A novel Single Switch High Gain dc-dc Converter
T. Porselvi
Research Scholar
Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering
Pondicherry Engineering College
Puducherry-605014, India
porselvicget@gmail.com
Abstract—Nowadays, many fields like renewable energy
systems, transportation, industrial, medical and others involves
the usage of high voltage gain dc-dc converters. This paper
proposes a new version of non-isolated dc-dc converter (one
switch) along with a high voltage transfer gain. Inspiration
from quadratic boost converter and gain cell concept, a high
gain dc-dc converter is proposed. This converter achieves
minimized input current stress due to continuous source
current. Notably, the new converter has the potential of
achieving a voltage gain of nearly 10 without using extreme
duty ratio. The proposed converter employs single switch,
which in turn makes the converter control less complex. The
operating principle, system analyses and design consideration
are discussed. The performance analysis ratified through
simulation results.
Keywords—High gain dc-dc converter, duty ratio, gain cell,
transfer function
I. INTRODUCTION
Lately, research to develop high gain dc-dc converters is
becoming prominent and finds applications in areas, like
uninterruptable power supply system, high intensity
discharge lamp ballast system, electric vehicles etc. In these
applications, the voltage gains need to be relatively high [1].
Furthermore, variation in environmental phenomena such as
global warming, climatic change etc., and depletion of
conventional energy sources propelled the necessity to
discover an appropriate solution to the problem [2].
Nowadays, power generation from green energy sources
such as solar photovoltaic and fuel cells has increased
dramatically because it is pollution free when compared to
fossil fuels. Undoubtedly, the green energy sources are low
voltage and high current energy sources, requires high step-
up converter to fulfill the load requirement, which will be
operated at high voltage. In general, dc-dc boost converter is
a prime choice for increasing the voltage gain. However,
there are certain constraints such as negligible switch off-
time, high-voltage stress of the switch, diode reverse
recovery problem, increase in input current ripple and low
conversion efficiency. These restrict the use of conventional
boost converters to realize such a high step-up gain [3].
These challenges have led to propose various isolated
and non-isolated high gain boosting converters in the
literature to acquire increased voltage gain in the last
decade. Depending on the field of application, isolated and
non-isolated converters are employed. Common types of
isolated dc-dc converters include fly-back, forward, half-
bridge, full-bridge and push-pull converters. In these
converters, it is possible to obtain high voltage gain by
tuning the turn ratio of the transformer. But, in turn the
above converters suffers from high voltage spikes across the
switches, losses when the converter frequency is too high
and hence, reduced efficiency [1,4,5,6]. This makes the
transformer-less converters a more attractive choice.
978-1-5386-4996-1/18/$31.00 ©2018 IEEE
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M. Arounassalame
Associate Professor
Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering
Pondicherry Engineering College
Puducherry-605014, India
arun@pec.edu
Hence, by employing dc-dc converters without
transformer can help boost the voltage gain for application
that do not require isolation. This offers an added advantage
of reduced size and cost [2,7]. As the simplest solution,
cascaded dc-dc converter offers high voltage gain but it
requires lot of components, which leads to complex and low
efficient circuit [8]. Interleaved techniques need at least two
switches and they are more suitable for higher power
applications rather than to increase the voltage gain [9].
Some converters utilize voltage multiplier cells to achieve
maximum voltage transfer gain and minimum voltage stress
across the switches, while high component count and
reduced life of series capacitor are the main shortcomings
[10,11]. Multilevel based high step up converters offers
absolute conversion ratio with less values of duty cycle and
more levels can be built in a modular way. However, current
stress at lower levels is high [12,13].
On the other-hand, switched capacitor based converter
can increase the voltage conversion ratio and decrease the
voltage stress but it causes high transient current across the
switch, which increases the conduction losses. Similarly,
switched inductor converters can amplify voltage gain but it
potentially increases the voltage stress [14-16]. Recently,
achieving high voltage gain without extreme high duty ratio
is made possible by increasing the turn’s ratio of the coupled
inductor. Topologies with dual and three winding coupled
inductors are proposed. But, the problem with the leakage
inductance is a major concern, needing additional voltage
clamping circuits [17,5]. Quadratic converters are single
switch cascaded type of converters in which the voltage gain
is the quadratic function of duty ratio. By integrating these
converters with multiplier cells, coupled inductor and diode
capacitor techniques can aid in achieving high voltage gain
[18-20]. Alternatively, by incorporating the gain cell
concept in the standard boost converter can also be used to
achieve high transfer gain [21].
This paper propounds a one-switch gain converter based
on quadratic boost converter. This converter uses gain cell
concept to achieve high voltage gain. The circuit description
of the proposed high gain converter and its operating
principle are given in Section II. Section III describes the
performance analysis and design elements of the proposed
converter. Simulation results of the proposed converter with
the different duty ratio are illustrated in the Section IV.
Concluding remarks is given in the section V.
II. HIGH GAIN DC-DC CONVERTER - SCHEME
A. Circuit Description
The proposed high gain dc-dc converter comprises an
active MOSFET switch and a resistive load R as shown in
Fig. 1.
 Fig. 1. Proposed high gain dc-dc converter.
Fig. 2. Proposed converter waveform illustration
The propounded converter comprises of a dc input
voltage source Vi, a single power switch S, inductors L1, L2
and L3, capacitors C1, C2 and C3, diodes D1, D2, D3, D4 and
D5, output diode Do, output capacitor Co and load R. The
proposed converter has four independent charging circuits,
thereby enhancing the voltage gain of the converter.

