A Bi-directional Z-source Inverter for Solar

Powered Electric Cars

Abstract: A wide majority of the electric cars use dc drives. When compared to dc drives, ac
drives are more compact and lighter. In this paper, a novel power converter for electric
cars is proposed. The battery of the car is charged by a solar panel conventionally. The proposed converter has an
impedance source
inverter (Z-source inverter) which drives an ac motor, and performs as a
current-fed Z-source dc-dc converter against reverse power
flow. Thus, the proposed circuit does not need a bi-directional
buck-boost dc-dc converter. The operation of the proposed
converter was simulated by MATLAB SIMULINK and verified the feasibility of its implementation.
Keywords-Z-source inverter; bi-directional; electric car,

I.
Introduction
From
the view point of the environmental issues, EVs are strongly
expected to be put into practical use [1]. For EVs, power
converters are needed to drive motors. The power converter is
composed of an inverter to make a boosted ac voltage for a
motor from a dc voltage of a battery, and a buck dc-dc
converter to charge the battery during reverse power flowing
[2]. A Z-source inverter, which is shown in Fig. 1, is a kind of
inverter invented by F. Z. Peng [3]. By using shoot-through
switching, the Z-source inverter can boost the output voltage
without a boost converter. However a dc-dc converter is
needed to accept a reverse power flow and to reduce the
regenerative voltage to a battery voltage. The Z-source inverter
includes a Z-network which is an X-shaped combination of
two capacitors and two inductors. On the other hand, a current-fed
Z-source dc-dc converter, which is shown in Fig. 2, has
been also proposed [4]. The current-fed Z-source dc-dc
converter performs as a buck converter when the duty ratio is
over 50%, and as a polarity reversed buck-boost converter
when the duty ratio is under 50%.

Fig. 100 Proposed system

This paper proposes a novel Z-source inverter for Electric Cars. The battery of the car is being charged from a
solar panel conventionally. The proposed system is shown in Fig. 100. The
proposed circuit has one Z-network which works as a Z-source
inverter in the case of driving a 3 motor and as a current-fed
Z-source dc-dc converter in the case of reverse power flow.
Therefore the proposed circuit does not need an external bidirectional

buck-boost dc-dc converter compared with

conventional power converters for electric vehicles. The operational
principle of a conventional Z-source inverter, a current-fed Z-source
dc-dc converter and the proposed circuit are described
in section II. Experimental circuits and results of the proposed circuit in the case of Z-source inverter mode and
current-fed Z-source
dc-dc converter mode are described in section III.
II. A BI-DIRECTIONAL Z-SOURCE INVERTER FOR
ELECTRIC VEHICLES
A. A conventional Z-source inverter
A conventional Z-source inverter is shown in Fig. 1 and
the switching scheme of the Z-source inverter is shown in Fig.
3. Fig. 3 shows a carrier waveform es, reference waveforms eA,
eB, eC, shoot-through lines e1, e2, and driving waveforms S1~S6.
In the case that es is higher than e1 and es is lower than e2, all
driving waveforms S1~S6 are high. In this time, inverter legs
are in short circuited state called shoot-through. The Z-source
inverter takes two states which are the shoot-through state and
the inverter drive state. The two equivalent circuits of the Zsource
inverter are shown in Fig 4. In shoot-through state,
double capacitor voltage 2VC impresses the circuit. Therefore,
the Z-source inverter can boost the output voltage. The
voltage gain of the Z-source inverter can be expressed as:

^x
V
where

V
M
X I
2 M 1 2

...(1)

^x
V
is the output peak phase voltage (x = A, B, or C), M

is the modulation index, and VI is the input voltage [3].

Fig. 1. Z-source inverter.

Fig. 2. Current-fed Z-source dc-dc converter.

B. A current-fed Z-source dc-dc converter

A current-fed Z-source dc-dc converter is shown in Fig. 2.
A current-fed Z-source dc-dc converter is also construct of a
Z-network. The switch SA and SC are driven by pulse width
modulation (PWM). The current-fed Z-source dc-dc converter
is divided into two states which are SA:ON, SC:OFF and
SA:OFF, SC:ON. The equivalent circuits of the current-fed Z-source
dc-dc converter are shown in Fig. 5. The voltage gain
of the current-fed Z-source dc-dc converter can be expressed
as:

V1=

2 D1
X
D

VG

...(2)

where VG is the input voltage, D is the duty ratio of SA, and VI

is the output voltage. Equation (2) implies that the current-fed
Z-source converter performs as a buck converter when the
duty ratio is over 0.5, and as a polarity reversed buck-boost
converter when the duty ratio is under 0.5. When the duty
ratio is 0.5, the output voltage unlimitedly approaches 0 [4].

Fig. 3. Switching scheme of a Z-source inverter.

Fig. 4. Equivalent circuits of a Z-source inverter, (a) inverter drive state,

(b) shoot-through state.

Fig. 5. Equivalent circuits of a current-fed Z-source dc-dc converter,

(a)SA:ON, SC:OFF, (b)SA:OFF, SC:OFF.

Fig. 6. A bi-directional Z-source inverter for electric vehicles.

Fig. 7. Equivalent circuits when the proposed converter performs as, (a)
Z-source inverter, and (b) current-fed Z-source dc-dc converter.

