Modular Self-Balancing Battery Charger Concept for Cost-Effective Power-Assist Wheelchairs
Energies 2019
Iļja Galkins, Andrei Blinov, Ievgen Verbytskyi, Denys Zinchenko

The paper deals with a power charger capable of quick simultaneous charging of several unevenly discharged batteries. The charger is designed for use in conjunction with a recently developed power-assist wheelchair composed of two armrest modules associated with wheels-each with its own motor, driver and battery. Uneven discharge of the batteries is very possible in this application. Taking into account the charging power and energy comparable with the most powerful household electrical devices, the refreshing of these batteries and integration of the entire power supply chain into the household grid become a topical and challenging task. Solving of this task requires a special charger that has several channels and can unevenly apply charging power to these channels. At the same time, the charger must not generate current harmonics or reactive power, must operate with good effciency and satisfy size constraints. In the given research, a configuration of several interleaved isolated single-ended primary-inductor converters is studied. The synthesized mathematical model of the proposed charger provides data about its static and dynamic characteristics while its experimental investigation focuses on operation details (power losses, control features etc.). The obtained results prove that the proposed concept complies with the above-mentioned requirements and can be applied in the discussed application.


Keywords
Balanced charging of batteries, Battery chargers, Interleaved contro,| Power factor, Power factor correction, Single-ended primary-inductor converter (SEPIC)
DOI
10.3390/en12081526
Hyperlink
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/12/8/1526

Galkins, I., Blinov, A., Verbytskyi, I., Zinchenko, D. Modular Self-Balancing Battery Charger Concept for Cost-Effective Power-Assist Wheelchairs. Energies, 2019, Vol. 12, No. 8, Article Number 1526. ISSN 1996-1073. Available from: doi:10.3390/en12081526

Publication language
English (en)
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