Power Factor Corrector Control Strategies of a Bidirectional Wireless Battery Charger with an Unfolding Active Rectifier

In this paper two Power Factor Corrector (PFC) control strategies for a bidirectional Inductive Power Transfer (IPT) system are proposed. These control strategies are presented for a novel power circuit without input and output interfaces for a wireless electric vehicle battery charger application. This compact topology is comprised of: unfolding rectifier, primary resonant bridge and secondary-side active rectification. Two PFC controls are described in detail: a primary-side PFC control, performed in the primary resonant bridge; and a secondary-side PFC control, implemented in the secondary-side active rectification stage. Both strategies are based on a duty-cycle control operating close to the resonance frequency, integrating different functionalities, i.e. PFC, current shaping and power control on a single control strategy. We analyze each control strategy, evaluating them for different operating points of the charging process. The performance of the wireless charger applying both control strategies is evaluated in terms of power losses, power factor, harmonic distortion and bifurcation. Additionally, the theoretical results are validated using a GaN-based experimental prototype. The presented analysis and experimental results clearly identify the advantages and limitations of each control strategy leaving no doubt about their usefulness for the future IPT systems.

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