This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been
fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/TIA.2018.2810805, IEEE
Transactions on Industry Applications
Reduced-order Observer-based Control System
for Dual-Active-Bridge DC/DC Converter
Duy-Dinh NGUYEN, Goro FUJITA
Shibaura Institute of Technology, Japan
Email: na14503@shibaura-it.ac.jp
Abstract—An observer-based control (OBC) strategy for dual-
active-bridge converters is proposed in this paper. The target is
not only to handle the active power transferring between two
terminals, but also to regulate the phase difference between the
primary voltage and current around specific minimum value. The
value is chosen to reduce the conduction loss in the system. A
reduced-order observer is developed to estimate the direct and
quadrature components of the transmission current for use in a
decoupled current control system. Since the DC terminal current
is the only input of the observer, a low sampling frequency is
enough to ensure an acceptable precision. Experiment results
show that, the proposed OBC strategy can help improve the
dynamic performance compared to that when using a single loop
voltage mode system. Furthermore, at the high power range, the
efficiency obtained when employing OBC method is improved by
up-to 7.2%.
Index Terms—Dual-active-bridge converter, reduced-order ob-
server, frequency domain analysis, frequency modulation, single
phase shift
I. I NTRODUCTION
A. Background
In the recent years, Solid State Transformer (SST) has
gotten more and more attraction as a very high perspective
electronic device to substitute for the conventional passive
transformer [1]. An example of SST is depicted in Fig. 1 with
three parts: an active rectifier, a Dual-Active-Bridge (DAB)
converter and a grid-connected inverter. Among those, the
DAB converter has shown to be the key component as it
enables isolation, bidirectional power transmission, size reduc-
tion (due to operating at high frequency) and asynchronous
inter-connection capabilities of the SST [2], [3].
As a pre-regulator for the grid-connected inverter as well as
one component of a SST, the DAB converter should:
• maintain its output DC voltage constant with a good
regulation factor;
• high efficiency;
• be able to withstand heavy overloading and self-protect
against short-circuit fault.
However, there are some challenges when controlling the DAB
converter to meet all the above requirements.
The first challenge is the influence of the circulating current.
The most common technique to control the power flow in a
DAB converter is single-phase-shift (SPS) [4]–[6]. The phase
shift between the two inverters is varied, then the electric
energy flow from the leading to the lagging sides. However,
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Quang BUI-DANG, Minh C. TA
Hanoi University of Science and Technology, Vietnam
Email: minh.tacao@hust.edu.vn
Fig. 1: Three-stage Solid State Transformer.
as the bridge phase shift angle grows, the circulating power
increases, especially when the voltage ratio is other than unity.
Under such condition, the current stress is high leading to the
increment of conduction and turn-off losses which downgrades
the overall efficiency.
Numerous studies on DAB converter have been found in
term of advancing the modulation strategies to reduce the
circulating current and/or to expand the soft-switching region.
Almost base only on the phase shift scheme. By adding one
or two more additional inner phase shift variables (i.e. to
extend the degree of freedom of the modulation system),
the circulating current is able to be reduced. Accordingly,
Enhanced-Phase-Shift (EPS) [7]–[9], Dual-Phase-Shift (DPS)
[10]–[12] and Triple-Phase-Shift (TPS) [13]–[15] are intro-
duced. However, the main drawback of the phase shift based
techniques which is also the second challenge is that, soft-
switching is difficult to be achieved under light load condition.
Several modulation strategies combining phase shift and
frequency variation are also introduced for DAB converter
[16]–[19]. They can extend the soft-switching region to the
light load condition by increasing the switching frequency.
Furthermore, frequency variation is also an alternative degree
of freedom to help manage the power flow in the converter.
Nevertheless, although having two degrees of freedom, the
common technique reported in those papers, regarding both the
phase shift based and the frequency variation based methods,
is using a unify function to derive one control variable from
the other. The function is usually highly nonlinear that leads
to difficulty in modeling and control of the whole system.
Discussions on dynamic control for Dual-Active-Bridge
(DAB) converter can be found in the literatures. For example,
single loop voltage mode for such converter was reported
in [2], [11], [20]. In [21], another configuration utilizing
feed-forward load current combined with a voltage loop was
represented. Two loops current mode topology was introduced
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Transactions on Industry Applications
in [22]–[25]. In term of dynamic control for multi-phase
DAB converter, a control strategy in stationary αβ-frame was
presented in [26], [27]. In the aforementioned publications,
only active power is regulated, none of them manages the
reactive power caused by the circulating current.
Analysis and control in the frequency domain with the
fundamental harmonic approximation (FHA) method for DAB
converter are presented in some recent publications [28],
[29]. In which, inverter voltages and the primary current
can be approximated by their fundamental harmonic with
high accuracy. Compared to the time-domain analysis, FHA
method has some distinguished advantages: 1) system model
is independent from switching state; 2) active and reactive
powers can be control separately.
Based on the FHA analysis, the control method introduced
in [28] can maximize the power factor of the converter and
enhanced the efficiency about 1% compared to the conven-
tional SPS method. The objective of the strategy addressed
in [29] is to minimize the root-mean-square (rms) current.
However, lower rms current or higher power factor may not
ensure a better efficiency. Besides, although block diagrams
for close loop control in both papers are quite simple which
needs only the information of voltage ratio, no results about
dynamic response were discussed.
B. Approach
The scope of this paper is dynamic control for a single-
phase-frequency-modulated DAB converter. The targets are:
• to stabilize the terminal 2 voltage, and
• to reduce the circulating current.
The first objective relates to the active power management,
whereas the second one requires to handle the phase different
(from now on, the load angle) between the primary current and
voltage of the transformer. The bigger load angle, the more
circulating power and vice versa. If that angle is minimized,
then conduction loss could be reduced and efficiency would
be increased. The next challenges are: i, to determine the load
angle; ii, and to handle both the transmission power and the
load angle simultaneously.
The approach is as follows:
• Firstly, the converter is analyzed using the FHA method;
• Then, considers all the quantities in a rotation frame;
• In the frame, instantaneous power can be calculated and
the load angle can be derived by taking arctangent of the
ratio between the quadrature and the direct components
of the transferred current.
• Finally, models the system and designs an appropriate
controller to regulate both variables simultaneously.
Nevertheless, determining the two components of such
the high frequency, non-sinusoidal current is not easy. The
control strategy reported in [30] was also for controlling the
converter in a dq-rotation frame. There, the instantaneous AC
current was sampled then a coordinator transformation was
employed to detach two current components. This technique is
very common for driving low frequency three-phase inverter.
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For single phase systems, a single phase Phase-Lock-Loop
based on the second-order-generalized integrator [31] can be
employed. The Adaptive-Notch-Filter [32] is an alternative
option as it can also generates the orthogonal signal from the
measured signal. Nonetheless, in order to ensure the accuracy
of the transformation, the sampling frequency is usually at
least twenty times greater than the fundamental frequency.
Therefore, when the fundamental frequency is in the range
of few tens kHz to few hundreds kHz, such techniques cannot
be used due to the low resolution of the sampled signal.
Observer-based control system for DAB converters has
been introduced recently [33]–[35]. The main advantage of
employing observer is that it does not require too high
sampling frequency. The nonlinear observer was reported in
[35] to estimate the direct and the quadrature components of
the transferred current. Although the accuracy was good, the
computing amount of the nonlinear method was high. In [34],
a full-order linear Luenberger observer was designed for the
same mission. The calculation was simpler but the accuracy
when the converter operates far from the linearization point
was quite limited.
This paper further improves the method presented in [33]
which employed a reduced-order linear observer to estimate
the current states. Based on the information from the observer,
a decoupled current controller is designed to individually
control the two current components, thereby, to separately
handle the active power and the circulating power. By adopting
an appropriate command for the quadrature component of
the transferred current, the load angle can be minimized to
reduce the conduction loss as well as the current stress on
switching devices. As a consequence, overall performance can
be improved.
II. S TEADY STATE ANALYSIS
A. Instantaneous power derivation
The DAB converter is depicted in Fig. 2. Two H-bridge
inverters are located at the primary and the secondary sides of a
high-frequency isolated transformer with the ratio of n : 1. The
input DC voltage of the primary and secondary inverters are V1
and V2 , respectively. The power electronic devices S1−4 and
T1−4 used in this paper are MOSFET. Both H-bridges operate
in 180 degrees conduction mode. The bridge shift angle ψ
between the two inverters is employed to handle the power
flow in the system.
For simplicity, the primary referred equivalent circuit of the
converter expressed in Fig. 3 is utilized in the analysis. The
fundamental component of the voltages across the primary and
secondary winding of the transformer are denoted as vpe (t)
′
and vse (t), respectively; the first harmonic component of the
transferred current is ipe (t); Rs and Ls are the equivalent
primary referred resistance and inductance of the transferred
path. Since both inverters are modulated with the same switch-
ing frequency, the output voltages and the transferred current
′
can be seen as rotation vectors ⃗vpe , ⃗vse , and ⃗ipe with the
same angular speed of ωs (ωs = 2πfs ). The vector diagram
demonstrates the relationship of them is depicted in Fig. 4. The
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Fig. 4: Vector diagram.

