Design of a Wide Input Range DC-DC Converter Suitable for Lead-Acid Battery Charging

In this paper design and implementation of a wide input range Cascaded Buck and Boost (CBB) converter is presented with a robust power controller. Four new control strategies are proposed and tested for this converter based on input voltage and duty cycle of the control signals. Robust feature of the proposed control system ensures constant output DC current required to charge the Lead-Acid batteries in bulk charge mode. The robust feedback controller of the power converter is developed using a microcontroller which is acting as smart controller of the CBB converter. DC-DC converters which are used for battery charging applications with variable power sources should be able to both step-up and step-down the input voltage and provide high efficiency in the whole range of operation. The CBB converter with power switches and diodes is used to achieve above objective. CBB converter is constructed by cascading a Buck and a Boost Converter and eliminating the output capacitor of the buck converter.