| Updated for: |
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| Intel® Quartus® Prime Design Suite 17.0 |
As transportation vehicles are electrified, attention switches from fuel consumption to electrical energy consumption and the efficiency and cost of power converters. Fixed-function chips (ASICs) or microcontrollers with limited control-update rates control several power converters.
FPGAs are unique in enabling custom digital control at very high frequencies. They are beneficial in reducing the size and cost of passive components required to stabilize voltage or change from traditional Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) switching waveforms to other methods to reduce switching losses. This may be an advantage in heavily used high-voltage electric vehicle charging stations.
At a high level, the Three-phase Boost Bidirectional AC/DC Converter for Electric Vehicle (EV) Charging design example shows an EV charging station's small but indispensable building block, usually called the AC/DC conversion module. In general, an EV charging station is composed of different blocks, as follows:
As shown in Common EV Charger Power Architecture diagram, in EV charging power stations, an AC/DC power converter unit can feed multiple DC-DC power converter units that ultimately charge the electric cars. Many EV charging manufacturers use this topology as modules, which you can buy and connect to as you desire.
This design example demonstrates an implementation of a three-phase boost bidirectional AC/DC converter for EV charging. It uses the HDL Coder to generate synthesizable VHDL code for control and to emulate power electronics. Intel® MAX® 10 and Cyclone® V SoC FPGA Development Kits are the target devices for this reference design.
The Three-phase Boost Bidirectional AC/DC Converter for EV Charging design example includes the following:
The following diagram shows the main components of the design example and how an FPGA is incorporated to emulate power electronics and implement an actual PWM switching controller:
The three-phase boost bidirectional AC/DC converter within this design example is composed of three main parts:
| Block | Description |
|---|---|
| Power Electronics | Composed of a six-switch power converter and high-power electronics, such as capacitors or inductors. In an actual EV charging station, this is the section of the system that is controlled by an FPGA using PWM signals. In this reference design, the power electronics subsystem is modeled with MATLAB* and synthesized to emulate the behavior of power transistors, capacitors, inductors, and resistors in the FPGA programmable logic. |
| Source Voltage Generator | A MATLAB Simulink* model synthesized to mimic the UK 230 VRMS national power grid. With this model, HDL code is generated to emulate the behavior of the three-phase grid within the FPGA fabric. |
| Controller | In a real-product scenario, this is the only block in this example design that is implemented on FPGA. The controller generates the necessary PWM signals to drive the power transistors in the six-switch power converter and senses different currents and voltages so that it generates the desired DC output voltage. |
The six-switch boost converter is a three-phase AC/DC converter capable of bidirectional power flow. It has the following specifications:
This document describes the reference design of a new high-performance power converter. It looks for: