Advanced Single-Phase Onboard Chargers
with Small DC-Link Capacitors
Hoang Vu Nguyen and Dong-Choon Lee
Dept. of Electrical Engineering, Yeungnam University
Gyeongsan, Gyeongbuk, Korea
E-mail: nhvu20@gmail.com, dclee@yu.ac.kr
Abstract—In this paper, a single-phase non-isolated
onboard battery charger with small DC-link capacitors is
proposed, where the low-voltage battery charger is utilized as
an active power filter to reduce the inherent second-order
ripple power when the high-voltage (HV) battery is charged
from the grid. In this scheme, the large DC-link capacitor
banks of the HV battery charger can be eliminated without
additional switches, leading to the reduction of cost and volume
of the onboard battery charger. Also, this structure of EV
chargers has distinctive features of three different modes such
as grid-to-vehicle (G2V), vehicle-to-grid (V2G), and HV-to-LV
battery (H2L) modes. The simulation and experimental results
have verified the effectiveness of the proposed topology.
Keywords— Active power decoupling, electric vehicles (EVs),
on-board battery charger (OBC).
I. INTRODUCTION
The research on electric vehicles (EVs) worldwide has
been greatly increased due to the awareness of
environmental issues [1]. In plug-in EVs, the traction
batteries is charged by using the onboard battery charger
(OBC), which usually requires small volume and
lightweight [2]. The traction drives of the EV are supplied
from the HV battery. In the meanwhile, the EVs also have
an LV battery which provides power for lighting and
signaling circuits, entertainments, automatic seats, and other
electronic devices, which is charged from the HV battery. In
the HV battery charger, the two-stage system is preferred
since it can provide high power factor and ripple-less
charging current. In this scheme, an AC/DC power factor
correction (PFC) boost converter is usually combined with
either non-isolated or isolated DC/DC converter [3], [4].
Compared with the isolated chargers, non-isolated types can
achieve smaller size, lower cost and higher efficiency [5].
Furthermore, these non-isolated OBCs can satisfy SAE
J1772, which is the standard of the conductive charger for
EVs, since the high-voltage battery is floated from the body
ground of the vehicle [6]. Therefore, the OBC based on the
non-isolated type can be considered for plug-in EVs.
Recently, by using the wide band-gap devices, such as
silicon carbide (SiC) and Gallium Nitride (GaN), the passive
components of the OBCs are shrunk since the higher
switching frequency is possible [7]. Unfortunately, a critical
problem in the single-phase OBCs is that their AC
instantaneous power contains a fluctuating component that
changes at double the fundamental frequency. Traditionally,
the large capacitors are usually needed to filter out this
power ripple. However, since the electrolytic capacitors are
978-1-5386-6054-6/18/$31.00 ©2018 IEEE
not desirable in EV applications due to its short lifetime, it is
necessary to replace them with the reliable film capacitor.
Therefore, this becomes the barrier in term of power density.
A number of active power decoupling (APD) circuits have
been proposed to absorb the ripple power at the DC-link of
single-phase OBC so that the small film capacitors can be
used instead of bulky capacitor banks [8]–[14]. The main
idea is to use the external switching devices to divert the
ripple to another energy storage component of small size
and long lifetime. However, this requires more components,
which leads to increase the system complexity, cost, and
losses. Meanwhile, several multifunctional battery chargers
were introduced to reduce the component count, volume,
and weight of the battery charger [15]–[17]. However, the
second-order ripple power still exists, which means that the
bulky capacitor banks are still required in these topologies.
In [18] and [19], the integrated active filter power module
was introduced to reduce the overall size of the OBC.
However, the DC-link capacitor has not been reduced
effectively since the capacitor in active power decoupling
circuits does not discharge fully. Furthermore, these circuits
operate only in the unidirectional power flow.
In this paper, a non-isolated onboard battery charger for
EVs with small DC-link capacitors is proposed. When the
charger is operated in grid-to-vehicle (G2V) or vehicle-to-
grid (V2G) modes, the LV battery charging circuit functions
as an active filter to eliminate the second order ripple power
at the DC link. Therefore, the bulky capacitor banks can be
replaced by small film capacitors on the primary side of LV
charger. Since the LV battery charger and active power
decoupling circuit can operate by sharing the common
components, the reduction of the size and cost of the
onboard battery charger can be achieved without using
additional switching devices. The validity of the proposed
system is verified by the simulation and experimental results.
II. PROPOSED ONBOARD BATTERY CHARGERS WITH
HYBRID DC-DC CONVERTER
A. Configuration of the proposed OBC
The circuit configuration is shown in Fig. 1, in which the
hybrid DC-DC converter (HDC) can either operate as an LV
battery charger or function as an APD circuit. A similar
concept has been suggested in [20], in which the dual active
bridge DC-DC converter of the HV battery charger is used
to provide the isolation between HV battery and LV battery.
So, it is only acceptable for the two-stage battery charger.
 Full-bridge AC-DC Hybrid DC-DC Bidirectional Traction
bidirectional converter converter DC-DC converter battery
iHo

