Development of a DC-link protection system for regenerative braking of Electric Vehicle using a pseudo-cascade controlled IGBT chopper

This paper presents a pseudo-cascade controlled IGBT chopper used for transient protection of the DC-link and battery of Electric Vehicles (EVs) with regenerative braking feature. During EVs traction and braking operation, the DC-link shows transient behavior that can seriously damage the main battery and the filtering capacitors. The proposed system is used to protect the battery against surge line charging current and the DC-Link against overvoltage while allowing maximum braking capacity and maximum battery charging efficiency. A theoretical model for controller parameter calculation is presented and implemented in Matlab-Simulink to validate the control scheme. Experimental results on a reduced power test bench are also presented.