Hybrid Resonant Converter with Three Half-Bridge Legs for Wide Voltage Operation

Abstract

This paper studied a hybrid resonant converter with three half bridge legs for wide input voltage operation. Compared to the conventional resonant converters with narrow voltage operation, the presented converter can achieve wider voltage operation. On the basis of the proper switching status of power switches, the developed converter can operate at half-bridge resonant circuit under high input voltage range and the other two full-bridge resonant circuits under medium and low input voltage ranges. Each resonant circuit has a 2:1 (Vin,max = 2Vin,min) input voltage operation range. Therefore, the developed converter can achieve an 8:1 (Vin,max = 8Vin,min) wide voltage operation. The main advantage of the studied converter is the single-stage direct current (DC)/DC power conversion instead of the two-stage power conversion to achieve wide voltage operation. Because the equivalent resonant tank of the adopted converter is controlled by frequency modulation, the soft switching operation on power switches or rectifier diodes can be realized to improve circuit efficiency. The performance of the proposed circuit was confirmed and verified by experiments with a laboratory circuit.