SW1 S1 S3 S5 + iLf Lf LHo

is Ls Cdc1
−
vc1 SW2 DC
a
vs CHo VHo
b APDF
+
S2 S4 S6 Cdc1 vc 2 DC
−

APDF: Active power decoupling function i pri

LVBC: Low voltage battery charger isec D1 D2 LLo I Lo

CLo VLo
G2V and V2G mode: SW1  ON , SW2  " a "
¾
H2L mode: SW1  OFF , SW2  " b "
¾ n :1 D3 D4

Low voltage
LVBC
battery

Fig. 1. Proposed onboard battery charger with hybrid DC-DC converter.

Also, the isolation between the LV battery and the DC link +

S1 S3 S7
is not provided. However, since the proposed HDC in this SW1 Ls
work is a part of the half-bridge DC-DC converter, the is
LHo iHo
vs Vdc
isolation and step-down ratio are provided by the existing
transformer of LV charger. This method is applicable is CHo High
voltage
applicable to other single-stage or two-stage HV battery S2 S4 S8 battery

−
chargers. The proposed HDC is composed of a symmetrical
half-bridge circuit for APD function and the isolated DC-
DC converter for LV charging circuit. The bidirectional DC- S5 vC1
Lf
C1
DC converter is used to connect the HV battery to the DC a

link. A relay, SW2, is used for switching between APD

function and LV battery charging. When the OBC is
operated in G2V or V2G mode, the DFC is used as an active S6
C2 vC 2

power filter to absorb the ripple power. While the EV is

running, the DFC is operated as an LV charging circuit
which charges the LV battery from the HV battery (H2L). It Fig. 2. Operation of HDC in G2V or V2G modes.
can be seen that the proposed HDC can operate by sharing
the components LV charging circuit and an active power
filter. Hence, by adding a small filter, the APD capability is
achieved without using additional switching devices, gate
drivers, and heat sinks.
B. Operating Principle of Proposed OBC
When the OBC is operated in G2V or V2G modes, the
HDC is implemented as APD circuit to absorb the ripple
power at the DC link. In this case, SW1 is ON, and SW2 is
connected to terminal “a” in Fig. 2. Then, the symmetrical
half-bridge circuit composed of two identical capacitors on
the primary side of LV charger, Cdc1 = Cdc2 = Cf, and a
small inductor, Lf, is operated as an active power filter. In
order to provide the double line-frequency ripple power, the
upper and lower capacitor voltages ( vc1 and vc 2 ) , which Fig. 3. Control of the proposed OBC in G2V and V2G modes. (a)
should be controlled to be sinusoidal with an offset value For AC-DC stage. (b) For DC-DC stage.
that equals to half the DC-link voltage (Vdc 2) , can be
where Vc is the amplitude of the capacitor voltages. φ is the
written as:
phase angle between the capacitor voltage vc1 ( t ) and the
 Vdc
 vc1 ( t ) = 2 + Vc sin(ωt + φ ) input voltage vs ( t ) , and ω is the angular frequency. The
 (1) capacitor current ic1 (t) and ic 2 (t ) can be derived as
v ( t ) = Vdc − V sin(ωt + φ )
 c 2 2
c
  ic1 ( t ) = ωC f Vc cos(ωt + φ )
 (2)
ic 2 ( t ) = −ωC f Vc cos(ωt + φ ).

