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International Conference on Advanced Power Engineering 2013

A Bidirectional Z-source Inverter for

Solar Powered Electric Cars
Bensiker Raja Singh D. #, R. Suja Mani Malar *
# Assistant Professor, Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering,
DMI engineering College, Tamil Nadu, India.
* Professor and Head, Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering,
CAPE Institute of Technology, Tamil Nadu, India.

Abstract- A wide majority of the electric cars use dc drives. When

compared to dc drives, ac drives are more compact and lighter. In this
paper, a novel power converter for electric cars is proposed. The
battery of the car is charged by a solar panel conventionally. The
proposed converter has an impedance source inverter (Z-source
inverter) which drives an ac motor, and performs as a current-fed Zsource dc-dc converter against reverse power flow. Thus, the proposed
circuit does not need a bi-directional buck-boost dc-dc converter. The
operation of the proposed converter was simulated by MATLAB
SIMULINK and verified the feasibility of its implementation.
Keywords - Z-source inverter; bi-directional; electric car.

I. INTRODUCTION
From the view point of the environmental issues, Electric
Vehicles (EV) are strongly expected to be put into practical use [1].
For EVs, power converters are needed to control the drive motors.
The power converter is composed of an inverter to make a boosted
ac voltage for a motor from a dc voltage of a battery, and a buck
dc-dc converter to charge the battery during reverse power flowing
[2]. A Z-source inverter is a kind of inverter invented by F. Z. Peng
[3]. By using shoot-through switching, the Z-source inverter can
boost the output voltage without a boost converter. However a dcdc converter is needed to accept a reverse power flow and to reduce
the regenerative voltage to a battery voltage. The Z-source inverter
includes a Z-network which is an X-shaped combination of two
capacitors and two inductors. On the other hand, a current-fed Zsource dc-dc converter, which is shown in Fig. 3, has been also
proposed [4]. The current-fed Z-source dc-dc converter performs as
a buck converter when the duty ratio is over 50%, and as a polarity
reversed buck-boost converter when the duty ratio is under 50%.

shows a carrier waveform es, reference waveforms eA, eB, eC,

shoot-through lines e1, e2, and driving waveforms S1~S6. In the
case that es is higher than e1 and es is lower than e2, all driving
waveforms S1~S6 are high. In this time, inverter legs are in short
circuited state called shoot-through. The Z-source inverter takes
two states which are the shoot-through state and the inverter drive
state. The two equivalent circuits of the Z-source inverter are
shown in Fig 4. In shoot-through state, double capacitor voltage
2VC impresses the circuit. Therefore, the Z-source inverter can
boost the output voltage. The voltage gain of the Z-source inverter
can be expressed as:

^x
V

V
M
X I
2 M 1 2

...(1)

^x is the output peak phase voltage (x = A, B, or C),

where V
M is the modulation index, and VI is the input voltage [3].

Fig. 1. Z-source inverter.

The operational principle of a conventional Z-source inverter, a

current-fed Z-source dc-dc converter and the proposed circuit are
described in section II. Experimental circuits and results of the
proposed circuit in the case of Z-source inverter mode and currentfed Z-source dc-dc converter mode are described in section III.

International Conference on Advanced Power Engineering 2013

Fig. 2. Current-fed Z-source dc-dc converter.

II. A CONVENTIONAL Z-SOURCE INVERTER

A conventional Z-source inverter is shown in Fig. 1 and the
switching scheme of the Z-source inverter is shown in Fig. 3. Fig. 3

A. A current-fed Z-source dc-dc converter

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A current-fed Z-source dc-dc converter is shown in Fig. 2. A
current-fed Z-source dc-dc converter comprises of an
Znetwork. The switch SA and SC are driven by pulse width
modulation (PWM). The current-fed Z-source dc-dc converter is
divided into two states which are S A:ON, SC:OFF and SA:OFF,
SC:ON. The equivalent circuits of the current-fed Z-source dc-dc
converter are shown in Fig. 5. The voltage gain of the current-fed
Z-source dc-dc converter can be expressed as:

V1=

2 D1
X
D

VG

... (2)

where VG is the input voltage, D is the duty ratio of S A, and VI is

the output voltage. Equation (2) implies that the current-fed Zsource converter performs as a buck converter when the duty ratio
is over 0.5, and as a polarity reversed buck-boost converter when
the duty ratio is under 0.5. When the duty ratio is 0.5, the output
voltage unlimitedly approaches zero [4].
III. A BI-DIRECTIONAL Z-SOURCE INVERTER FOR

ELECTRIC

VEHICLES

This paper proposes a novel Z-source inverter for Electric Cars.

The battery of the car is being charged from a solar panel
conventionally. The proposed system is shown in Fig. 6. The
proposed circuit has one Z-network which works as a Z-source
inverter in the case of driving a 3-phase motor and as a current-fed
Z-source dc-dc converter in the case of reverse power flow.
Therefore the proposed circuit does not need an external
bidirectional buck-boost dc-dc converter compared with
conventional power converters for electric vehicles.
Fig. 7 shows a bi-directional Z-source inverter for electric vehicles.
Compared to the conventional Z-source inverter shown in Fig. 2,
the input diode DA in Fig. 2 is replaced to a bidirectional switch
composed of two IGBTs SA, SB and two diodes DA, DB in Fig. 6.
A smoothing capacitor C0 is set in parallel to the battery VI. Also a
switch SC with an antiparallel diode DC is placed between the Z
network and the 3-phase bridge.

Fig. 3. Switching scheme of a Z-source inverter.

Fig. 4. Equivalent circuits of a Z-source inverter,

(a) inverter drive state, (b) shoot-through state.