B. Operating Principle
Below given are the assumptions to be followed in the
analysis of the propounded converter.
• The switch and diodes are ideal.
• Power dissipation in the devices is negligible.
• The inductors are large enough without any ripple in
their current a zero.
• Owing to large size of capacitors the voltage across
capacitors are maintained constant.
The typical waveforms of the propounded converter are (a)
shown in Fig. 2 which depicts the operation of the converter.
The duty ratio is D, switching period is T = 1/fS, switching
frequency is fS. Here, the voltage and current injected at the
input are Vi and Iin, the voltage and current delivered at the
output are Vo and Io.
The proposed converter works in steady state with
Continuous Conduction Mode (CCM). In this continuous
mode, the inductor current flowing through the circuit never
falls to zero. There are two operating modes during one
switching period under Continuous Conduction Mode
(CCM). Fig. 3. depicts the equivalent circuits during DT –
MOSFET on period and (1-D)T – MOSFET off period and
the current flow paths for these two operating modes. The
operating modes are explained in detail as follows as:
Mode 1 [0 ≤ t ≤ DT]: During this mode 1 of operation, as
soon as the MOSFET switch S is turned on, the diodes D2,
D3, D4 and D5 are forward biased, whereas the diodes D1 and
Do are reverse biased as shown in the Fig. 3(a). The input
voltage source magnetizes L1 . The inductors L2, L3 and (b)
capacitors C2 , C3 are charged in parallel by the capacitor C1. Fig. 3. Equivalent circuits of the proposed converter
During this state the inductor magnetizing current iL1, iL2 and
iL3 starts increasing gradually with time. Since, the two (a) Mode 1 [0 ≤ t ≤ DT], (b) Mode 2 [DT≤ t ≤ T].
inductors L2 and L3 are charged in parallel by capacitor C1,
the currents in these two inductors are equal. The capacitor
Co is discharged through the load resistance.