The instantaneous power, pc ( t ) , provided by these two

capacitors is
pc (t ) = ic1 ( t ) vc1 ( t ) + ic 2 ( t ) vc 2 ( t )
(3)
= ωC f Vc2 sin(2ω t + 2φ ).
Also, the instantaneous power, pL f (t ) , of the filter
inductor L f is derived as
diL f ( t )
pL f (t ) = iL f ( t ) L f
dt (4)
= −2ω L f (ωVc C f ) 2 sin(2ωt + 2φ ).
Then, the total power pr (t ) provided by the APD circuit Fig. 4. Operation of HDC in H2L mode.
is expressed as

pr (t ) = ωC f Vc2 − 2ω L f (ωC f Vc ) sin(2ωt + 2φ )

 .
2
(5)

Similarly, by assuming that the charger operates at unity
power factor, the instantaneous input power, pin (t ) , of the
OBC taking into account that of the input inductor Ls can be
derived from the input voltage, vs (t ) = Vs sin (ωt ) and input
current is (t ) = I s sin ( ωt ) as

Vs I s Vs I s ω Ls I s2 Fig. 5. Control of the proposed OBC in H2L mode. (a) DC-

pin (t ) = − cos ( 2ωt ) + sin ( 2ωt ) (6) DC stage. (b) Hybrid DC-DC converter.
2 2 2
where Vs and I s are the peak values of the input voltage and absorb the ripple power in the DC link. Therefore, this
input current, respectively. ripple is mitigated by the PR controller. Then, the output of
this PR controller makes the reference for the inner current
From (5) and (6), it is possible to determine the capacitor control loop, where only a P gain is used. The buck-boost
voltages in (1) by converter is used for the bidirectional DC-DC converter,
2 where the battery charging current is controlled by the PI
 Vs I s   ω Ls I s 
2 2
+
 2   2  controller.
    (7)
Vc = , In the V2G mode, the bidirectional buck-boost converter
ωC f − 2ω L f (ωC f )
2
is operated in a boost mode to manage the discharging
current whose reference is calculated by dividing the
1  Vs  reference power by the voltage of the traction battery. In the
φ = arctan  − . (8)
2  ω Ls I s  meanwhile, the full-bridge AC-DC converter is operated as
an inverter to control the DC-link voltage and grid current,
Therefore, the voltage references of Cdc1 and Cdc2 can be in which the controllers are the same as those of Fig. 3(a)
determined by (7) and (8). Then, the APD function can be except that the polarities of the DC-link voltage and grid
achieved. However, it is not easy to know exactly the current are reversed.
system parameter. Instead, a closed-loop control is proposed
When the OBC is operated in H2L mode, the SW2 is
to avoid the effect of the uncertainties and disturbances of
connected to terminal “b” and the HDC operates as a half-
the system.
bridge isolated DC-DC converter to charge the LV batter, as
When the OBC is operated in G2V mode, the control shown in Fig. 4. In this mode, the DC-link voltage is
block diagram is shown in Fig. 3. Firstly, the full-bridge regulated by the bidirectional DC-DC converter, in which
AC-DC PWM converter is used to maintain the DC-link the PI controller is used, as shown in Fig. 5(a). Then, the
voltage and obtain the unity power factor operation. It can current and the voltage of the LV battery are controlled by
be seen from Fig. 3(a) that the proportional-resonant (PR) the isolated DC-DC converter, where the PI controller is
and the proportional-integral (PI) controllers are used to used, as shown in Fig. 5(b).
control the grid current and the DC-link voltage,
III. SIMULATION RESULTS
respectively. Fig. 3(b) and (c) show the control block
diagrams of APD circuit and the bidirectional DC-DC To verify the effectiveness of the proposed circuit, the
converter, respectively. The target of the APD circuit is to PSIM simulation has been carried out for a 3.3-kW system.
 iHo ∗
TABLE I. PARAMETERS OF PROPOSED OBC iHo

Parameters Value (a)

Traction battery 3.3 kW
LV battery 1 kW
DC-link voltage 350 V
Grid voltage 220-V RMS VHo
Cf 330 uF
Lf 1.5 mH (b)

