Search NASA⌕ Search

Engineering topics

Tolbert, Leon M

Publications and source records attributed to Tolbert, Leon M.

13 records
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2016

All-SiC Inductively Coupled Charger with Integrated Plug-in and Boost Functionalities for PEV Applications

So far, vehicular power electronics integration is limited to the integration of on-board battery chargers (OBC) into the traction drive system and sometimes to the accessory dc/dc converters in plug-in electric vehicles (PEV). These integration approaches do not provide isolation from the grid although it is an important feature that is required for user interface systems that have grid connections. This is therefore a major limitation that needs to be addressed along with the integrated functionality. Furthermore, there is no previous study that proposes the integration of wireless charger with the other on-board components. This study features a unique way of combining the wired and wireless charging functionalities with vehicle side boost converter integration and maintaining the isolation to provide the best solution to the plug-in electric vehicle users. The new topology is additionally compared with commercially available OBC systems from manufacturers.

boost converter↗
DOE OSTI2015

Isolated Wired and Wireless Battery Charger with Integrated Boost Converter for PEV Applications

Integrated charger topologies that have been researched so far are with the dc-dc converters and the charging functionality usually have no isolation in the system. Isolation is an important feature that is required for user interface systems that have grid connections and therefore is a major limitation that needs to be addressed along with the integrated functionality. This study features a unique way of combining the wired and wireless charging functionalities with vehicle side boost converter integration and maintaining the isolation to provide the best solution to the plug-in electric vehicle (PEV) users. The new performance of the proposed architecture is presented for wired and wireless charging options at different power levels.

boost converter↗
DOE OSTI2015

Integrated Charger with Wireless Charging and Boost Function for PHEV and EV Applications

Integrated charger topologies that have been researched so far with dc-dc converters and the charging functionality have no isolation in the system. Isolation is an important feature that is required for user interface systems that have grid connections and therefore is a major limitation that needs to be addressed along with the integrated functionality. The topology proposed in this paper is a unique and a first of its kind topology that integrates a wireless charging system and the boost converter for the traction drive system. The new topology is also compared with an on-board charger system from a commercial electric vehicle (EV). The ac-dc efficiency of the proposed system is 85.1% and the specific power and power density of the onboard components is ~455 W/kg and ~320 W/ .

integrated charger↗
DOE OSTI2014

A Method for Modeling Household Occupant Behavior to Simulate Residential Energy Consumption

This paper presents a statistical method for modeling the behavior of household occupants to estimate residential energy consumption. Using data gathered by the U.S. Census Bureau in the American Time Use Survey (ATUS), actions carried out by survey respondents are categorized into ten distinct activities. These activities are defined to correspond to the major energy consuming loads commonly found within the residential sector. Next, time varying minute resolution Markov chain based statistical models of different occupant types are developed. Using these behavioral models, individual occupants are simulated to show how an occupant interacts with the major residential energy consuming loads throughout the day. From these simulations, the minimum number of occupants, and consequently the minimum number of multiple occupant households, needing to be simulated to produce a statistically accurate representation of aggregate residential behavior can be determined. Finally, future work will involve the use of these occupant models along side residential load models to produce a high-resolution energy consumption profile and estimate the potential for demand response from residential loads.

American Time Use Survey↗
DOE OSTI2013

Adaptive Selective Harmonic Minimization Based on ANNs for Cascade Multilevel Inverters With Varying DC Sources

A new approach for modulation of an 11-level cascade multilevel inverter using selective harmonic elimination is presented in this paper. The dc sources feeding the multilevel inverter are considered to be varying in time, and the switching angles are adapted to the dc source variation. This method uses genetic algorithms to obtain switching angles offline for different dc source values. Then, artificial neural networks are used to determine the switching angles that correspond to the real-time values of the dc sources for each phase. This implies that each one of the dc sources of this topology can have different values at any time, but the output fundamental voltage will stay constant and the harmonic content will still meet the specifications. The modulating switching angles are updated at each cycle of the output fundamental voltage. This paper gives details on the method in addition to simulation and experimental results.

