Design and Control of a Modular Multilevel DC/DC Converter for Regenerative Applications

This paper compares different cascaded and multilevel topologies to interface supercapacitors to a dc bus in regenerative braking applications. It is shown that the modular multilevel dc/dc converter (MMC) can benefit from both reduced voltage and increased frequency across the inductor to reduce its weight and volume when using phase shifting modulation. The proposed control method is able to balance supercapacitor voltage while providing precise output current control. The converter topology and control method are validated with simulations and experimental results.