Rapid Prototyping Tools for Power Electronic Converters

In recent years, demand for utilization of power electronic converters in industrial, commercial and household applications has increased significantly. It is critical for engineers to design these converters in a short duration. Considering the time constraints on engineers it’s not surprising that rapid prototyping tools have become very popular in the industry. Through rapid prototyping, users can estimate power loss and cost which are essential to design decisions. The research presented here treats main power electronic components of a converter as building blocks that can be arranged to obtain various topologies to facilitate rapid prototyping. In order to get system-level power loss and cost models, two processes are implemented. The first process automatically provides minimum power loss or cost estimates and identifies components for specific applications and ratings; the second process estimates power losses and costs of each component of interest as well as the whole system. Power loss models are analytical and include effects of parasitic elements and non-idealities. Cost models for each building block are derived based on an extensive market survey. Three examples are used to illustrate the proposed research - boost and buck converters in continuous conduction mode (CCM) and flyback converter in discontinuous conduction mode (DCM). Optimization of component selection is based on the minimum possible cumulative power loss in these components or minimum cumulative cost of components. These techniques help engineers to select the best components for their applications and aid researchers in prototyping different converters for several applications. The proposed cost and loss estimates are shown to be over 92% accurate when compared to measured losses and real cost data. This research presents derivations of the proposed models, detailed experimental measurements and demonstration of a friendly user interface that integrates all the models