Transformer turn ratio 15:1

Traction battery voltage 200-300 V
Time (s)
LV battery voltage 24 V
Fig. 7. Operation of DC-DC converter. (a) HV battery current.
Switching frequency 10 kHz (b) HV battery voltage.
Ls1, Ls2 1.5 mH
LHo 3 mH
CHo 100 uF (a)

LLo 150 uH
CLo 200 uF

(b)
(a)

vs Fig. 8. Comparison of DC-link voltages. (a) With 3,500 μF DC-

is link capacitor. (b) With active power decoupling.
(b)

*
20A/div 200V/div iHo iHo
(a)

vc1 vc 2
(c)

(b)

(d)

vs is
(c)
vc1 vc 2
Time (s)

20A/div 200V/div
Fig. 6. Operation of the proposed OBC in G2V mode. (a) DC-
link voltage. (b) Input current and voltage. (c) Capacitor
voltages. (d) Inductor current.

The system parameters are shown in Table I.
The operation of the proposed OBC in G2V mode is
shown in Fig. 6. In this mode, the HDC is used as the active
filter to eliminate the ripple power at the DC-link.
Therefore, the DC-link voltage is kept constant, where the
ripple is about 0.4% of the average value. The grid current is
controlled to be sinusoidal and the unity power factor
operation can be achieved, as shown in Fig. 6(b). The
capacitor voltage is shown in Fig. 6(c), which is well
controlled as the analytic results. The inductor current is
also kept to be sinusoidal, as shown in Fig, 6(d).
Fig. 7 shows the operation of the buck converter at a
constant charging current. The current is well regulated
(d)
Time (s)
Fig. 9. Operation of the proposed OBC in V2G mode. (a) HV
battery current (b) DC-link voltage. (c) Input current and
voltage. (d) Capacitor voltages. (e) Inductor current.
at 11A, as shown in Fig. 7(a). Fig. 7(b) shows the battery
voltage, where the voltage value is 300V.
Next, the control performance comparison of the DC-
link voltages for the conventional method with large
capacitors and the proposed HDC circuit is shown in
Fig. 8. In the conventional topology, a 3500-μF DC-
 Vdc Vdc*
(a) (a) 350

5V/div

is vs
*
iLo iLo (b) 0

(b)
100V/div
3A/div

(c)
0

vC1 vC 2 70V/div
(c)

(d) 0

T = 10ms/div

(d)
Fig. 11. Operation of the OBC in G2V mode. (a) DC-link
voltage. (b) Input current and voltage. (c) Capacitor voltages.
Time (s)
(d) Inductor current.

Fig. 10. Operation of OBC in H2L mode. (a) DC-link voltage.

(b) LV battery current. (c) Primary current of transformer. (d)
(a) 0
Secondary current of transformer. iHo iHo*
2A/div
link capacitor is needed to give the similar magnitude in
the DC-voltage ripple as that of in the proposed HDC
circuit. (b) 350

Fig. 9 shows the control performance of the proposed

10V/div
OBC in V2G mode. In this mode, since the DC-link T = 5s/div

voltage is higher than battery one, the buck-boost Fig. 12. Operation of the OBC at constant current charging. (a)
converter is implemented in the boost mode to control HV battery current. (b) DC-link voltage.
the battery current, as shown in Fig. 9(a). The HDC still
operates as the active filter to absorb the power ripple at iHo *
iHo
the DC-link, Therefor, the DC-link voltage is kept
almost constant, as shown in Fig. 9(b). Fig. 9(c) shows (a) 0

the grid current, which is controlled to be sinusoidal. 2A/div

The capacitor voltages and inductor current of the APD
circuit are shown in Fig. 9(d) and (e), respectively.
Fig. 10 shows the typical operating waveforms when (b) 350

the LV battery is charged from the HV battery. In this

5V/div
case, the buck-boost converter is used to control the DC-
link voltage, which is well controlled at 350 V, as shown
in Fig. 10(a). The HDC is implemented as the isolated (c) 0

DC-DC converter to control the LV battery current

which is well controlled at its reference, as shown in Fig. vC 2
1.5A/div
vC1
10(b),. The primary and secondary currents of the
transformer are shown in Fig. 10(c) and (d), (d) 0
respectively.
70V/div
IV. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS T = 10ms/div

