Classifications

• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H02—GENERATION; CONVERSION OR DISTRIBUTION OF ELECTRIC POWER
  • H02M—APPARATUS FOR CONVERSION BETWEEN AC AND AC, BETWEEN AC AND DC, OR BETWEEN DC AND DC, AND FOR USE WITH MAINS OR SIMILAR POWER SUPPLY SYSTEMS; CONVERSION OF DC OR AC INPUT POWER INTO SURGE OUTPUT POWER; CONTROL OR REGULATION THEREOF
  • H02M1/00—Details of apparatus for conversion
  • H02M1/38—Means for preventing simultaneous conduction of switches
• • B—PERFORMING OPERATIONS; TRANSPORTING
  • B60—VEHICLES IN GENERAL
  • B60L—PROPULSION OF ELECTRICALLY-PROPELLED VEHICLES; SUPPLYING ELECTRIC POWER FOR AUXILIARY EQUIPMENT OF ELECTRICALLY-PROPELLED VEHICLES; ELECTRODYNAMIC BRAKE SYSTEMS FOR VEHICLES IN GENERAL; MAGNETIC SUSPENSION OR LEVITATION FOR VEHICLES; MONITORING OPERATING VARIABLES OF ELECTRICALLY-PROPELLED VEHICLES; ELECTRIC SAFETY DEVICES FOR ELECTRICALLY-PROPELLED VEHICLES
  • B60L15/00—Methods, circuits, or devices for controlling the traction-motor speed of electrically-propelled vehicles
  • B60L15/20—Methods, circuits, or devices for controlling the traction-motor speed of electrically-propelled vehicles for control of the vehicle or its driving motor to achieve a desired performance, e.g. speed, torque, programmed variation of speed
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H03—ELECTRONIC CIRCUITRY
  • H03K—PULSE TECHNIQUE
  • H03K17/00—Electronic switching or gating, i.e. not by contact-making and –breaking
  • H03K17/28—Modifications for introducing a time delay before switching
  • H03K17/284—Modifications for introducing a time delay before switching in field effect transistor switches
• • B—PERFORMING OPERATIONS; TRANSPORTING
  • B60—VEHICLES IN GENERAL
  • B60K—ARRANGEMENT OR MOUNTING OF PROPULSION UNITS OR OF TRANSMISSIONS IN VEHICLES; ARRANGEMENT OR MOUNTING OF PLURAL DIVERSE PRIME-MOVERS IN VEHICLES; AUXILIARY DRIVES FOR VEHICLES; INSTRUMENTATION OR DASHBOARDS FOR VEHICLES; ARRANGEMENTS IN CONNECTION WITH COOLING, AIR INTAKE, GAS EXHAUST OR FUEL SUPPLY OF PROPULSION UNITS IN VEHICLES
  • B60K6/00—Arrangement or mounting of plural diverse prime-movers for mutual or common propulsion, e.g. hybrid propulsion systems comprising electric motors and internal combustion engines ; Control systems therefor, i.e. systems controlling two or more prime movers, or controlling one of these prime movers and any of the transmission, drive or drive units Informative references: mechanical gearings with secondary electric drive F16H3/72; arrangements for handling mechanical energy structurally associated with the dynamo-electric machine H02K7/00; machines comprising structurally interrelated motor and generator parts H02K51/00; dynamo-electric machines not otherwise provided for in H02K see H02K99/00
