Reconfigurable Power Converter for Constant Current Underwater Observatory

A constant current (CC) underwater observatory employing the shunt method to provide constant voltage (CV) power for external loads is favored in occasions where shunt-fault tolerance is required. However, low efficiency of CC to CV conversion with the shunt method limits its application, especially in scenarios of varying loads. In this paper, a highly reliable and stable CC/CV converter with better efficiency is introduced based on the proposed novel active soft bypass (ASB) technology and the proposed novel priority-based power management strategy (PPMS). The ASB technology is a method that employs switches and a special control sequence which greatly depresses the large voltage transient presenting on the input side when trying hard bypass redundant modules, and the PPMS makes the system easy to monitor and ensures the absolute reliability of ASB technology. The theoretical study of this novel reconfigurable CC/CV converter and validation experiments on a prototype are carried out, with results showing great improvement in the performance. In addition, the proposed reconfigurable power converter is applied to a coastal observatory in the East China Sea.