The feasibility of the proposed OBC has been
demonstrated for a 1-kW prototype of the laboratory. The
system parameters are the same as in Table I. The main
controller is implemented with the DSP (TMS320F28335),
in which the Xilinx FPGA is used to generate the gating
signal of 10kHz.
At first, the operation of the proposed OBC in G2V mode
is shown in Fig. 11. The DC-link voltage is controlled well
at 350V, as shown in Fig. 11(a). The sinusoidal input
current and unity power factor operation are achieved, as
Fig. 13. Operation of the OBC in V2G mode. (a) HV battery
current. (b) DC-link voltage. (c) Input current and voltage. (d)
Capacitor voltages.
shown in Fig. 11(b). Fig. 11(c) and (d) show the capacitor
voltages and inductor current, respectively, which are
regulated to be sinusoidal as the analytic results.
Next, Fig. 12 shows the operation of the buck-boost
converter, where a constant reference is applied to control

(a)
2V/div
I Lo
(b)
I Lo*
6A/div
T = 500ms/div
Fig. 14. Control of battery charger in H2L mode). (a) DC-link
voltage. (b) LV battery current.
the HV battery. The HV battery charging current is shown
in Fig. 12(a), which is well regulated at its reference. In
addition, Fig. 12(b) shows the dynamic response of the DC-
link voltage when the charging current is changed in a step.
It can be seen that the DC-link voltage is kept below 5% of
the average value.
Fig. 13 shows the operation of the proposed OBC in V2G
mode. In this case, the DC-DC converter is operated in the
boost mode to control the battery current, as shown in Fig.
13(a). The HDC can still work effectively even though the
power flow is reversed. Therefore, the DC-link voltage is
kept constant, as shown in Fig. 13(b). The input current and
capacitor voltages are controlled to be sinusoidal, as shown
in Fig. 13(a) and (b), respectively.
When the proposed OBC is operated in H2L mode, the
DC-DC converter is implemented in boost mode to control
the DC-link voltage, as shown in Fig. 14. It can be seen that
the DC-link voltage is controlled at 350 V and the LV
battery current is well controlled at its reference.
V. CONCLUSIONS
In this paper, a dual functional circuit for the OBC has
been proposed, which can operate as not only an LV
charging circuit, but also an active power filter to absorb the
ripple power. The proposed circuit is composed of a
symmetrical half-bridge converter to operate as an active
power filter and the DC-DC converter to charge the LV
battery. Due to the APD function, the DC-link capacitance
can be reduced significantly. Therefore, the small film
capacitor can be used without adding additional switches,
heat sink, and the corresponding gated circuit. The
effectiveness of the proposed system has been verified by
the experimental results.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This research was supported by the National Research
Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant funded by the Korea
government (MSICT) (NRF-2017R1A2A2A05069629).
REFERENCES
[1] J. G. Pinto, V. Monteiro, H. Gonçalves, and J. L. Afonso, “Onboard
reconfigurable battery charger for electric vehicles with traction-to-
auxiliary mode,” IEEE Trans. Veh. Technol., vol. 63, no. 3, pp.
1104–1116, 2014.
[2] S. Haghbin, S. Lundmark, M. Alakula, and O. Carlson, “An isolated
high-power integrated charger in electrified-vehicle applications,”
350
IEEE Trans. Veh. Technol., vol. 60, no. 9, pp. 4115–4126, Nov.
2011.
[3] K. M. Yoo, K. D. Kim, and J. Y. Lee, “Single-and three-phase
PHEV onboard battery charger using small link capacitor,” IEEE
