978-1-4673-1975-1/12/$31.

00 2012 IEEE ICIAfS12

Application Research of an Electric Vehicle DC Fast
Charger in Smart Grids
Zuzhi Zhang, Haiping Xu, Lei Shi, Dongxu Li, Yuchen Han
Key Laboratory of Power Electronics and Electric Drive,
Institute of Electrical Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China
E-mail: zhangzuzhi@mail.iee.ac.cn

AbstractPopularization of charging station promotes wide
applications of electric vehicle (EV). With the increase in the
number of charging station, the problem of grid pollution
becomes worse and worse. To improve the utilization rate of EV,
the charging hours must be decreased. At present, most EVs start
charging instantaneously under almost rated power of the
charger. Large-scale EVs charging without adjustment will
impact the smart grids. The capability of smart grids will restrict
the number of charging station; furthermore, it will affect
applications of EV. To solve the above problem, it is necessary to
design a smart charger, as an important part of charging station,
with unit power factor and with the function of fast charging.
This article proposes a novel unit power factor DC fast charger
for EV charging stations. This DC fast charger includes two
modules: the input module is three-phase PWM rectifier and the
output module is the phase-shift full-bridge converter. The two
modules are controlled by only one DSP TMS320F2812, which
has abundant outside interfaces, to improve cooperating ability
of two converters and the dynamic response of the charger. A
prototype of 10 kW Charger is constructed. The experimental
results show that the novel DC fast charger has excellent
electrical characteristics, and it can be applied to the EV
charging stations in smart grids.
Keywordselectric vehicle; unit power factor; DC fast charger;
smart grids
I. INTRODUCTION
The charger in the fast-charging station is mainly used in
decreasing the charging hours to raise the utilization rate of
EV. Therefore, it is necessary to provide a large current to
batteries, with high power conversion efficiency. When large
numbers of the chargers plug in the power grid, it will induce
the power quality degradation [1].
The traditional electric vehicle charging system uses diode
rectifier bridges topology cascade with DC-DC. Diode rectifier
bridges have some disadvantages: the input current harmonic
content is high and absorbs reactive power from the grid,
which results in the very low input power factor. Because
transmission of reactive power in electric network can lead to
network loss and step-down voltage, transmission of a great
deal of reactive power necessarily will result in reduction of
using efficiency of power energy and severely affect voltage
quality. To isolate the power grid from the batteries of electric
vehicle, the traditional electric vehicle charging system uses
isolated grid-frequency transformer, which is large, heavy and
high cost.
To solve the above problems, this paper presents a DC fast
charger that consists of three-phase PWM rectifier and the
phase-shift full-bridge converter. This DC charger, which is
high-frequency PWM charger, makes grid current sinusoidal
with low THD and unit power factor. Three-phase PWM
rectifier and the phase-shift full-bridge converter can both be
used in high power applications. And the latter has an isolated
high-frequency transformer. The two modules are controlled by
only one DSP TMS320F2812. With abundant outside
interfaces, the DSP makes communication with the Battery
Management System (BMS) of EV and the smart grid
convenient. And one DSP improves cooperating ability of two
converters and the dynamic response of the whole charger, and
it reduces costs. To communication with the smart grid, the
charger can adjust output power or stop charging to reduce
power net load. Therefore the DC charger has lots of
advantages that accord with the need of fast-charging station in
the smart grid: smart, high power, unit power factor, low
harmonic input content, small volume, and light weight [2].
II. ANALYSIS OF THE CHARGING SYSTEM
Figure 1 shows the fast-charging system. It is consisted by
three parts: the three-phase PWM rectifier (Voltage Source
Rectifier - VSR), the phase-shift full-bridge converter (DC/DC)
and the controller.

Figure 1. The block diagram of the charging system
A. The three-phase PWM rectifier
The main circuit of a three-phase PWM rectifier (VSR) is
shown in Fig. 2, which is composed of three input filter
inductances, a three-phase IGBT bridge and a DC filter
capacitor. V
a
, V
b
, V
c
are AC power supply voltages. Switch
Q1~Q6 constitute the rectifying circuit. V
dc
is the output dc-bus
voltage.
ICIAfS'12 1569624585

Figure 2. The topology of the three-phase PWM rectifier
The three-phase PWM rectifier with direct current control
can get a good current regulation and a good current tracking
speed because of the introduction of the current loop control
[3]. Figure 3 shows the block of the direct current control. It is
a double close-loop control system. The outer is voltage loop
control which is to control the output of dc-bus voltage, and the
inner is current loop control. The current loop regulates the DQ
axis current by PI controller to achieve the unit power factor
which is achieved by setting the negative Q axis current
reference to zero. R is the equivalent resistance of output.

Figure 3. Direct current control
B. The phase-shift full-bridge converter
Figure 4 shows the main circuit of the phase-shift full-
bridge converter.
C
2
L
2
Q1 Q3
Q2 Q4
D1 D3
D2 D4
T V
o
+
-
V
dc
+
-

Figure 4. The topology of the phase-shift full-bridge converter
In Fig. 4, V
o
is the output voltage. T is an isolated high-
frequency transformer whose ratio is 1. Switches Q1~Q4
constitute the full bridge circuit. Diodes D1~D4 constitute the
rectifying circuit. L
2
is the output filter inductance and C
2
is the
output filter capacitor. The phase-shift full-bridge converter is
used to control the process of batteries charging, adopting
improved constant current method, which decreases charging
current when the voltage of the batteries reaches the reference
voltage during the period of normal charging, to optimize the
charging process.
The control diagram is shown in Fig. 5. V
B
, the voltage of
the batteries, is used to judge whether the batteries has already
been connected. J
1
is the program module which judges
whether charger meets operating condition. J
2
is the module
which judges whether the voltage of the batteries reaches the
reference voltage to reduce definite charging current. J
3
is the
module which adjusts output power of the charger or stops
charging according to the power net load.