  • B60K6/20—Arrangement or mounting of plural diverse prime-movers for mutual or common propulsion, e.g. hybrid propulsion systems comprising electric motors and internal combustion engines ; Control systems therefor, i.e. systems controlling two or more prime movers, or controlling one of these prime movers and any of the transmission, drive or drive units Informative references: mechanical gearings with secondary electric drive F16H3/72; arrangements for handling mechanical energy structurally associated with the dynamo-electric machine H02K7/00; machines comprising structurally interrelated motor and generator parts H02K51/00; dynamo-electric machines not otherwise provided for in H02K see H02K99/00 the prime-movers consisting of electric motors and internal combustion engines, e.g. HEVs
  • B60K6/22—Arrangement or mounting of plural diverse prime-movers for mutual or common propulsion, e.g. hybrid propulsion systems comprising electric motors and internal combustion engines ; Control systems therefor, i.e. systems controlling two or more prime movers, or controlling one of these prime movers and any of the transmission, drive or drive units Informative references: mechanical gearings with secondary electric drive F16H3/72; arrangements for handling mechanical energy structurally associated with the dynamo-electric machine H02K7/00; machines comprising structurally interrelated motor and generator parts H02K51/00; dynamo-electric machines not otherwise provided for in H02K see H02K99/00 the prime-movers consisting of electric motors and internal combustion engines, e.g. HEVs characterised by apparatus, components or means specially adapted for HEVs
• • B—PERFORMING OPERATIONS; TRANSPORTING
  • B60—VEHICLES IN GENERAL
  • B60Y—INDEXING SCHEME RELATING TO ASPECTS CROSS-CUTTING VEHICLE TECHNOLOGY
  • B60Y2200/00—Type of vehicle
  • B60Y2200/90—Vehicles comprising electric prime movers
  • B60Y2200/91—Electric vehicles
• • B—PERFORMING OPERATIONS; TRANSPORTING
  • B60—VEHICLES IN GENERAL
  • B60Y—INDEXING SCHEME RELATING TO ASPECTS CROSS-CUTTING VEHICLE TECHNOLOGY
  • B60Y2200/00—Type of vehicle
  • B60Y2200/90—Vehicles comprising electric prime movers
  • B60Y2200/92—Hybrid vehicles
• • Y—GENERAL TAGGING OF NEW TECHNOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENTS; GENERAL TAGGING OF CROSS-SECTIONAL TECHNOLOGIES SPANNING OVER SEVERAL SECTIONS OF THE IPC; TECHNICAL SUBJECTS COVERED BY FORMER USPC CROSS-REFERENCE ART COLLECTIONS [XRACs] AND DIGESTS
  • Y02—TECHNOLOGIES OR APPLICATIONS FOR MITIGATION OR ADAPTATION AGAINST CLIMATE CHANGE
  • Y02T—CLIMATE CHANGE MITIGATION TECHNOLOGIES RELATED TO TRANSPORTATION
  • Y02T10/00—Road transport of goods or passengers
  • Y02T10/60—Other road transportation technologies with climate change mitigation effect
  • Y02T10/70—Energy storage systems for electromobility, e.g. batteries
• • Y—GENERAL TAGGING OF NEW TECHNOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENTS; GENERAL TAGGING OF CROSS-SECTIONAL TECHNOLOGIES SPANNING OVER SEVERAL SECTIONS OF THE IPC; TECHNICAL SUBJECTS COVERED BY FORMER USPC CROSS-REFERENCE ART COLLECTIONS [XRACs] AND DIGESTS
  • Y02—TECHNOLOGIES OR APPLICATIONS FOR MITIGATION OR ADAPTATION AGAINST CLIMATE CHANGE
  • Y02T—CLIMATE CHANGE MITIGATION TECHNOLOGIES RELATED TO TRANSPORTATION
  • Y02T10/00—Road transport of goods or passengers
  • Y02T10/60—Other road transportation technologies with climate change mitigation effect
  • Y02T10/72—Electric energy management in electromobility