Fig. 5. Equivalent circuits of a current-fed Z-source dc-dc converter,

(a)SA:ON, SC:OFF, (b)SA:OFF, SC:OFF.

Fig. 6 Proposed System

Fig. 8(a) shows an equivalent circuit when the proposed

converter performs as a Z-source inverter loaded with a 3-phase
motor. Fig. 8(b) shows an equivalent circuit when the proposed
converter performs as a current-fed Z-source dc-dc converter which
charges the battery by the reverse current flow from the 3-phase
motor.
In the case of the Z-source inverter mode (Fig. 8(a)), the state of
switches is SA:OFF, SB:ON, SC:OFF, and the state of diodes is

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63

DA:active, DB:OFF DC:OFF, where the active state of DA means DA

works as an input diode of Z-source inverter.

Fig. 7. A bi-directional Z-source inverter for electric vehicles.

A proposed circuit was built and tested in the cases of the Zsource inverter mode and the current-fed Z-source dc-dc converter
mode. The proposed circuit was simulated by MATLAB
SIMULINK. Simulation circuit is shown in Fig. 9. The designed
value of the circuit elements, inductors L1 = L2 = 1[mH],
capacitors C1 = C2 = 147[F], and C0 = 100[F], switching
frequency = 30[kHz] were given. MOSFETs were used for the
switches in the simulation circuit. The internal diode forward
voltage = 2.5[V] of the MOSFET was set in the simulation. The
forward voltage = 0.5[V] of the diode was set in the simulation.
In the Z-source inverter mode, a voltage source V I = 10[V], and
the modulation index M = 0.8 were given. Maximum boost control
[5] was used. The voltage gain of the maximum boost control can
be expressed as:

^x =
V

3 3 M X
M

VI
2

............. (3)

^x is the output peak phase voltage (x = a, b, or c)

Where V
The inverter was loaded with a 3-phase RLC network instead of a 3
phase motor, where the resistances R A = RB = RC = 100[], the
inductors LA = LB = LC = 1[mH], and the capacitors CA = CB = CC =
0.47[F]. In the simulation, the solver ode14x was used with the
fixed time step of the sampling time 4e-9[s].
In the current-fed Z-source dc-dc converter mode, a dc voltage
source VG = 15[V] with a series inductor LG = 1[mH] was used
instead of the motor. In the simulation a dc voltage source V I =
10[V] was used with a series resistance 0.7[]. The capacitor C 0
was used with a series resistance 0.1[]. The duty ratio D = 0.8
was given for the switch SA and the duty ratio D = 0.2 was given
for the switch SC. In the simulation experiment, the solver ode14x
was used with the fixed time step of the sampling time 4e-9[s].
Fig. 8. Equivalent circuits when the proposed converter performs as, (a)
Z-source inverter, and (b) current-fed Z-source dc-dc converter.

The 3-phase bridge is driven by PWM driving signals including

the shoot-through switching states. In the case of the current-fed Zsource dc-dc converter mode (Fig. 8(b)), the state of switches is
SA:active, SB:OFF, SC:active, and the state of the diodes is
DA:active DB:active DC:active. SA and SC are driven by PWM, and
the diodes block the current according to the switching states of SA
and SB.
Assuming that the 3-phasemotor performs as a current source
during reverse power flow, the 3-phase bridge performs as a 3phase full bridge rectifier composed of the diodes D1-D6. The
reverse current is fed to the Z-network. In the case of the currentfed Z-source dc-dc converter mode, when the charge voltage is
lower than the battery voltage, the unintended current flows from
the battery to the motor. To prevent the unintended current flow, the
switch SB maintains OFF state. Therefore, if the charge voltage is
lower than the battery voltage, the unintended current prevented by
the diode DB.
III. SIMULATION RESULTS

International Conference on Advanced Power Engineering 2013

Fig. 9. Simulation circuits, (a) Z-source inverter mode, and
(b)current-fed Z-source dc-dc converter mode.

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Fig. 10 shows the simulated waveforms of the output voltages
VA, VB, and VC and the inverter bus voltage vdc in Z-source
inverter mode. The output frequency was 1.00[kHz] and the
theoretical value of the output voltage was 24.75[V]. From the
simulated waveforms, it was confirmed that the proposed circuit
operated following the theory.

Fig. 11. Simulated waveforms of the driving waveforms vGSA for SA and vGSC for SC,
and the current II in current-fed Z-source dc-dc converter mode, (a)driving
waveform of SA, vertical: 0.5[V/div], (b)driving waveform of SC, vertical:
0.5[V/div], and (c) charging current waveform, vertical: 0.02[A/div], horizontal:
10[ s/div]

the battery VI in the case of reverse power flow. Fig. 12 shows the
FFT analysis of the output of the inverter and which is found to be
12.9%.
Fig. 10. Simulated waveforms of the output voltages vA, vB, and vC and the inverter
bus voltage vdc in Z-source inverter mode,
vertical: 10[V/div], horizontal: 500[ s].

IV. CONCLUSION
This paper has presented a bi-directional Z-source inverter for
electric vehicles. The proposed inverter has a Z-source inverter
which drives an ac motor, and performs as a current-fed Z-source
dc-dc converter against reverse power flow. The operation of the
proposed converter was confirmed by the simulation.
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Fig. 12 FFT Analysis (THD=12.9%)

Fig. 11 shows the simulated waveforms of the driving

waveforms VGSA for SA and VGSC for SC, and the current II in
current-fed Z-source dc-dc converter mode. From the simulated
waveforms, the input current decreases when SA is ON and S C is
OFF. On the other hand, the input current increases when S A is
OFF, and SC is ON. The average input current II = -0.84[A] means
that the proposed circuit charged

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