Comparison and Control of Voltage Balancers for Bipolar DC Aircraft Power Systems

This paper presents a detailed comparison of power electronics converters, specifically voltage balancers, used in bipolar dc systems. These converters are ideal for dc microgrids where it is desired to increase the dc voltage while minimizing the line to ground potential. The different dc/dc converters are compared in terms of their Switching Device Power (SDP), number of components, and current stress. A nonlinear dynamic model for the voltage balancers is then developed and a simplification is used to design the controller. Simulation and control Hardware in the Loop (HIL) results verifying the proposed control methodology are presented.