Filho, Faete↗
DOE OSTI2013

EV/PHEV Bidirectional Charger Assessment for V2G Reactive Power Operation

This paper presents a summary of the available single-phase ac-dc topologies used for EV/PHEV, level-1 and -2 on-board charging and for providing reactive power support to the utility grid. It presents the design motives of single-phase on-board chargers in detail and makes a classification of the chargers based on their future vehicle-to-grid usage. The pros and cons of each different ac-dc topology are discussed to shed light on their suitability for reactive power support. This paper also presents and analyzes the differences between charging-only operation and capacitive reactive power operation that results in increased demand from the dc-link capacitor (more charge/discharge cycles and increased second harmonic ripple current). Moreover, battery state of charge is spared from losses during reactive power operation, but converter output power must be limited below its rated power rating to have the same stress on the dc-link capacitor.

Kisacikoglu, Mithat C↗
DOE OSTI2012

A 200 C Universal Gate Driver Integrated Circuit for Extreme Environment Applications

High-temperature power converters (dc-dc, dc-ac, etc.) have enormous potential in extreme environment applications, including automotive, aerospace, geothermal, nuclear, and well logging. For successful realization of such high-temperature power conversion modules, the associated control electronics also need to perform at high temperature. This paper presents a silicon-on-insulator (SOI) based high-temperature gate driver integrated circuit (IC) incorporating an on-chip low-power temperature sensor and demonstrating an improved peak output current drive over our previously reported work. This driver IC has been primarily designed for automotive applications, where the underhood temperature can reach 200 C. This new gate driver prototype has been designed and implemented in a 0.8 {micro}m, 2-poly, and 3-metal bipolar CMOS-DMOS (Double-Diffused Metal-Oxide Semiconductor) on SOI process and has been successfully tested for up to 200 C ambient temperature driving a SiC MOSFET and a SiC normally-ON JFET. The salient feature of the proposed universal gate driver is its ability to drive power switches over a wide range of gate turn-ON voltages such as MOSFET (0 to 20 V), normally-OFF JFET (-7 to 3 V), and normally-ON JFET (-20 to 0 V). The measured peak output current capability of the driver is around 5 A and is thus capable of driving several power switches connected in parallel. An ultralow-power on-chip temperature supervisory circuit has also been integrated into the die to safeguard the driver circuit against excessive die temperature ({ge}220 C). This approach utilizes increased diode leakage current at higher temperature to monitor the die temperature. The power consumption of the proposed temperature sensor circuit is below 10 {micro}W for operating temperature up to 200 C.

98 NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT, SAFEGUARDS, AND PHYSICAL P↗
DOE OSTI2012

Temperature Dependent Pspice Model

This paper provides a behavioral model in Pspice for a silicon carbide (SiC) power MOSFET rated at 1200 V / 20 A for a wide temperature range. The Pspice model is built using device parameters extracted through experiment. The static and dynamic behavior of the SiC power MOSFET is simulated and compared to the measured data to show the accuracy of the Pspice model. The switching losses are obtained from experiment under multiple operation conditions. The temperature dependent behavior has been simulated and analyzed. Then the parasitics in the circuit have been studied and the effects on the switching behavior are simulated and discussed.

Tolbert, Leon M↗
DOE OSTI2012

Real time selective harmonic minimization for multilevel inverters using genetic algorithm and artifical neural network angle generation

The work developed here proposes a methodology for calculating switching angles for varying DC sources in a multilevel cascaded H-bridges converter. In this approach the required fundamental is achieved, the lower harmonics are minimized, and the system can be implemented in real time with low memory requirements. Genetic algorithm (GA) is the stochastic search method to find the solution for the set of equations where the input voltages are the known variables and the switching angles are the unknown variables. With the dataset generated by GA, an artificial neural network (ANN) is trained to store the solutions without excessive memory storage requirements. This trained ANN then senses the voltage of each cell and produces the switching angles in order to regulate the fundamental at 120 V and eliminate or minimize the low order harmonics while operating in real time.

Filho, Faete J↗
DOE OSTI2012

Simulation of a Wireless Power Transfer System for Electric Vehicles with Power Factor Correction

Wireless power transfer has been a popular topic of recent research. Most research has been done to address the limitations of coil-to-coil efficiency. However, little has been done to address the problem associated with the low input power factor with which the systems operate. This paper details the steps taken to analyze a wireless power transfer system from the view of the power grid under a variety of loading conditions with and without power factor correction.

Pickelsimer, Michael C↗