Fig. 2: Isolated-dual-active-bridge converter.

Fig. 3: Primary referred equivalent circuit.

′
projections of ⃗vpe , ⃗vse , and ⃗ipe on d-and q-axis of a dq-frame
rotating synchronously with and being aligned along ⃗vpe are
DC components. In that coordinator, the two voltage vectors Fig. 5: Fundamental harmonics analysis.
are:
[ ] [ ]
vpd (t) 4 v1 (t)
⃗vpe = = (1) From (5), assumes that v1 (t) is constant in one switching
vpq (t) π 0
[ ] [ ] cycle, the active power P1 is proportional to the direct current
vsd (t) 4 nv2 (t) cos ψ id (t), and the circulating power Q1 is proportional to iq (t).
′
⃗vse = = (2) The load angle seen at the primary winding is:
vsq (t) π nv2 (t) sin ψ
Q1 iq (t)
where vpd (t), vpq (t), vsd (t), and vsq (t) are the d- and q- tan ϕ = = (6)
components of the corresponding quantities; v1 (t) and v2 (t) P1 id (t)
are the terminal voltages.
Fig. 5 represents the current and voltage waveforms in one
Let id (t) and iq (t) be the projections of the current vector
⃗ipe on two axis of the dq-frame. When Rs is neglected, id (t) switching cycle at the steady state. The load angle indicated
in the figure is the phase difference between the fundamental
and iq (t) can be determined by:
component of the primary voltage and current. Notes that, it is
[ ] [ ]
not necessarily equal to the actual phase distinction between
⃗ipe = id (t) = 1 vsq (t)
(3)
iq (t) ωs Ls vpd (t) − vsd (t) the actual primary voltage and current due to the distortion and
the asymmetry of the waveform. However, as will be examined
The instantaneous active and reactive powers seen at the later in this paper, the error is insignificant that can be accepted
primary side of the transformer are defined by (4): and can be compensated by a high robust control system.
[ ] [ ] From (5), the active power flow can be regulated by con-
P1 1 vpd (t)id (t) + vpq (t)iq (t)
= (4) trolling id (t); and from and (6), the load angle can be handled
Q1 2 vpd (t)iq (t) − vpq (t)id (t) by adjusting iq (t). The next questions are:

