Soft switching high‐voltage gain dc–dc interleaved boost converter

Abstract

This study presents the qualitative and quantitative analyses, design procedure and experimental results on a soft switching cell applied to a high‐voltage gain interleaved boost converter. An active snubber cell is proposed as a possible solution for the increase of efficiency in a hard switching topology, where switching losses are drastically minimised. The main advantages of the introduced circuit are the common source terminal to all switches; zero‐voltage switching of the main switches; zero current switching of the auxiliary switches; low‐voltage stress across the switches; balanced voltage across the output capacitors; the presence of a magnetic coupling cell, which allows the gain to be significantly increased; and the magnetic components that are designed for twice the switching frequency. A prototype rated at 500 W is implemented and evaluated, where relevant issues are discussed to validate the theoretical assumptions.