FPGA-Controlled SiC- and GaN- Based DC-DC Converter for Power Hardware-in-the-Loop Applications for Electric Aircraft
Date of Award
8-1-2024
Degree Name
M.S. in Electrical Engineering
Department
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Advisor/Chair
Dong Cao
Abstract
Aircraft electrification provides an effective approach toward tackling the problem of rapidly growing CO2 emissions. Digital twins are a real-time simulation that is synchronized with a particular real instance of a device. Power Hardware-in-the-Loop is another type of real-time simulation that simulates a device, except it is not synchronized with a real device and is used for testing purposes. The design of a power supply for a PHIL system is proposed and designed. The proposed topology is an LLC DC-DC converter with an inverter stage, transformer stage, and active rectifier stage. The procedure started with the design and testing of an FPGA-based controller. FPGA technology was chosen for its ability to perform high-frequency calculations in parallel. In addition to the controller, a gate driver was also designed and tested for the SiC-based inverter stage of the converter. The inverter stage was originally designed as a 3-phase inverter, but is then used as a single-phase inverter for this project. Next, a transformer was designed to interface between the inverter and active rectifier stages. The transformer steps the voltage down from 800V to 60V. Lastly, the GaN-based active rectifier stage was designed and assembled for the secondary side of the transformer. Test results of the GaN devices on the rectifier demonstrate basic switching functionality.
Keywords
DC, LLC, converter, inverter, transformer, rectifier, FPGA, electric aircraft, PHIL
Rights Statement
Copyright © 2024, author.
Recommended Citation
Hobbs, Kevin, "FPGA-Controlled SiC- and GaN- Based DC-DC Converter for Power Hardware-in-the-Loop Applications for Electric Aircraft" (2024). Graduate Theses and Dissertations. 7412.
https://ecommons.udayton.edu/graduate_theses/7412