Since d-axis of the rotating frame is intentionally aligned i, how to determine the two current components, and
to ⃗vpe , the quadrature component of ⃗vpe is zero, vpq (t) = 0. ii, what is the suitable value of iq (t).
Therefore, (4) is rewritten: As analyzed in the previous section, the answer for the first
[ ] [ ] question is to use a state observer. Since the average power
P1 2v1 (t) id (t) transferred via terminal 1 is calculated by (7), where i1 (t) is
= (5)
Q1 π iq (t) the average terminal 1 current, the direct component current

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id (t) can be approximated by (8): where Ad and Bd are determined by the discretization using
bilinear [transformation
] [ at] the discrete time of Tz ;
method
P1 = v1 (t) × i1 (t) (7) a11 a12 B1
π Ad = , Bd = .
⇒ id (t) ≈ i1 (t) (8) a21 a22 B2
2
Among two states, x1 (k) = id (k) can be determined
Because the terminal current i1 (t) can be measured easily, by using (8). In order to identify the unmeasurable state
id (t) is calculated without difficulty. Identifying iq (t) is more x2 (k) = iq (k), a reduced-order observer is designed.
complicated since it is not explicit in a single phase converter. Denoting x̂(k) as the estimated state of the system, we have:
In the next section, a reduced-order observer is developed to {
estimate iq (t). x̂1 (k) = îd (k) = y(k)
(12)
x̂2 (k) = îq (k) = Ky(k) + ζ(k)
III. R EDUCED - ORDER O BSERVER
where K is the observer gain and ζ(k) is an added system
A. Observability state determined by:
From the primary referred equivalent circuit depicted in
Fig. 3, the large signal model of the converter can be obtained ζ(k + 1) = F z(k) + Gy(k) + Hu(k) (13)
as: where F , G and H are gains and matrix of the observer model.

 d Rs 4 The current observer error is:

 dt id (t) = − L id (t) − ωs iq (t) + πL v1 (t) {


 s
4n
s x̃1 (k) = x1 (k) − x̂1 (k) = 0
− v2 (t) cos ψ (14)
 πLs
(9) x̃2 (k) = x2 (k) − x̂2 (k)



 d R 4n
 iq (t) = ωs id (t) − s iq (t) − v2 (t) sin ψ The observer error in the next sampling step is:
dt Ls πLs
x̃2 (k + 1) = [a21 − Ka11 + F K − G]x1 (k)
The small signal space state model (10) of the converter
is derived by linearizing the large signal model (9) around + [a22 − Ka12 − F ]x2 (k) + [B2 − KB1 − H]u(k)
the operation point described by (1), (2) and (3). Notes that, + F x̃2 (k) (15)
in (10), small variation of terminal voltages in one sampling
cycle is neglected. Coefficients F , G and matrix H are selected for:

{ 
ẋ = Ax + Bu a21 − Ka11 + F K − G = 0
(10) a22 − Ka12 − F =0 (16)
y = Cx + Du 

B2 − KB1 − H =0
[ ] [ ] [ ]
id (t) fx −Ωp −Ωs Therefore, the observer error equation becomes:
with x = , u = , A = ,
iq (t) ψ Ωs −Ωp
 4n  x̃2 (k + 1) = F x̃2 (k) (17)
−Ωs Iq V2 sin Ψ [ ]
 πLs  According to [36], in order to vanish the observer error in a
B =  4n , C = 1 0 ,
Ωs Id − V2 cos Ψ finite time, the eigenvalue of (17) should be placed inside the
πLs unit circle and be at least twice to six times of system pole(s).
[ ] Rs fs
D = 0 0 , Ωs = 2πFs ; Ωp = ; fx = is the Let λ is one of the system poles, the value of F to place the
Ls Fs eigenvalue of (17) at 2λ is:
normalized frequency; Fs and Ψ are the switching frequency
and the bridge shift at the nominal condition; id (t), iq (t), F = Re{2λ} (18)
and ψ are the small signals of the corresponding quantities;
Id and Iq are the current at the nominal operating point.
The observability matrix is defined as:
[ ] [ ]
C 1 0
O= = .
CA −Ωp −Ωs
Since the rank of O is 2, the system is always observable.

B. Design procedure
The time-continuous small signal model (10) can be repre-
sented in the discrete time domain as:

x(k + 1) = Ad x(k) + Bd u(k) (11) Fig. 6: Block diagram of the proposed reduced-order observer.

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Substituting (18) into (16) and solving the obtained equation, ensure the stability of the system. Therefore, the normalized
we have: frequency fx is employed to regulate îd , while the bridge phase

 a22 − F shift ψ is utilized to regulate îq .

