ISI-OBC Advanced Modeling and Validation

With the need to limit climate change, strategies to limit emissions and promote sustainable development have been established in the recent years. Electric mobility is among the key elements to enable the energy transition and much research is being conducted to make them competitive in performance and price. Integrating components allows production costs to be pulled down when economies of scale are involved. This is where this work arises. An integrated OBC is studied that allows the use of the 6-phase electric traction motor and traction inverters reconfigured for the charging configuration. The new converter topology was analyzed beginning with theoretical considerations. Experimental tests were then performed in order to better understand its operation and possible problems in the practical case. Subsequently, a PLECS model was calibrated and the calculation of iron losses based on empirical data was implemented. The PLECS model proved to provide a reasonably good representation of the real converter in order to express its physical operation. Therefore it allows an estimation of the power and efficiency as different parameters vary. It was then understood how the converter works and how the control parameters can be exploited to obtain the desired power with the best efficiency. This work made it possible to gain experience with the operation of this new converter, understand how to exploit the control parameters, improve the model and develop an innovative control of the battery charging current.