Definitions

• the present invention relates to the field of semiconductor-based power modules.
• the present invention relates to a control device for determining a dead time for power electronic switches, such as a converter for an electric and / or hybrid vehicle.
• Power electronic switches or circuits are used nowadays for a large number of applications.
• Power electronics play a key role in the advancing electromobility.
• the highside switch can comprise a transistor, such as a field effect transistor (FET), which connects a load to a supply voltage.
• FET field effect transistor
• the low-side switch can also comprise a transistor, something an FET, which switches a load to the ground (or earth).
• Such a bridge circuit is known, for example, from EP1230734B1.
• the two switches are to be controlled inverted to each other during operation.
• VGS gate-source voltage
• VDS drain-source voltage
• the two switches have different delay times due to the different reaction speed of the Drain-source voltage to the gate-source voltage, as well as rise and fall times of different lengths when switching on and off.
• the rise and fall times relate to the time it takes for the drain-source voltage to reach the final value. This means that the two switches switch on and off at different speeds.
• the HS and LS switches cannot easily be controlled inverted to one another. Otherwise, it would lead to an overlap phase during which both switches are conductive at the same time, which in turn would result in a high cross current that flows from one of the two switches to the other switch and resembles a short circuit that destroys the entire power switch.
• MOSFET metal oxide semiconductor FET
• GaN galium nitride
• GaN-HEMT galium nitride
• a so-called “dead time” (or locking time) is introduced, which is defined as the time span in which neither the HS switch nor the LS switch is closed. This prevents short-circuiting of the supply voltage and thus a cross line.
• the power electronic circuits known from the prior art have a high conduction loss. This is due to the fact that the dead time is not selected appropriately, and in many cases too large. Power arresters that enable reverse conduction have a significantly increased forward voltage when they are switched off. As a result, a long dead time leads to an increase in the conduction losses in the reverse line.
• the invention is therefore based on the object of optimizing the dead time in power electronic circuits so that the conduction losses in the reverse line are reduced.
• the object is achieved by a control device, a control method, an optimization method, a computer program product, a computer-readable one
• the vehicle power module comprises at least one reverse switchable power semiconductor.
• semiconductors with large band gaps such as gallium nitride (GaN) or silicon carbide (SiC) come into consideration.
• the vehicle power module may include one or more metal-oxide-semiconductor field effect transistors (MOSFETs), one or more high electron mobility transistors (HEMTs).
• MOSFETs metal-oxide-semiconductor field effect transistors
• HEMTs high electron mobility transistors
• the bridge circuit can be a half bridge comprising an HS switch and an LS switch.
• the bridge circuit can be a so-called multilevel half-bridge.
• the input interface can be designed, for example, as an analog-digital converter or as an interface of a data line (e.g. serial peripheral interface, SPI).
• the output current can be obtained from a current transformer, an ammeter or a data line.
• the evaluation unit comprises, for example, a microcontroller or a field-programmable gate arrangement (FPGA), or is part of the microcontroller which reads out the output current and determines the adaptive dead time as a function thereof.
• FPGA field-programmable gate arrangement
• the word “predetermined” in connection with the commutation time and the minimum value refers to the fact that these were determined for the measured variables by the evaluation unit itself before they were combined.
• the evaluation unit uses a commutation time and a minimum value, these two measured variables being obtained by characterizing the bridge circuit or another bridge circuit (for example on a prototype). The evaluation unit then uses the commutation time and the minimum value to determine the adaptive dead time by combining these two measured variables.
• the word “predetermined” in connection with the commutation time and the minimum value analogously to the first determination variant, refers to the fact that these two measured variables were determined by means of the characterization (on the prototype) before they were combined.
• the evaluation unit uses a commutation time and a minimum value, with these two measured variables being obtained and combined by characterizing the or another bridge circuit (e.g. on the prototype).
• the word “predetermined” in connection with the commutation time and the minimum value refers to the fact that these two measured variables were determined and combined before the point in time at which they are fed to the evaluation unit for the purpose of determining the adaptive dead time.
• the control device can have a storage medium for storing the predetermined and combined commutation time / minimum value of the dead time as a function of the output current of the bridge circuit characterized (prototype).