K = a
12
G = a21 − Ka11 + F K (19) B. Frequency limitation



H = B2 − KB1 As discussed in [16] and [19], switching frequency should
The diagram of the proposed reduced-order observer is illus- be limited. When the frequency reduces, the peak flux density
trated in Fig. 6, where z is the discrete operator. Three inputs of the transformer increases. If it drops too deeply, the
are: the DC current at port 1, the normalized frequency fx and transformer be saturated. The minimum frequency depends
the bridge shift angle ψ. Matrix H and coefficients F, G and on the maximum flux density. In this paper, the ETD54/28/19
K are determined by (18) and (19). ferrite core from EPCOS with the material of N87 is used.
The nominal flux density is Bnom = 100 mT at fx = 1
IV. C ONTROL SYSTEM DESIGN (fs = 50 kHz), whereas the saturated one according to
A. Input-output pairing datasheet is Bs = 320 mT. By choosing the maximum flux
density is Bmax = 200 mT, the minimum switching frequency
After designing the reduced-order observer, the discrete
is:
system model for regulating îd (k) and îq (k) is derived as: Bnom
{ fx,min = = 0.5 (23)
x̂(k + 1) = Ad x̂(k) + Bd u(k) Bmax
(20)
y(k) = Cd x̂(k) + Dd u(k) The maximum switching frequency depends not only on
[ ] [ ] the switching capability of MOSFETs. In this study, the
1 0 I + Ad 1 0 Bd
where Cd = × , Dd = × , I is the transformer is designed at one frequency (50 kHz), when the
0 1 2 0 1 2
frequency increases, the skin and proximity effects cause the
identity matrix, and y = [îd (k) îq (k)]T .
increment of the AC resistance of the windings. Accordingly,
Model (20) has two inputs and two outputs. The decouple
the conduction loss grows and the overall efficiency might be
technique based on input-output pairing is applied to detach
decreased. Besides, the sampling frequency is fixed. Although
the model into two individual transfer networks. Let us rewrite
we sample a DC quantity (the terminal 1 current) for obser-
(20) in form of transfer function:
( ) vation, the increment of the switching frequency might affect
Y(z) = Γ (z)U(z) = Cd (zI − Ad )−1 Bd + Dd U(z) (21) the accuracy of the observer. For that reason, the maximum
switching frequency is restricted to be twice the nominal one:
The parameters of the DAB system investigated in this paper
are listed in Table I. Substituting those parameters into Γ (z) fx,max = 2 (24)
then calculating the relative gain array [36] of the system, we
have: C. Current Controllers
[ ]
( )T 1.7782 −0.7782 Fig. 7 describes the diagram of the whole observer-based
RGA = Γ (1) × Γ (1)−1 = (22) control (OBC) system. In order to weaken the interaction be-
−0.7782 1.7782
tween id (t) and iq (t), the decoupled network W is employed:
Since RGA(1, 1) = RGA(2, 2) = 1.7782, which are positive,
−1
the pairing strategy: fx (k) → îd (k) and ψ(k) → îq (k) will W = (Γ (0 )) Γ diag (0) (25)

Fig. 7: Block diagram of the proposed OBC system.

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where Γ diag (0) is the DC gain of the diagonal matrix of Γ (s):

[ ]
Γ11 (s) 0
Γ diag (s) =
0 Γ22 (s)

As the interaction is reduced, two current controllers,

Gcid (s) and Gciq (s), can be designed individually for two
control channels, where Γ11 (s) and Γ22 (s) are the transfer
functions, respectively:
− Controller type is chosen as PI-modified type II due to
its simplicity;
− Their phase margins are selected the same and equal to
75 degree to ensure high robustness;
− The crossover frequency of the two loops are also
the same at 10% of the minimum switching frequency (a) îd control loop.
(2.5 kHz).
Analyzing the system with parameters listed in Table I in
the frequency domain, we have the Bode diagrams of the two
open loop systems illustrated in Fig. 8(a) and Fig. 8(b). The
blue curves represent the characteristics of the original plans,
and the red curves describe the open loop response. With the
designed controllers, the phase margin of the open loop are
75 degrees at 2.5 kHz as desired. The gain at 50 kHz is less
than -20 dB that means the switching noise is reduced more
than ten times in amplitude.

D. Voltage controller
The transfer function from the terminal 2 current i2 (s) to
the terminal 2 voltage v2 (s) is (26):
(b) îq control loop.
v2 (s) RLoad
Gvi2 (s) = = (26)
i2,avg (s) 1 + s(RLoad + rc )C2

Neglecting the loss in the transmission path, we have

P1 ≈ P2 . Hence, from (8), the average terminal 2 current
can be approximated by:

2 v1 (t)
i2,avg (t) ≈ × id (t) (27)
π v2 (t)

From (26) and (27), the transfer function from id (s) to v2 (s)
is:
v2 (s) 2V1 RLoad
Gvid (s) = = × (28)
id (s) πV2 1 + s(RLoad + rc )C2
(c) Voltage control loop.
The voltage controller is also a PI-modified II compensator.
In order to compensate for the observation error, the phase Fig. 8: Bode diagrams of open loop systems.
margin of the controller is also set to 75 degrees. The crossover
frequency is selected at 30 Hz aiming to suppress the 300 Hz
voltage oscillation reflected from the AC side to the DC bus. E. Reference calculator
Fig. 8(c) describes the Bode diagram of the open voltage Until now, the observer and the control system are designed
loop. At 300 Hz, the gain of the open loop system is -27.4 to solve the first question in the end of Section II. Here, in
that ensures a reduction of 23.5 times in the amplitude of the this part, we solve the second problem: finding the optimal
300 Hz oscillation. reference for îq .

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However, the converter might suffer from hard-switching due

to small load angle.

