Power supply system with a plurality of power supply circuits and control method of the same

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9727125-B2
Application number	US-201414177504-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Feb 11, 2014
Priority date	Feb 18, 2013
Publication date	Aug 8, 2017
Grant date	Aug 8, 2017

Abstract

A power supply system includes a plurality of power supply circuits connected to a common output node and a control unit that controls outputs of the plurality of power supply circuits such that an output value at the output node follows an output target value at the output node. The control unit is configured to change the output of part of the plurality of power supply circuits when there is a deviation smaller than or equal to a predetermined value between the output value and the output target value.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A power supply system comprising:
a plurality of power supply circuits connected to a common output node, each of the plurality of power supply circuits being a direct current (DC) to DC converter and comprising a transformer, a primary full-bridge switching circuit and a secondary full-bridge switching circuit; and
a control unit configured to change a phase difference between switching timing of the primary full-bridge switching circuit and switching timing of the secondary full-bridge switching circuit, of each of the plurality of power supply circuits such that an output value at the output node follows an output target value at the output node, wherein
the control unit is further configured to change the phase difference of part of the plurality of power supply circuits such that the output value approaches the output target value when a deviation between the output value and the output target value is less than or equal to a predetermined value and the phase difference of each of the plurality of power supply circuits has a same value.

2. The power supply system according to claim 1 , wherein the control unit is further configured to change the phase difference of the part of the power supply circuits such that the output value approaches the output target value when the output target value has changed in a direction opposite to a direction in which the phase difference of the part of the power supply circuits has changed.

3. The power supply system according to claim 2 , wherein the control unit is further configured to set the phase differences of the plurality of power supply circuits such that an output difference between an output of the remaining power supply circuits of the plurality of power supply circuits other than the part of the power supply circuits and an output of the part of the power supply circuits falls within a predetermined range when the output target value has changed in the direction opposite to the direction in which the phase difference of the part of the power supply circuits has changed.

4. The power supply system according to claim 1 , wherein the control unit is further configured to change the phase difference of the remaining power supply circuits of the plurality of power supply circuits other than the part of the power supply circuits such that the output value approaches the output target value when the output target value has changed in a same direction as a direction in which the phase difference of the part of the power supply circuits has changed.

5. The power supply system according to claim 4 , wherein the control unit is further configured to set the phase differences of the plurality of power supply circuits such that an output difference between an output of the remaining power supply circuits of the plurality of power supply circuits other than the part of the power supply circuits and an output of the part of the power supply circuits falls within a predetermined range when the output target value has changed in the same direction as the direction in which the phase difference of the part of the power supply circuits has changed.

6. The power supply system according to claim 1 , wherein the control unit is further configured to change the phase difference of all the plurality of power supply circuits such that the output value approaches the output target value when the deviation between the output value and the output target value is greater than the predetermined value.

7. The power supply system according to claim 1 , wherein the predetermined value is a minimum variation amount of the output value that is adjustable at the output node when the phase differences of all the plurality of power supply circuits are changed at the same time.

8. The power supply system according to claim 1 , wherein the secondary full-bridge switching circuit is magnetically coupled to the primary full-bridge switching circuit via the transformer,
each of the plurality of power supply circuits comprises four ports that correspond to a first port and a second port of the primary full-bridge switching circuit and a third port and a fourth port of the secondary full-bridge switching circuit, and
each of the plurality of power supply circuits is configured to convert electric power between any two of the four ports.

9. The power supply system according to claim 1 , wherein the control unit is further configured to set the phase difference of the plurality of power supply circuits to have a same value such that the output value approaches the output target value when the deviation between the output value and the output target value is greater than the predetermined value and the phase difference of each of the plurality of power supply circuits has a different value.

10. A control method for controlling a plurality of power supply circuits connected to a common output node, each of the plurality of power supply circuits being a direct current (DC) to DC converter and including a transformer, a primary full-bridge switching circuit and a secondary full-bridge switching circuit, the method comprising:
changing a phase difference between switching timing of the primary full-bridge switching circuit and switching timing of the secondary full-bridge switching circuit of each of the plurality of power supply circuits such that an output value at the output node follows an output target value at the output node,
wherein changing the phase difference comprises
changing the phase difference of part of the plurality of power supply circuits such that the output value approaches the output target value when a deviation between the output value and the output target value is less than or equal to a predetermined value and the phase difference of each of the plurality of power supply circuits has a same value.

11. A power supply system comprising:
a plurality of power supply circuits connected to a common output node, each of the plurality of power supply circuits being a direct current (DC) to DC converter and having a transformer, a primary full-bridge switching circuit and a secondary full-bridge switching circuit; and
a control unit configured to change a duty ratio between switching timing of the primary full-bridge switching circuit and switching timing of the secondary full-bridge switching circuit, of each of the plurality of power supply circuits such that an output value at the output node follows an output target value at the output node, wherein
the control unit is further configured to change the duty ratio of part of the plurality of power supply circuits such that the output value approaches the output target value when a deviation between the output value and the output target value is less than or equal to a predetermined value and the duty ratio of each of the plurality of power supply circuits has a same value.

12. The power supply system according to claim 11 , wherein the control unit is further configured to change the duty ratio of the plurality of power supply circuits such that the output value approaches the output target value when the deviation between the output value and the output target value is greater than the predetermined value.

13. The power supply system according to claim 11 , wherein the control unit is further configured to set the duty ratio of the plurality of power supply circuits to have a same value such that the output value approaches the output target value when the deviation between the output value and the output target value is greater than the predetermined value and the phase difference of each of the plurality of power supply circuits has a different value.

Assignees

• Muto Jun
• Toyota Motor Co Ltd

Inventors

• Muto Jun

Classifications

• H02M3/33584

  Bidirectional converters · CPC title

• G06F1/3293 Primary

  by switching to a less power-consuming processor, e.g. sub-CPU · CPC title

• H02M3/1584

  with a plurality of power processing stages connected in parallel · CPC title

• H02M2001/0025

  Electricity · mapped topic

• H02M3/285 Primary

  Single converters with a plurality of output stages connected in parallel (parallel operation of a plurality of converters in DC distribution networks H02J1/10) · CPC title