The adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) has been rapidly increasing due to environmental policies and growing consumer demand for electrified transportation. Accordingly, advancements in battery technology have led to increased energy capacity in EV b...
The adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) has been rapidly increasing due to environmental policies and growing consumer demand for electrified transportation. Accordingly, advancements in battery technology have led to increased energy capacity in EV battery systems. This trend enables higher power delivery through vehicle-to-everything (V2X) technologies. To support critical loads during power outages or to operate multiple high-power appliances simultaneously, bidirectional on-board chargers (OBCs) capable of three-phase, high-power discharging in the range of 10–20 kW, as well as compatibility with general-purpose loads, are required.
Conventional bidirectional OBCs commonly employ isolated DC–DC converters based on the CLLC topology, which enables soft switching over a wide load range and limits switch voltage stress to the input and output voltages, making it suitable for high-efficiency designs. However, when operating with a fixed input voltage, it is difficult to achieve a wide output voltage range while simultaneously securing the desired voltage gain in both forward and reverse power flow directions. To address this limitation, various approaches have been proposed, including asymmetric resonant parameter design, variable input voltage control, and reconfigurable converter structures. Nevertheless, these methods still face challenges in meeting the requirements of bidirectional 22 kW-class chargers in both power flow directions and in accommodating arbitrary loads required for V2X operation.
As an alternative, a two-stage structure combining a fixed-frequency LLC converter and a buck converter can be considered. In [6], a quasi-two-stage topology employing a unidirectional buck converter is proposed, in which the LLC converter operates independently in the forward direction, while a fixed-frequency LLC converter and a reverse-direction buck converter are used to realize voltage gain in the reverse direction. However, in this approach, the LLC converter operates in an uncontrolled manner during reverse operation, making it difficult to compensate for resonant parameter variations. In addition, the output voltage of the LLC converter must be maintained lower than the battery voltage, restricting reverse operation to single-phase mode with limited maximum output power.
To overcome these issues, a topology combining an LLC–SRC converter with a bidirectional buck converter has been proposed. This structure supports a wide output voltage range at a fixed link voltage and maintains high efficiency regardless of the power flow direction. However, the design of the resonant tank is complex, and the output voltage of the LLC–SRC converter varies depending on operating conditions.
In this paper, a bidirectional DC–DC converter based on an LLLC converter combined with a buck converter is proposed to overcome the limitations of conventional two-stage structures. The proposed LLLC converter incorporates an auxiliary inductor on the primary side of the LLC converter for reverse operation, enabling below-resonance operation in both power flow directions. This allows stable output voltage regulation under all load conditions. Furthermore, to mitigate switching losses and surge voltage issues caused by hard switching in the buck converter, an IGBT-based zero-voltage transition (ZVT) auxiliary circuit is applied. The loss reduction and soft-switching effects are experimentally analyzed, and the performance differences with and without the ZVT circuit are compared. Finally, the feasibility of the proposed DC–DC converter structure is verified through a 22 kW prototype incorporating a three-phase inverter-based power factor correction (PFC) circuit.