C. A bi-directional Z-source inverter for electric vehicles

Fig. 6 shows a bi-directional Z-source inverter for electric
vehicles. Compared to the conventional Z-source inverter
shown in Fig. 1, the input diode DA in Fig. 1 is replaced to a
bidirectional switch composed of two IGBTs SA, SB and two
diodes DA, DB in Fig. 6. A smoothing capacitor C0 is set in
parallel to the battery VI. Also a switch SC with an antiparallel
diode DC is placed between the Z network and the 3-phasebridge.
Fig. 7(a) shows an equivalent circuit when the proposed
converter performs as a Z-source inverter loaded with a 3phase
motor. Fig. 7(b) shows an equivalent circuit when the

proposed converter performs as a current-fed Z-source dc-dc

converter which charges the battery by the reverse current
flow from the 3-phasemotor.
In the case of the Z-source inverter mode (Fig. 7(a)), the
state of switches is SA:OFF, SB:ON, SC:OFF, and the state of
diodes is DA:active, DB:OFF DC:OFF, where the active state of
DA means DA works as an input diode of Z-source inverter.
The 3-phasebridge is driven by PWM driving signals including the
shoot-through switching states.
In the case of the current-fed Z-source dc-dc converter
mode (Fig. 7(b)), the state of switches is SA:active, SB:OFF,
SC:active, and the state of the diodes is DA:active DB:active
DC:active. SA and SC are driven by PWM, and the diodes block
the current according to the switching states of SA and SB.
Assuming that the 3-phasemotor performs as a current source
during reverse power flow, the 3-phasebridge performs as a 3-phasefull
bridge rectifier composed of the diodes D1-D6. The reverse
current is fed to the Z-network. In the case of the current-fed
Z-source dc-dc converter mode, when the charge voltage is
lower than the battery voltage, the unintended current flows
from the battery to the motor. To prevent the unintended
current flow, the switch SB maintains OFF state. Therefore, if
the charge voltage is lower than the battery voltage, the
unintended current prevented by the diode DB.
III. Simulation RESULTS
A proposed circuit was built and tested in the cases of
the Z-source inverter mode and the current-fed Z-source dc-dc
converter mode. The proposed circuit was simulated by
MATLAB SIMULINK.
Simulation circuit is shown in Fig. 8. The
designed value of the circuit elements, inductors L1 = L2 =
1[mH], capacitors C1 = C2 = 147[F], and C0 = 100[F],
switching frequency = 30[kHz] were given. MOSFETs were used for the switches in the simulation circuit.
The internal diode forward voltage = 2.5[V] of the
MOSFET was set in the simulation.
The forward voltage = 0.5[V]
of the diode was set in the simulation.
In the Z-source inverter mode, a voltage source VI =
10[V], and the modulation index M = 0.8 were given.
Maximum boost control [5] was used. The voltage gain of
the maximum boost control can be expressed as:

^x
V

Where

3 3 M X
=

VI
2

............. (3)

^x
V
is the output peak phase voltage (x = a, b, or c).

The inverter was loaded with a 3-phaseRLC network instead of a

3phasemotor, where the resistances RA = RB = RC = 100[], the
inductors LA = LB = LC = 1[mH], and the capacitors CA = CB
= CC = 0.47[F]. In the simulation, the solver ode14x was
used with the fixed time step of the sampling time 4e-9[s].
In the current-fed Z-source dc-dc converter mode, a dc

voltage source VG = 15[V] with a series inductor LG = 1[mH]

was used instead of the motor.
In the
simulation a dc voltage source VI = 10[V] was used with a
series resistance 0.7[]. The capacitor C was used with a
series resistance 0.1[]. The duty ratio D = 0.8 was given for
the switch SA and the duty ratio D = 0.2 was given for the
switch SC. In the simulation experiment, the solver ode14x
was used with the fixed time step of the sampling time 4e-9[s].
0

Fig. 8. Experimental circuits, (a) Z-source inverter mode, and (b)current-fed Zsource
dc-dc converter mode.

Fig. 10 shows the simulated

waveforms of the output voltages vA, vB, and vC and the
inverter bus voltage vdc in Z-source inverter mode. The output
frequency was 1.00[kHz] and the theoretical value of the
output voltage was 24.75[V]. From the simulated waveforms,
it was confirmed that the proposed circuit operated following
the theory.

Fig. 10. Simulated waveforms of the output voltages vA, vB, and vC and the
inverter bus voltage vdc in Z-source inverter mode, vertical: 10[V/div],
horizontal: 500[ s].

Fig. 12. Simulated waveforms of the driving waveforms vGSA for SA and
vGSC for SC, and the current II in current-fed Z-source dc-dc converter
mode, (a)driving waveform of SA, vertical: 0.5[V/div], (b)driving
waveform of SC, vertical: 0.5[V/div], and (c) charging current waveform,
vertical: 0.02[A/div], horizontal: 10[ s/div]

Fig. 12 shows the simulated waveforms of the driving

waveforms vGSA for SA and vGSC for SC, and the current II in
current-fed Z-source dc-dc converter mode. From the
simulated waveforms, the input current decreases when SA is
ON and SC is OFF. On the other hand, the input current
increases when SA is OFF, and SC is ON. The average input
current II = -0.84[A] means that the proposed circuit charged
the battery VI in the case of reverse power flow.
IV. CONCLUSION
This paper has presented a bi-directional Z-source inverter
for electric vehicles. The proposed inverter has a Z-source
inverter which drives an ac motor, and performs as a currentfed
Z-source dc-dc converter against reverse power flow. The
operation of the proposed converter was confirmed by the
simulation.