Development of a drive cycle based evaluation method for Variable Voltage Converter in vehicle electrification applications

In this work, an innovative and feasible evaluation method is proposed to fully verify the Variable Voltage Converter (VVC) functionality for vehicle electrification applications. With the proposed method, the VVC can be fully tested for all four operation modes which can occur during vehicle real driving conditions. The proposed method provides a solution which allows hardware self-evaluation with HEV drive cycles during development stages in the laboratory. The advantages associated with this method includes 1) the capability of testing the VVC up to full power under all operating modes, 2) minimal external power demand and energy savings; 3) enable hardware to be tested with real drive conditions and significantly reduces costs and resources which are required by vehicle road tests.