高压直流母线设计的更快开发。该项目将开发的技术还可以通过提供低成本替代方案使许多其他系统受益，例如太阳能和风力发电、储能、公用事业和工业驱动等。 此外，它还提供了克服宽带隙器件的成本障碍并促进其应用以提高效率和节省能源的可能性。该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

项目成果

Imbalance Compensation for SVPWM-Controlled Four-switch Three-phase Inverters

• DOI: 10.1109/greentech56823.2023.10173831
• 发表时间: 2023-04
• 期刊: 2023 IEEE Green Technologies Conference (GreenTech)
• 作者: Hui Zhang