V. E XPERIMENTAL R ESULTS
The 500 W laboratory scaled experiment system is depicted
in Fig. 10. Summary of system parameters is shown in Table
I. A programmable power supply is connected to terminal 1,
whereas a DC electronic load configured at constant voltage
mode is connected to the second terminal. The winding ratio
Fig. 9: Reference calculator. of the transformer is 11 : 11. The magnetizing and the leakage
inductances measured at 50 kHz are 530 µH and 10.06 µH,
respectively.
Obviously, when the load angle is zero, in theory, there All the observer as well as the whole control system are
are no reactive power, and zero-voltage-zero-current transition implemented in a TMS320F28335 control card. The terminal
condition is met. Nevertheless, as discussed in [19], due to currents are measured by Hall-effect current transducers, FA-
the effect of the dead-time, there is a limitation for the load 050P, before feeding-back to the DSP. The port voltages are
angle to maintain soft-switching and to keep the conduction sensed by two Hall-effect voltage sensors, LV25-P, then con-
loss small. Referring to [19], the condition for the load angle verted by two other ADC channels. The sampling frequency
ϕ is (29): is fixed at 50 kHz (i.e. the sampling time is Tz = 20 µs). The
{ ( ) } nominal operating point is chosen at Fx = 1.0, ψ = 25 degrees
1 1 π
ϕ ≥ Φmin = max θd , θ d + 1 − (29)
nM 2 M 2
TABLE I: System Parameters.
where θd = fs Td and Td is the dead-time interval.
Accordingly, the load angle should be minimized by reg- Parameter Symbol Value Unit
Port voltage V1 40 ∼ 60 V
ulating around the minimum dead-phase Φmin . In [19], it
Port voltage V2 50 V
is undertaken by using a unify function. In this paper, that Trans. ratio n 11:11
intention is accomplished by regulating the quadrature current Inductance Ls 10.06 µH
component iq (t) around a suitable reference. Resistance Rs 50 mΩ
From (6), the quadrature reference current when ϕ = γΦmin S1−4
MOSFETs CSD19536KCS
is represented by: T1−4
ON resistance RDS 2.3 mΩ
iq (t) = id (t) tan(γΦmin ) (30) Nom. frequency Fs 50 kHz
Nom. phase shift Ψ 25 deg
where γ is the coefficient to handle the depth of soft-switching Sampling time Tz 20 µs
Dead-time Td 500 ns
and Fs is the nominal switching frequency. In this paper, γ is
DC capacitors C1 , C 2 6400 µF
set to 1. The bigger γ, more reserve for soft-switching of the
modulation.
At 50 kHz, Φmin is 9 degrees. If γ is 1 and fx varies
within [0.5; 2], the approximation (31) can be utilized to avoid
trigonometric function calculation.
i∗q (t) ≈ γΦmin i∗d (t) (31)

Fig. 9 illustrates the reference calculator (inside the dashed

red box) according to the assignment strategy (31). The
command for the îd (t) control loop is provided by the voltage
controller and a current limiter. The information before the
limiter is sent to the reference calculator to calculate i∗q .
Thereby, when the frequency is in the range [fx,min , fx,max ],
the relationship between îd (t) and îq (t) is as (30). Otherwise,
if fx = fx,max and iq (t) > id (t) tan(γΦmin fx (t)), then
ϕ > γΦmin and the load angle is not minimized but greater to
ensure the output power. Fortunately, soft-switching is ensured
thank to the larger load angle.
Similarly, when fx = fx,min and iq (t) <
id (t) tan(γΦmin fx (t)), then ϕ < γΦmin . In this instance,
the load angle is smaller to lessen the transmission power. Fig. 10: 500 W laboratory-scaled experiment system.

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and V1 = V2 = 50 V (i.e. M = 1.0). The eigenvalues
of the observer are placed at two times of system poles.
After discretized, the observer gains[ are: F = −0.9413,
] iii, and due to the distortion and asymmetry of the current
K = −0.2467, G = 0.6016 and H = −1.0882 9.9056 .
A. Open-loop verification
An open-loop experiment is then conducted to verify the
accuracy of the observer. Since id (t) is approximated by (8),
and iq (t) is unmeasurable for a single phase inverter, the
load angle comparison is taken instead. The estimated load
angle is calculated by (6) based on the observed îd (t) and
îq (t). The “actual” load angle is determined by measuring
the time difference between the zero crossing points of the
transferred current and the primary voltage of the transformer,
then converting into degree scale. The test is repeated in
several cases of voltage ratio and switching frequency. Under
each condition, ψ is increased gradually with the step of
5 degrees until reaching the rated power. At each step, the error
between the actual and the estimated load angle is recorded.
Fig. 11 describes the performance of the designed reduced-
order observer.
The load angle error almost vanishes at the linearization
point (Fx = 1, ψ = 25 deg, M = 1.0). Away from that point,
its absolute value of the error tends to increase. There are three
possible reasons:
i, because the model is obtained from linearization;
ii, due to relatively low sampling frequency (compared to
the switching frequency);
waveform.
The first reason is quite obvious. It can be eliminated by
adopting a nonlinear observer as reported in [35].
The dependence of the observation performance on the
sampling frequency is also comprehensible. In order to avoid
the requirement of high sampling speed when processing the
AC transfered current, the observer technique is employed.
However, it does not mean the sampling frequency can be very
low. As seen in Fig. 11, the error curves are flatter when the
switching frequency is less than 50 kHz (Fx < 1), and curvier
when it is greater than 50 kHz (Fx > 1). When Fx > 1,
although a DC signal is sampled, some fast dynamic might
be ignored due to the low sampling frequency. If a higher
sampling frequency can be used, this issue can be fixed.
The third reason is more sophisticated. When M = 1, the
current waveform is, in theory, symmetric and trapezoidal.
Therefore, the primary voltage and current should be same
phase as each other. The error ranging from -4 degrees to 2
degrees (Fig. 11(c)) is mainly due to the linearization and the
sampling issues.
When M < 1 (Fig. 11(a) and Fig. 11(b)), the current wave-
form is distorted to the left, thus the fundamental component
leads the actual current. In contrary, when M > 1 (Fig. 11(d)
and Fig. 11(e)), the current waveform is distorted to the right,

(a) M = 0.8. (b) M = 0.9. (c) M = 1.0.

