Multi-source converter for energy harvest in an internal combustion engine vehicle and its power distribution control

The paper will present a converter with multiple sources for energy harvest of internal combustion engine vehicle. The energy sources include solar panel, regeneration energy during braking and thermal electrical generator. Since these three energy sources have different power rating, a power distribution control method is proposed in this paper. The proposed power distribution control provides effectively specific power distribution control while requiring less feedback signals and thereby reducing the cost of AD converter etc. The specifications of the converter include: input voltage ranging extends from 16 V to 60 V, output power is around 1.32 kW and output voltage is 12 V. Details of the controller design, simulation and experimental results will be presented to confirm the effectiveness of the proposed multi-source converter and power distribution control method. The results show that the output voltage can be well regulated. All the power distributions among different energy sources can be achieved. The prototype is designed and experimental results are included for confirmation.