• the commutation time is defined as a period of time within which a drain-source voltage (VDS) of the bridge circuit from an initial value to 30%, 25%, 20%, 15%, 1 0%, 5% or 0% of the initial value drops.
• VDS drain-source voltage
• a control signal is generated by means of the signal unit, the control signal serving to impress the adaptive dead time of the bridge circuit.
• the control signal can for example be a first pulse duration modulation signal (eg PWM signal) for an upper switch (HS switch) of the bridge circuit and a second pulse duration modulation signal (eg PWM signal) for one include the lower switch (LS switch) of the bridge circuit.
• the signal unit can be part of a microcontroller.
• control device and control method according to the invention are advantageous due to the adaptive dead time compared to the solutions known from the prior art.
• the adaptive dead time By limiting the adaptive dead time to the predetermined minimum value, the cross line mentioned at the beginning can be avoided or reduced. This prevents a short-circuit current and the associated destruction of the power semiconductors due to their overheating. Limiting the dead time to the minimum value means that the dead time is greater than or equal to the minimum value.
• the dead time is coupled to the predetermined commutation time, so-called "double switching" is avoided.
• the commutation times increase sharply as the load current decreases, because the switch, which acts as a capacitor at the current output, is reloaded comparatively slowly with an output capacitance. If the dead time is shorter than the commutation time, the output capacitor of the respective circuit breaker is not yet fully discharged when it is switched on. This results in double switching or a hard-switching transient in which the voltage applied to the switch and the current applied to the switch are not equal to zero at the same time. This leads to additional losses, which can be prevented if the dead time is selected to be greater than or equal to the commutation time.
• Coupling the dead time to the commutation time of the bridge circuit means that the dead time is set equal to the commutation time or is related to the commutation time using a fixed arithmetic relationship (e.g. with a fixed difference and / or a fixed multiplication factor).
• the predetermined minimum value depends on a switch-on delay time of the bridge circuit when switching on, a switch-on control delay time of gate control of the bridge circuit when switching on, a switch-off delay time of the bridge circuit when switching off, and / or a switch-off control delay time of gate control of the bridge circuit when Switch off.
• the dead time By limiting the dead time to this minimum value, the cross line can effectively be avoided.
• delay times of the gate control itself can also be taken into account when switching on or off.
• the minimum value of the dead time determined in this way can be increased by a reserve value in order to prevent cross-conduction under as many operating conditions as possible (e.g. thermal influences that can greatly change the switching behavior of the power semiconductors).
• the evaluation unit is designed to equate the adaptive dead time to the minimum value for a first range of the output current above a predefined threshold value and / or the predetermined commutation time for a second range of the output current below the threshold value.
• the threshold value can be established on the basis of the predetermined commutation time and / or the predetermined minimum value of the dead time. For example is the threshold value of the current value at the point of intersection between the course of the commutation time as a function of the output current (load current) of the characterized bridge circuit (prototype) and the straight line of the constant minimum value of the dead time in a diagram in which the time (commutation time or dead time) versus the load current is applied. This is particularly advantageous in the case of power semiconductors, the commutation time of which decreases with increasing load current.
• the evaluation unit is designed to select the predetermined commutation time and / or the predetermined minimum value from a table or a variable field as a function of the output current.
• the table e.g. a look-up table
• the variable field e.g. an array
• Several values of the output current of the bridge circuit are stored in a first column of the table or the variable field.
• values of the dead time are stored which are determined for the multiple values of the output current and also coupled to the predetermined commutation time and limited to the predetermined minimum value.
• the evaluation unit can easily access data of the optimized, adaptive dead time obtained in advance by means of a prototype characterization, in order to control the bridge circuit based thereon.
• the evaluation unit can access an approximation formula that is obtained, for example, based on the above-mentioned data of the optimized, adaptive dead time obtained in advance by means of the prototype characterization.
• the approximation formula thus describes the mathematical dependence of the adaptive dead time obtained by combining the predetermined commutation time and the predetermined minimum value on the load or output current of the bridge circuit characterized (prototype). This enables improved control, since the adaptive dead time can be established over a comparatively expanded and continuous range instead of just discrete values of the load current of the bridge circuit.