(d) M = 1.1. (e) M = 1.2.

Fig. 11: Observer performance; V1 = 50 V, V2 = 40 ∼ 60 V.

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Transactions on Industry Applications
thus the fundamental component is lagged from the actual one.
As a consequence, the error characteristics appear to be shifted
upward or downward when the voltage ratio is less or greater
than unity, respectively.
In all investigated cases plotted in Fig. 11, the maximum
load angle error of about 7.6 degrees when the voltage
variation is 20%. At 50 kHz (fx = 1.0), it is equivalent to
only 420 ns or 2.1% of a sampling cycle. When the fluctuation
of terminal 2 voltage is 10%, the maximum error is less than
6 degrees or 1.66% of a sampling period. Therefore, it can
be concluded that, within the voltage variation of ±20%, the
designed observer is reasonable. The next problem is to keep
the voltage regulation within ± 20%, or even better as ± 10%.
B. Closed-loop verification
1) Current loops: Dynamic responses of the decoupled
current controller are depicted in Fig. 13. Signals sketched in
the figures are obtained by using two PWM pins of the DSP
accompanied with two low-pass filters as two DAC channels.
In these experiments, only current loops are examined.
Firstly, a step current test is conducted. References i∗d and i∗q
are stepped up from 0 A to 16 A and 6 A, respectively. The
current responses are reported in Fig. 12. Both the current
components are well stabilized. There are no overshoot. The
rising time of both are about 0.9 ms. As a consequence,
Terminal 2 current is regulated at 9.6 A with an overshoot
of approximately 20%.
Secondly, the experiment explores the impact of changes in
îd (t) on îq (t). At initialization, îd (t) and îq (t) are regulated
at 10 A and 4 A, respectively. As shown in Fig. 13(a),
both current components are regulated very well. When the
reference Id∗ steps up to 14 A at 2 ms, îd (t) starts increasing.
After the rising time, îd (t) becomes stable around the desired
value. In the meantime, there is a fluctuation of ±6.25% in
îq (t). The variation is +10% when Id∗ falls down from 14 A
down to 10 A (Fig. 13(b)).
The changes in îq (t) also causes a little fluctuations in îd (t).
As observed from Fig. 13(c), during the rising time of îq (t)
to increase from 2 A to 4 A, a swell of 0.78 A in îd (t) is
recorded. And when îq (t) steps down from 4 A to 2 A, a sag
of -0.5 A occurs in îd (t) (Fig. 13(d)).
Fig. 12: Current step response.
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Since a simple static decoupled technique was used, the
interaction between two control channels is not completely
eliminated and causes up-to 10% oscillation in the dynamic
of each variable. However, the fluctuation causes only up-to
2 degrees swings in the transient state in the load angle. By
employing a dynamic decoupled strategy, this interaction can
be further reduced.
2) Voltage loops: The dynamic performance of the pro-
posed observer-based control (OBC) system is examined in
comparison with a voltage mode controller. The voltage mode
control (VMC) system uses the conventional single phase
shift (SPS) modulation at fs = 50 kHz (Fx = 1). The
controller is also designed as a compensator typed II with
the same criteria as the voltage regulator of the OBC system
(i.e. 30 Hz crossover frequency and 75 degrees phase margin).
The voltage responses of the two control systems are shown
in Fig. 14, Fig. 15 and Fig. 16 in three cases of voltage ratios.
In each case, the terminal 2 voltage is regulated at 50 V while
the voltage at terminal 1 varies from 45 V to 55 V (thus,
voltage ratio M ranges from 0.9 to 1.1). In the figures, voltage
responses obtained by the VMC method are denoted as blue
lines and vV M C (t), whereas, ones obtained by the proposed
OBC strategy are expressed by red curves and vOBC (t).
When load resistance changes at the voltage ratio of M =
0.9, if the proposed OBC system is used, the voltage swing
is about ±5% while that when employing VMC is -10.8%
(Fig. 14(a)) and 8.8% (Fig. 14(b)). When M = 1.0, the
responses by the OBC method are also better than that of the
VMC one: the voltage sag/swell is -6% and +4% compared to
-8% and +8% (Fig. 15). The similar effect can also be seen in
Fig. 16 for the case of M = 1.1: OBC: -6%∼4% and VMC:
-8%∼+8%.
In all cases, the stability of the system controlled by either
OBC or VMC is confirmed. Furthermore, the proposed OBC
system can reduced the voltage fluctuation when load changes.
Or in other words, the voltage regulation characteristics is
improved by the proposed OBC strategy. As the voltage
regulation is kept within ±5%, the issue of observation error
mentioned above is eliminated. And thus, the observed data is
reasonable and the OBC system is reliable.
Beside the improvement of the regulation characteristics,
the proposed OBC method can also help eliminate the high
frequency ringing in the voltage response. As seen in Fig. 14
to Fig. 16, thanks to the cascade dual-loops structure of the
OBC system, the order of the voltage loop is reduced and thus,
the voltage responses like a second order system. In contrary,
in the VMC method, the model is established as a transfer
function from the phase shift to the output voltage. Thereby,
high frequency ringing is not modeled and processed properly.
C. Steady state comparison
A comparative experiment is conducted to show the effec-
tiveness of the proposed OBC method in reducing the reactive
power in some cases of voltage ratio. In all cases, the terminal
2 voltage is regulated at 50 V when the voltage at the input
port is set at 45 V, 50 V and 55 V, respectively. The load
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(a) id (t) increases. (b) id (t) decreases.

