Modeling DC-DC Converter for Charging Supercapacitors

Tzvety Hranov, Gergana Vacheva, Nikolay Hinov and Dimitar Arnaudov

Department of Power Electronics, Technical University of Sofia, Sofia, Bulgaria
chranov@tu-sofia.bg

Abstract: The paper present a buck dc-dc converter used for supercapacitor charging. A description of
circuit with the differential equation system is done and a mathematical model is created with the
development environment MATLAB/Simulink. Simulations are carried on with given initial conditions.
The results show that the converter is working stable with different distorting influences. A hardware
realization is evaluated with a experimental board.

1. INTRODUCTION 2. MATHEMATICAL MODEL

With the development with the new energy saving,
ecological and green technologies, more and more are
getting important the questions, related to the efficient
energy storage. In this field the supercapacitors are
finding more and more their application. These are
capacitors with exceptional capacity and tendency to
successfully replace the widely used accumulator
batteries [1, 2, 4, 14, 15]. In this aspect is getting
reasonable and common to use supercapacitors in many
industrial and household devices and systems [5, 8]. In
this regard for their operation is necessary to use
electronic converters that provide high efficiency and
reliability [10, 11, 12, 16, 17]. In the paper is examined
a switching buck converter operating as a constant
current source for charging supercapacitor. On figure
1a is shown the power circuit of the converter.
iL iSC
T L
A reduced model of the converter is proposed that
allows the conduction of long time simulations, which
take place in the real experiments for charging
supercapacitor. The equivalent schematic which is used
for the model description is shown on Figure 1b [6, 7,
13].
The following notations are used: UE equivalent
power supply, taking into account the transfer function
of the DC-DC converter; L and C are the elements of
the harmonics filter; SC supercapacitor; LSC
equivalent inductance of the wiring conductors and the
supercapacitor; RSC series equivalent resistance of the
supercapacitor.
L iL iSC
100H

100H 58F SC
iC
CS UE=DU C 100nF
58F SC
iC
0.01H LSC
Uin=20V C 100nF

0.01H LSC

RSC25m

RSC25m
Fig. 1b. Equivalent schematic of a Buck converter used for
the model description.
Fig. 1. Buck converter working in constant-current mode
(CCM) for charging supercapacitor.
The transfer function of the step-down converter is:
U out DU in (1)

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 where Uin and Uout are the input and output voltage diLSC 1
respectively of the DC-DC converter, D is the duty (uC u SC RiLSC ) (4)
dt LSC
cycle. At the composition of the model are used the
following variables:
du SC 1
iSC (5)
iL the inductor L current, dt SC
iSC the supercapacitor SC current,
This system is modeled in the visual programming
iC the current through the capacitor C, development system MATLAB/Simulink [9], by
iLSC the current through LSC, adding to it a proportional-integral (PI) regulator with
which is maintained chosen constant current value for
uSC the supercapacitor voltage, the charge of the supercapacitor (in the example 5A).
uC the capacitor voltage; The structure of the model is shown on figure 2.
For the reviewed converter is valid the following
system of ordinary differential equations [1, 3, 8-11]: 3. VERIFICATION OF THE MODEL
diL 1
( DU in uC ) (2) The examination of the model is done with an
dt L
experimental device, its circuit is shown on figure 3.
The experimental test bench is realized using the
du C 1
(iL iLSC ) (3) integrated circuit LT1074, by using a current feedback
dt C realized with the resistor RSH with value 10m. This
way it can be used the integrated current protection and
regulator.

Fig. 2. Model of the DC-DC converter in MATLAB/Simulink.

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 3.1. Input data Via the current reference and the feedback of the
regulator is chosen to stabilize the charging current with
The input data for the evaluation of the model of the
value 5 amps. In the devices is considered a protection
step-down converter are as follows:
of overcharging the supercapacitor, which turns off the
Supercapacitor capacitance SC = 58 F; converter when a threshold voltage over it is reached.
Input Voltage Ud = 20 V;
Equivalent series resistance of the supercapacitor
R = 25 m;
Equivalent series inductance of the supercapacitor
LSC = 10 nH;
Output filter capacitor value C = 100 nF;
Inductance value L = 100 H.

