Fault-tolerance wide voltage conversion gain DC/DC converter for more electric aircraft

In this paper, a fault-tolerance wide voltage conversion gain DC/DC converter for More Electric Aircraft (MEA) is proposed. The proposed converter consists of a basic Cuk converter module and n expandable units. By adjusting the operation state of the expandable units, the voltage conversion gain of the proposed converter could be regulated, which makes it available for wide voltage conversion applications. Especially, since mutual redundancy can be realized between the basic Cuk converter module and the expandable units, the converter can continuously work when an unpredictable fault occurs to the fault-tolerant parts of the proposed converter, which reflects the fault tolerance of the converter and significantly improves the reliability of the system. Moreover, the advantages of small input current ripple, automatic current sharing and low voltage stress are also integrated in this converter. The working principle and features of the proposed converter are mainly introduced, and an experimental prototype with 800 W output power has been manufactured to verify the practicability and availability of the proposed converter.