Figure 5. Control diagram of the phase-shift full-bridge converter
The charging control system has single current closed loop.
Improved constant current charging method suits the smart grid
better than traditional constant current charging, constant
voltage charging, and two-step charging which merely meet the
characteristics of the batteries without power grid [4]. During
the period of normal charging, the charger outputs the
reference current at first. When the voltage of EV batteries
reaches the reference voltage, the charging current will be
reduced with the charging voltage reduced, so repeatedly.
When the charging current falls to the 10% preset current, it
will stop charging. The normal charging process is shown in
solid lines in Fig. 6. The dashed lines show that the charger
adjusts output power according to the smart grids. The peak
time of power grid is from t
1
to t
2
. At this time, the charger
reduces charging current to adjust power system load.

Figure 6. Improved constant current method for batteries
C. The controller
Digital signal processor is fast arithmetic operations and
high throughput to handle mathematically intensive algorithms

in real time. TMS320F2812 is accomplished by using the
following basic concepts: Harvard architecture, extensive
pipelining, dedicated hardware multiplier, special DSP
instructions and fast instruction cycle. Therefore, only one DSP
controller is used to control both the three-phase PWM rectifier
and the phase-shift full-bridge converter. And one DSP
controller can decrease the communication time between the
two converters sharply to improve cooperating ability of two
converters and the dynamic response of the whole charger.
The Event Manager (EV) in the TMS320F2812 is used to
control the generation of the PWM. The two EV modules
(EVA and EVB) are identical peripherals, which control the
two converters, respectively. The CPLD chip is applied to
produce PWM signals and protect the whole circuit [5].
III. THE DESIGN OF THE PROGRAM
A. IQmath Library
Texas Instruments (TI) TMS320F28x IQmath Library is
collection of highly optimized and high precision mathematical
functions for C/C++ programmers to seamlessly port a
floating-point algorithm into fixed point code on TMS320F28x
devices. These routines are typically used in computationally
intensive real-time applications where optimal execution speed
and high accuracy is critical. By using these routines, execution
speed is considerable faster than equivalent code written in
standard ANSI C language. Therefore the TI IQmath library is
used in the control program.
B. The control program of the three-phase PWM rectifier

Figure 7. T1 interrupt program
The control program of three-phase PWM rectifier is
achieved by Timer 1 (T1) interrupt. The interrupt program
flow-process diagram is shown in Fig. 7.The T1 interrupt
program contains AD sample, VSR safe model, calculation
model of grid voltage synchronous angle, Clarke
transformation, Park transformation, PI control model, inverse
Park transformation and calculation of switching time of
SVPWM [6].
C. The control program of the phase-shift full-bridge
converter
The process of batteries charging is achieved by the
charging program, as shown in Fig. 8. At first, the batteries are
charged by a constant current if the power grid allows it. When
the batteries voltage reaches the preset voltage, the charging
current goes down. When the current that smart grid allows (I
G
)
is less than the charging current, the charger reduces the
charging current to I
G
. The charging current rises up when the
power grid has recovered. The voltage and charging current of
End-of-Charging (EOC) for the batteries is the preset voltage
(V
*
) and the 10% preset current (10%I
*
), respectively.

Figure 8. The charging program
IV. EXPERIMENTAL RESULT
Based on the analysis and design above, using DSP-
TMS320F2812 as main controller, a prototype of an electric
vehicle charger module was constructed.

Figure 9. The input voltage and current
Figure 9 are the waveforms of the input voltage and current
of the charger. CH1 is the phase A voltage. CH3 is the phase A
current. CH4 is the phase B current. The experimental

waveforms show that the phase A voltage and current have
same phase and the phase A current leads phase B current by
120 degrees.

Figure 10. The EV charger under 10kW output power


Figure 11. The dynamic waveforms of the charger
Figure 10 is the waveforms of the electric vehicle charger
module under about 10kW output power. CH1 is the phase A
voltage. CH3 is the phase A current. CH2 is the output voltage
of EV charger. CH4 is the output current. The experimental
waveforms show that the phase voltage and current have same
phase and output voltage and current is steady. Thus the EV
charger implements the grid current high sinusoidal and can
reach unit power factor. By the power analyzer, power factor
can reach 1 and the grid current THD is less than 3% under
rated output power.
Figure 11 is the dynamic waveforms of the electric vehicle
charger module when charging current is changed from 15A to
5A and from 5A to 15A. CH3 is the phase A current. CH4 is
the output current. The experimental waveforms show that the
output current-rising-rate 20A/s and the output current-
decreasing-rate 20A/s. Thus the EV charger, which is a
cascade system that includes two modules: three-phase PWM
rectifier and phase-shift full-bridge converter, has good
characteristic for dynamic state.
V. CONCLUSIONS
Nowadays, as the environmental pollution and energy crisis
is increasing seriously, EV will become more and more popular.
The operation of power grid will be more and more impacted
by charging behavior of EV. The traditional electric vehicle
charging system uses diode rectifier bridges topology cascade
with DC-DC, which results in reduction of using efficiency of
power energy and severely affects voltage quality. This
requires a high power factor smart EV charger to make full use
of the grid energy and to charge the batteries fast.
The proposed the DC fast charger for electric vehicle
charging station is verified by experiment. The power factor of
this charger can reach 1 and THD is less than 3%. The charger
module has good characteristic for static and dynamic state,
which is suitable to applications of smart grids. Owing to the
digital control its work characteristic is excellent, and its
control method is easy to improve for the future. Therefore, the
DC fast charger is suitable for electric vehicle charging station.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The author would like to thank the fund and support of the
National Natural Science Foundation of China, Project no
(51077122).
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