Fig. 5. Voltage over the switching transistor of the

converter in the end of the charging process.

3.3. Modeling results

On fig. 6 is shown with the proposed model a
Fig. 3. Schematic of the experimental test bench. realized charging current of the supercapacitor with
value of 5A.
3.2. Experimental results
On fig. 4 (the charging current of the supercapacitor) 5

and fig. 5 (voltage over the transistor of the converter) 4.5

are shown the results of the experiment. 4

3.5

2.5

1.5

0.5

0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100

Fig. 6. Charging current produced with the model.

From the produced results and their comparison
with these, received from the experiment it can be
observed that the model is working correctly, by setting
the necessary slew rate the charging.
Fig. 4. Referenced supercapacitor charging current.

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4. RESULTS rise in t = 25 s from 2A to 5A, which is due to the step
decrease of the supply voltage.
The idea for using a model is to produce with it
results that are hard or impractical to achieve Detailed graphs are presented of the changing
experimentally because of the presence of various charging current, at the disturbing factors, like the
restrictions, related to the elements, the capabilities of unnoticeable change in the charging current at 50 and
the measuring instruments [7]. 75 second on the graph shown on figure 9 and 10.

20 5.1

19.5
5.05
19

18.5 5

Charging Current [A]

Input Voltage [V]

18
4.95
17.5

17 4.9

16.5
4.85
16

15.5
4.8
15 49.8 50 50.2 50.4 50.6 50.8 51
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 Time [s]
Time [s]

Fig. 9. Supercapacitor current at steep drop of the input

Fig. 7. Change of input voltage of the converter
voltage.
With the model are conducted various
The presented results on fig.9 and 10, show that the
investigations, most important of which is the regulator stabilizes good steep dropping and rising
verification of the referenced charging current at changes of the input voltage and for a short period
various disturbances of the load and input voltage. (below 0.6 seconds) restores the referenced current.
Initially it is reviewed the operation of the converter at
input voltage drop from 20V to 15V, which will take
place at t = 50s and again return to the initial value of 5.3

20V at 75s, as shown on figure 7. 5.25

5.2
6
5.15
Charging Current [A]

5.1
5
5.05

4 5
Charging Current [A]

4.95
3
4.9

4.85
2

4.8
74.5 75 75.5 76
1
Time [s]

0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 Fig.10. Supercapacitor current at steep rise of the input
Time [s]
voltage.
Fig. 8. Supercapacitor Current On the other hand the change of the charging current
On figure 8 can be observed the current through the at stabilization of the disturbance of the input voltage is
supercapacitor, which is approaching a value of 2A for under 1% with which are produced good results when
0.001 seconds. On the other hand we observe a current using classical and relatively simple methods for
automated regulation of the electronic converter.

978-1-5386-0582-0/17/$31.00 2017 IEEE 4 2017 40th International Spring Seminar on Electronics Technology (ISSE)
5. CONCLUSION
The paper presents a model of a DC-DC converter
for charging a supercapacitor, along with a system for
automated regulation. The model is verified with the aid
of an experimental test bench. The realization is made
with the environment for visual programming
MATLAB/Simulink. This way its used its main
advantage that it can be used for the education of
specialists, which do not possess mathematical
software skills, which is widely used for modeling
electronic devices.
The numerical computational experiments with the
model allow to conduct a precise tuning of the regulator
and to precisely determine its coefficients. This way can
be improved the quality of a real device which is using
the parameters determined with the aid of the model.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The carried out research is realized in the frames of
the project ''Model based design of power electronic
devices with guaranteed parameters'',
07/06/15.12.2016, Bulgarian National Scientific
Fund.
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