(c) iq (t) increases. (d) iq (t) decreases.

Fig. 13: Interaction when load changes; V1 = V2 = 50 V.

(a) Enloading: RLoad = 15 Ω → 7.5 Ω. (a) Enloading: RLoad = 15 Ω → 7.5 Ω. (a) Enloading: RLoad = 15 Ω → 7.5 Ω.

(b) Load sheding: RLoad = 7.5 Ω → 15 Ω. (b) Load sheding: RLoad = 7.5 Ω → 15 Ω. (b) Load sheding: RLoad = 7.5 Ω → 15 Ω.

Fig. 14: Load change response; Fig. 15: Load change response; Fig. 16: Load change response;
V1 = 45 V, V2 = 50 V (M = 0.9). V1 = 50 V, V2 = 50 V (M = 1.0). V1 = 55 V, V2 = 50 V (M = 1.1).
Notes: − vV M C (t): voltage response by the voltage mode controller
− vOBC (t): voltage response by the proposed observer-based controller

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(a) M = 0.9. (b) M = 1.0. (c) M = 1.1.

Fig. 17: Load angle comparison.

(a) M = 0.9. (b) M = 1.0. (c) M = 1.1.

Fig. 18: RMS current comparison.

(a) M = 0.9. (b) M = 1.0. (c) M = 1.1.

Fig. 19: Efficiency comparison.

is then gradually increased to obtained different transmission
power. At each point, the efficiency, load angle and RMS
current are recorded. Notes that, the power dissipation for
the driver, control and cooling circuits are excluded from
calculation. Furthermore, only operation in the soft-switching
area is investigated. Therefore, turn-on loss can be ignored.
The remain is mainly conduction loss and turn-off loss.
1) Load angle and RMS current comparison: The load
angle of the two mentioned methods are plotted in Fig. 17.
When load changes, ϕ obtained by VMC method grows
gradually as the phase shift increases. That means, when
transferring high power at a constant frequency, the converter
has to suffer from high reactive power.
The OBC method decreases the frequency at high power,
therefore the load angle is able to be reduced. For example,
when M = 0.9, the load angle is reduced by 14.8 degrees
as shown in Fig. 17(a). As a result, the RMS current can be
reduced by about 7% (Fig. 18(a)) and efficiency is improved
by 5.3% (Fig. 19(a)). When M = 1.0 and M = 1.1, the load
angle reductions are 16.1 and 11.8 degrees (Fig. 17(b) and
Fig. 17(c)), respectively and the RMS current is downsized
by 8% and 7.7%, respectively, as shown in Fig. 18(b) and
Fig. 18(c).
At small power range, switching frequency of OBC method
increases to reduced the transmission power. When it reaches