• the computer program product according to the invention is designed to be loaded into a memory of a computer and comprises software code sections with which the method steps of the method according to the invention are carried out when the computer program product is running on the computer.
• a program is part of the software of a data processing system, for example an evaluation device or a computer.
• Software is a collective term for programs and associated data.
• the complement to software is hardware.
• Hardware describes the mechanical and electronic alignment of a data processing system.
• a computer is an evaluation device.
• Computer program products generally comprise a sequence of instructions which, when the program is loaded, cause the hardware to carry out a specific method that leads to a specific result.
• the computer program product causes the inventive technical effect described above.
• the computer program product according to the invention is platform independent. That means it can run on any computing platform.
• the computer program product is preferably executed on an evaluation device according to the invention for detecting the surroundings of the vehicle.
• the software code sections are written in any programming language, for example in Python, Java, JavaScript, C, C ++, C #, Matlab, LabView, Objective C.
• a hardware description language e.g. VHDL
• VHDL hardware description language
• the computer-readable storage medium is, for example, an electronic, magnetic, optical or magneto-optical storage medium.
• the data carrier signal is a signal that the computer program product is transferred from a storage medium on which the computer program product is stored. to another entity, for example another storage medium, a server, a cloud system, a wireless communication system of the 4G / 5G or a data processing device.
• Fig. 1 is a schematic representation of a control device according to an imple mentation form
• Fig. 2 is a schematic representation of a bridge circuit, which by the
• Control unit is activated
• FIG. 3 shows a schematic representation of a method for optimizing a
• Fig. 1 shows a schematic representation of a control device 10 according to one embodiment.
• the control device 10 comprises an input interface 12, an evaluation unit 14 and a signal unit 16. Via the input interface 12, an output current is obtained which is measured at an output of a bridge circuit 30, for example by means of an ammeter 40 (FIG. 2).
• the evaluation unit 14 evaluates the output current and determines an adaptive dead time as a function thereof. As shown by way of example in FIG. 2, the evaluation unit 14 uses a table 142 in which data of the adaptive dead time tü as a function of the load current I is stored.
• step S1 the minimal dead time (minimum value) is measured on a bridge circuit prototype.
• step S2 the commutation time tc is measured on the same or a different bridge circuit prototype as a function of the load current I.
• steps S1 and S2 are combined in order to obtain the adaptive dead time tü as a function of the load current I.
• the adaptive dead time can be stored in a table together with the associated load current values.
• an approximation formula shown in Fig.
• the evaluation unit 14 uses the table 142 to determine the adaptive dead time tü. Based on this, the signal unit 16 generates a control signal which is impressed on the bridge circuit 30.
• the control of the bridge circuit 30 by means of the control device 10 from FIG. 1 is also shown schematically.
• a first control signal 144 for controlling the gate of the HS switch 32 is shown schematically as a rectangular PWM signal.
• a second control signal 146 for driving the gate of the LS switch 34 is also shown schematically as a rectangular PWM signal, the adaptive dead time tü determined by the evaluation unit 14 being taken into account.
• the two drive signals are generated inverted to one another, there being a phase for the duration of the dead time during which neither of the two switches is controlled.
• the signal edge is shifted in time by tü compared to the signal edge in the first PWM signal for the HS switch.
• the signal edge in the first PWM signal for the HS switch 32 is also shifted by tü compared to the signal edge in the second PWM signal for the LS switch 34.

Landscapes

• Engineering & Computer Science (AREA)
• Power Engineering (AREA)
• Transportation (AREA)
• Mechanical Engineering (AREA)
• Inverter Devices (AREA)
• Electronic Switches (AREA)
• Power Conversion In General (AREA)

Applications Claiming Priority (2)

Publications (1)

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ID=69645997

Family Applications (1)

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Family Cites Families (21)

• 2019
  • 2019-03-27 DE DE102019204280.5A patent/DE102019204280A1/de not_active Ceased
• 2020
  • 2020-02-21 JP JP2021547218A patent/JP2022524722A/ja active Pending
  • 2020-02-21 WO PCT/EP2020/054575 patent/WO2020193026A1/de unknown
  • 2020-02-21 US US17/271,547 patent/US11462993B2/en active Active
  • 2020-02-21 EP EP20706485.8A patent/EP3949097A1/de not_active Withdrawn
  • 2020-02-21 CN CN202080022673.0A patent/CN113615061A/zh active Pending

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