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 There are six current flow paths in this mode and is By substituting (11) and (12) in (7), we get
shown in Fig. 3(a). The relevant equations can be written as
follows: VC1 (VC1 + VC2 − V1)
DT + (1 − D)T = 0
L2 L2
VL1 = Vi (1)
Vi (2 − D)
VL2 = VC1 (2) V1 = (13)
(1 − D)2
VL3 = VC1 (3)
For switch on period DT, the inductor current across L3
Mode 2 [DT≤ t ≤ T]: During this mode 2 of operation, as rises linearly with respect to VC1. For switch off period (1-
soon as the MOSFET switch S is turned off, the diodes D2, D)T, the inductor current across L3 drops linearly with
D3, D4 and D5 are reverse biased, whereas D1 and Do are respect to (VC3+V1 –Vo). The value of iL2 during on and off
forward biased. The inductors L1, L2 and L3 are demagnetized period are obtained from (3) and (6),
linearly. The capacitor C1 is charged from L1 through diode
D1. The inductors L2, L3 and capacitors C2, C3 release energy VC1
to load in series. By this action, the output voltage is lifted in ΔiL3_on = DT (14)
L3
order to achieve the desired voltage transfer gain. There are
two current flow paths in this mode Fig. 3(b). The (VC3 + V1 − Vo)
corresponding equations are expressed as follows: ΔiL3_off = (1 − D)T (15)
L2
VL1 = Vi − VC1 (4) By substituting (14) and (15) in (7), we get
VL2 = VC1 + VC2 − V1 (5) VC1 (VC3+ V1 − Vo)
DT + (1 − D)T = 0
VL3 = VC3 + V1 − Vo (6) L3 L3
Vi (3 − D)
Vo = (16)
III. PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS (1 − D) 2

A. Voltage Gain The voltage transfer gain is

Under steady state operating condition, the net change in
inductor current is zero for a given switching period. Vo (3 − D)
M= = (17)
ΔiL_on + ΔiL_off = 0 (7) Vi (1 − D) 2

For switch on period DT, the inductor current across L1 Where,

rises linearly with respect to the source voltage Vi. Similarly,
for the switch off period (1-D)T, the inductor current across M is the voltage gain of the proposed converter.
L1 drops linearly with respect to the voltage (Vi-VC1). The VC1, VC2, VC3 are the voltage across capacitor C1, C2 and C3
value of iL1 during on and off period are obtained from (1) respectively.
and (4), V1 is the reference node.
∆iL1, ∆iL2, ∆iL3 are ripple currents of the inductor L1, L2 and
Vi L3 respectively.
ΔiL1_on = DT (8)
L1
(Vi − VC1) B. Correlation between propounded and existing single
ΔiL1_off = (1 − D)T (9) switch high gain converters
L1
An analytical comparison is carried out in order to
By substituting (8) and (9) in (7), we get validate the performance of the propounded converter over
Vi (Vi − VC1) existing single switch step up converters. For analysis
DT + (1 − D)T = 0 purpose similar values of voltage (input and output) and
L1 L1 power (handled by all converters) are assumed. All the
Vi converters are assumed to be operated in CCM.
VC1 = (10)
(1 − D) The voltage transfer gain of the propounded converter
and other topologies are presented in the Table I. Fig. 4
For switch on period DT, the inductor current across L2 shows the graph of voltage gain against duty cycle for the
rises linearly with respect to VC1. Similarly, for the switch off voltage transfer ratio listed in the Table I.
period (1-D)T, the inductor current across L2 drops linearly
with respect to the voltage (VC1+VC2 -V1). Hence the value of From Fig. 4 we infer that the new converter offers high
iL2 during on and off period are obtained from (2) and (5), value of transfer gain for all values of duty cycle compared
with the existing converters in [22], [11] and quadratic boost
VC1 converter. And for D ≥ 0.5, the propounded converter offers
ΔiL2_on = DT (11) maximum voltage gain as compared to others. Hence, the
L2
proposed converter need not be operated with extreme duty
(VC1 + VC2 − V1) cycles.
ΔiL2_off = (1 − D)T (12)
L2

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 Io (1 − D)
Co = (23)
ΔVCo fs