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its upper limitation (Fx,max = 2), it remain at Fx,max . At the
same time, the phase shift is reduced thanks to the current
control loops and the reference calculator (31). This effect
appears in Fig. 17 as the reduction of ϕ when P1 < 200 W.
Although the effect on the RMS current is insignificant as
Irms obtained by both methods are mostly coincident when
P1 < 350 W (see Fig. 18), the system efficiency is remarkable
affected. The comparison of efficiency will be discussed in
detail in the next section.
In Fig. 17, the dashed line demonstrates the expected load
angle derived from (29). As can also seen from the figure,
at the medium and high power range (Fx < 2), ϕ (the
red, circle-marked curves) adheres to ϕmin very closely. The
maximum error between them is about 4 degrees, recorded at
P1 = 320 W and M = 1.1 (Fig. 17(c)). This mean that the
control algorithm is well executed.
2) Efficiency comparison: An efficiency comparison be-
tween two control methods is illustrated in Fig. 19 in three
cases of voltage ratio.
When VMC method is used, the system efficiency is highest
at around 200 W in all cases. Then, as the power transmission
increases, the efficiency decreases due to the increment of
the conduction loss. This leads to the big distinction in the
efficiency between low and high power transmission. As seen
in Fig. 19(a), the gap when M = 0.9 is 10.8%. It is also very
high at 11.7% when M = 1.0 (Fig. 19(b)) and at 11% when
M = 1.1 (Fig. 19(c)).
When the proposed OBC method is employed, the different
between the highest and lowest efficiency is reduced. The
distinction is 2.7%, 3.0% and 4.5% for the voltage ratio of
0.9 to 1.1, respectively. In other words, the OBC method can
help maintain high efficiency through all the power range.
The proposed OBC method can boost the efficiency at the
high power range. Since the load angle is kept minimized
equally to the phase caused by the dead-time (thanks to
the reference calculator (31)), the conduction loss is reduced
significantly. Besides, at higher power, the switching frequency
decreases. Therefore, the turn-off loss of switching devices is
reduced. As a consequence, the efficiency is improved. When
M = 0.9, the improvement is 5.3% at 475 W as indicated
in Fig. 19(a). When the terminal 1 voltage increases, the
maximum improvement grows to be 7.2% (Fig. 19(b)) and
5.4% (Fig. 19(c)) when M = 1.0 and 1.1, respectively.
However, the efficiency of the system controlled by the
OBC method is lower at small power transmission. The
maximum gap between OBC and VMC methods is -3.4%,
-2.8% and -1.3% when M = 0.9, 1.0 and 1.1, respectively
as shown in Fig. 19. The reason is that, the transformer is
usually designed at a certain frequency. As for the transformer
specified for DAB converter application, the shell winding
technique and high number of turns on a ferrite core are
usually used to obtain more leakage inductance. Hence, it such
the transformer, the peak flux density Bpk is usually small.
For example, the transformer used in this paper has the Bpk
of 100 mT at 50 kHz. Therefore, operating the transformer at
half the nominal switching frequency (Fx = 0.5) is possible.
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Fig. 20: The combined performance curve obtained by letting
Fx,max = 1 when M = 0.9.
The proposed OBC method bases on that approach to achieve
the maximum power transmission.
On the other hand, increasing the switching frequency
Fx > 1 at the low power range leads to the increment of
AC resistance of the transformer windings due to the skin
and proximity effects at high switching frequency. That, in
turn, adds more conduction loss which may be higher than
the switching loss it can save from soft-switching.
Besides, the dead-time is usually greater than the transition
time of MOSFETs. As for the VMC method, even if the
load angle is less than the dead-time, soft-switching may
still be achieved. This effect is illustrated in Fig. 19(a). As
the switching frequency of VMC method is 50 kHz, the
500 ns dead-time is equivalent to 9 degrees. However, the
maximum efficiency of VMC is obtained at about 200 W with
ϕ = 7.2 degrees. The efficiency starts to decrease at about
150 W where ϕ = 5.9 degrees and the converter loses its
ZVS characteristics. In summary, at small power transmission,
VMC may have ZVS characteristic with low conduction loss.
On the other hand, although the load angle is expected to
be 9 degrees at Fx = 1 for OBC method. However, due to
the observer error, the actual one is about 12 degrees. And as
a consequence, the efficiency is reduced. By setting a smaller
dead-time, the efficiency obtained by OBC method could be
improved. However, care must be taken because the dead-time
depends strongly on the MOSFETs characteristics. Two small
dead-time may cause worse as discussed in [19].
Optimal strategy can be established by combining the high
efficiency part of the two methods. It is done by setting
the upper limitation of frequency Fx,max to 1. Thereby, the
efficiency will be as high as that of VMC method at low power
range and as that of OBC method at the medium and high
power range. Fig. 20 demonstrates the combined performance
when M = 0.9. Although the efficiency is highest, the
power range might not be expanded. Therefore, a compromise
between power range expansion and high efficiency at low
power range should be taken when choosing the maximum
switching frequency.
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D. Soft-switching validation
In this section, soft-switching characteristics of the proposed
OBC method is validated. The primary voltage and current
waveforms are depicted in Fig. 21(a) and Fig. 21(b) for two
transmission cases.
When transferring 400 W from terminal 1, at the steady
state, the switching frequency is 45.8 kHz. The measured
time lag between primary voltage and current is 650 ns as
indicated in Fig. 21(a). In the degree scale, it is equivalent
to a 10.7 degrees load angle. From (31), since the dead-time
Td = 500 ns, the expected load angle (between fundamental
voltage and current components) is 8.25 degrees. The error is
thus 2.45 degrees.
Fig. 21(b) shows that the measured time lag is 400 ns and
the switching frequency is 86.8 kHz at the steady state when
sending 200 W from terminal 1. In other words, the actual
load angle is 12.5 degrees. From (31), is desired one is 15.63
degrees. Hence, the error is -3.12 degrees.
As the error in two cases are very small, it can be said that
the proposed OBC method can regulate the load angle around
the minimal value, specified by (29).
(a) P1 = 400 W.
(b) P1 = 200 W.
Fig. 21: Primary waveform when V2 = 50 V and M = 0.9.
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VI. C ONCLUSION
This paper proposed a control system for a single-
phase frequency-modulated DAB converter. The reduced-order
observer-based control system is designed and verified. Thanks
to the proposed method, the active power flow and the circu-
lating power can be handled at the same time. By keeping the
phase difference between the primary voltage and current at
a certain value, the conduction loss caused by the circulating
power is reduced. Consequently, the overall efficiency is im-
proved by up-to 7.2% at high power transmission as examined
above.
The proposed OBC strategy can also enhanced the dynamic
performance of the system. It can keep the voltage fluctuation
around ± 5% compared to ±8% when the conventional single
loop voltage mode control system is employed. For power
system applications, this improvement is meaningful that it
can help satisfy the stability requirement of the grid.
There are still some issues that need further works. The
performance of the observer is fine around the linearization
point. However, the current distortion and asymmetry affects
the precision of the observer significantly, especially when
the voltage ratio is other than unity. Since the waveform
is predictable, a phase drift compensator can be develop to
compensate for the drifting angle caused by the distortion
and the asymmetry of the current waveform. Besides, the low
sampling frequency also limit the observation performance.
This issue can be resolved by employing a faster DSP, or by
using a FPGA to reduce the computing amount of the DSP.
Although the efficiency obtained by the proposed OBC
method is boosted up-to 7.2% at high power, it is lower than
the conventional VMC method at low power range. By setting
the maximum efficiency to be the nominal frequency of the
transformer, the optimal control strategy can be formed to
combine the good part of the two control methods.
Although it is said that, the OBC system can suppressed the
six-time grid frequency fluctuation reflected from the AC side
to the DC side of the inverter following the DAB converter,
that was not verified in the experiment due to the lack of the
grid-tied inverter. This functionality will be validated in the
future.
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