Trans. Ind. Electron., vol. 60, no. 8, pp. 3136–3144, 2013.
[4] S.-W. C. Choi, Y.-J. Kim, I.-O. Lee, and J.-Y. Lee, “An isolated PFC
0
converter with harmonic modulation technique for EV chargers,” J.
Power Electron., vol. 18, no. 2, pp. 383–394, Mar. 2018.
[5] C. Y. Oh, D. H. Kim, D. G. Woo, W. Y. Sung, Y. S. Kim, and B. K.
Lee, “A high-efficient nonisolated single-stage on-board battery
charger for electric vehicles,” IEEE Trans. Power Electron., vol. 28,
no. 12, pp. 5746–5757, 2013.
[6] D. H. Kim, M. J. Kim, and B. K. Lee, “An integrated battery charger
with high power density and efficiency for electric vehicles,” IEEE
Trans. Power Electron., vol. 32, no. 6, pp. 4553–4565, 2017.
[7] S. Jahdi, O. Alatise, C. Fisher, Li Ran, and P. Mawby, “An
Evaluation of Silicon Carbide Unipolar Technologies for Electric
Vehicle Drive-Trains,” IEEE J. Emerg. Sel. Top. Power Electron.,
vol. 2, no. 3, pp. 517–528, Sep. 2014.
[8] Y. Tang and F. Blaabjerg, “A component-minimized single-phase
active power decoupling circuit with reduced current stress to
semiconductor switches,” IEEE Trans. Power Electron., vol. 30, no.
6, pp. 2905–2910, 2015.
[9] Y. Tang, F. Blaabjerg, and P. C. Loh, “Decoupling of fluctuating
power in single-phase systems through a symmetrical half-bridge
circuit,” IEEE Trans. Power Electron., vol. 30, no. 4, pp. 1855–
1865, Mar. 2015.
[10] Y. Tang, Z. Qin, F. Blaabjerg, and P. C. Loh, “A dual voltage
control strategy for single-phase PWM converters with power
decoupling function,” IEEE Trans. Power Electron., vol. 30, no. 12,
pp. 7060–7071, Dec. 2015.
[11] Y. Sun, Y. Liu, M. Su, W. Xiong, and J. Yang, “Review of active
power decoupling topologies in single-phase systems,” IEEE Trans.
Power Electron., vol. 31, no. 7, pp. 4778–4794, Jul. 2016.
[12] R. Wang et al., “A high power density single-phase PWM rectifier
with active ripple energy storage,” IEEE Trans. Power Electron.,
vol. 26, no. 5, pp. 1430–1443, May 2011.
[13] M. Su, P. Pan, X. Long, Y. Sun, and J. Yang, “An active power-
decoupling method for single-phase AC-DC converters,” IEEE
Trans. Ind. Informatics, vol. 10, no. 1, pp. 461–468, Feb. 2014.
[14] H. V. Nguyen and D.-C. Lee, “Reducing the DC-link capacitance: A
bridgeless PFC boost rectifier that reduces the second-order power
ripple at the DC output,” IEEE Ind. Appl. Mag., vol. 24, no. 2, pp.
23–34, Mar. 2018.
[15] Y.-J. Lee, A. Khaligh, and A. Emadi, “Advanced integrated
bidirectional AC/DC and DC/DC converter for plug-in hybrid
electric vehicles,” IEEE Trans. Veh. Technol., vol. 58, no. 8, pp.
3970–3980, Oct. 2009.
[16] S. Dusmez and A. Khaligh, “A compact and integrated
multifunctional power electronic interface for plug-in electric
vehicles,” IEEE Trans. Power Electron., vol. 28, no. 12, pp. 5690–
5701, Dec. 2013.
[17] S. Kim and F. Kang, “Multi-functional on-board battery charger for
plug-in electric vehicles,” IEEE Trans. Ind. Electron., vol. 62, no. 6,
pp. 3460–3472, Jun. 2015.
[18] R. Hou and A. Emadi, “Applied integrated active filter auxiliary
power module for electrified vehicles with single-phase onboard
chargers,” IEEE Trans. Power Electron., vol. 32, no. 3, pp. 1860–
1871, Mar. 2017.
[19] R. Hou and A. Emadi, “A primary full-integrated active filter
auxiliary power module in electrified vehicles with single-phase
onboard chargers,” IEEE Trans. Power Electron., vol. 32, no. 11, pp.
8393–8405, 2017.
[20] H. V. Nguyen and D. Lee, “Single-Phase Multifunctional Onboard
Battery Chargers with Active Power Decoupling Capability,” in
Proc. IEEE Appl. Power Electron. Conf. Expo., 2018.