TABLE II. PROPOSED HIGH GAIN CONVERTER PARAMETERS

Parameters Values
Input voltage (Vi) 12 V
Inductor )L1( 18 µH
Inductors (L2, L3) 72 µH
Capacitor (C1) 70 µF
Capacitor (C2) 230 µF
Capacitor (C3) 47 µF
Capacitor (Co) 470 µF
Load Resistor (R) 144 Ω
Switching frequency (fs) 50KHz

IV. SIMULATION RESULTS

The propounded converter circuit is simulated using
Fig. 4. Comparison of voltage gain against duty cycle
MATLAB/Simulink. The diodes and MOSFET chosen
includes practical condition in the simulation. Table II list
the circuit parameters used in the simulation. The simulation
TABLE I. SINGLE SWITCH HIGH GAIN CONVERTERS – VOLTAGE
GAIN CORRELATION results of the propounded high gain converter are shown in
Fig. 5 and 6.
Converter Type Voltage Transfer Gain (M)
(3 − D)
Proposed converter
(1 − D) 2
(3 + D)
Ultra-step Up [22]
(1 − D)
1
Quadratic Boost [19]
(1 − D) 2
Two multiplier cells with Boost 3
[11] (1 − D)
1
Conventional boost[3]
(1 − D)

C. Passive Elements Design (I)

Using the below given design formula, for any particular
specifications of the propounded converter, the passive
components can be designed. The parameters can be
designed based on the following equation: The relevant
equations can be written as follows:

Vi D (1 − D)2
L1 = (18)
2 Io fs
Vi D
L 2 = L3 = (19)
2 Io fs
Io D
C1 = (20)
(1 − D)ΔVC1 fs

Io D
C2 = (21)
ΔVC2 fs

Io D (II)
C3 = (22)
ΔVC3 fs Fig. 5 Simulation results (I): (a) Switching pulse, (b) Switch current (A), (c)
Switch voltage (V); (II): (a) Switching pulse, (b) Inductor current L1, (c)
Inductor current L2 and L3, (d) Voltage across Co.

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 Fig. 5 (I) shows the current flowing through the switch
during on period DT is 11A and the voltage across the switch
during off period (1-D) T is 85V. Fig. 5 (II) clearly depicts
that the current flowing through L2 and L3 are continuous and
remains constant throughout the switching period. Fig. 5 (II)
depicts that output voltage of capacitor is less than 0.5V
during charging and discharging period.
(I)
(II)
Fig. 6 Output voltage Vo for different duty ratio (I): (a) Switching pulse, for
D = 0.5, (b) Input voltage (V), (c) Output voltage (V); (II): (a) Switching
pulse, for D = 0.6, (b) Input voltage (V), (c) Output voltage (V).
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The performance of the proposed converter is
investigated under various duty cycle with input voltage of
12V and power of 100W. It is observed from Fig. 6 (I) that,
the input voltage got boosted to 106V when the duty ratio is
0.5. From fig. 6 (II), we can observe that as the duty ratio is
further increased to a value of 0.6, then the propounded
converter will enhance the voltage to 160V. The proposed
converter survives the best good choice for high output
voltage applications since it allows amplification of low
voltage source.
V. CONCLUSION
This paper a new version of non-isolated dc-dc converter
suitable for high voltage gain application was proposed.
This topology is derived based on quadratic boost converter
and gain cell concept. The proposed converter has benefits
such as continuous input current, single switch and higher
voltage gain. Thus, from circuit performance analysis and
simulation it is inferrred that the propounded converter
outperformances the existing high gain dc-dc converter
topologies. The simulation results analysis was done under
various duty ratio to validate the efficacy of the proposed
converter, for D ≥ 0.5, the higher gain is achieved. It is
observed that the theoretical analysis was confirmed by the
simulation results.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The author would like to thank the Department of
Science and Technology (DST) – INSPIRE Fellowship
scheme for the financial support.
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