A High Power Density Converter with a Continuous Input Current Waveform for Satellite Power Applications

Satellite DC/DC power converters are required to have EMI compatibility as well as high reliability. The requirement of high reliability limits the complexity of the structure as well as the number of low-reliability components. In this paper, a conventional active-clamp-forward (ACF) topology is examined for a satellite converter owing to its relatively simple structure, small number of components, and good clamping capability regarding its switch voltage stress. However, it has a pulsating input current shape, a high di/dt level, and high switch voltage stress, which are disadvantageous with regard to the EMI filter size and high-input-voltage converter applications. To overcome these drawbacks, a new ACF topology with a continuous input current waveform is proposed. In the proposed waveform, the voltage stresses on the main switches are relieved, which is crucial to ensure the reliability of satellite FET switches, by utilizing a two-series connected structure. These features allow the proposed converter to serve as a high-input-voltage, high power-density satellite converter. In this study, 100 W prototype converters with a 50 V input operating at 300 kHz are built with a high power density of 47.9 W/in $^3$ . Experiments on these prototype converters are carried out to verify the features.