Multi-objective optimization of the gate driver parameters in a SiC-based DC-DC converter for electric vehicles

Milad Moradpour;Paolo Pirino;Michele Losito;Wulf-Toke Franke;Amit Kumar;Gianluca Gatto

2020-01-01

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Abstract

DC-DC converters are being used for power management and battery charging in electric vehicles (EVs). To further the role of EVs in market, more efficient power electronic converters are needed. Wide band gap (WBG) devices such as silicon carbide (SiC) provide higher frequency and lower power loss, however, their high di/dt and dv/dt transients result in higher electromagnetic interference (EMI). On the other hand, some gate driver parameters such as gate resistor (R_G) have contradictory effect on efficiency (eta) and EMI. The idea of this paper is to investigate the values of these parameters using a multi-objective optimization method to optimize eta and EMI at the same time. To this aim, first, the effect of high/low side R_G on eta and EMI in the half-bridge configuration is studied. Then, the objective functions of the optimization problem are obtained using a numerical regression method on the basis of the experimental tests. Then, the values of the gate resistors are obtained by solving the multi-objective optimization problem. Finally, eta and EMI of the converter in the optimum gate resistor design are compared to those in the conventional design to validate the effectiveness of the proposed design approach.