A fault-tolerant DC-DC buck converter with zero interruption time for autonomous vehicles

Document Type : Research Article

Authors

1 Department of ECE, Global Academy of Technology, Bengaluru, India.

2 Department of ECE, SJB Institute of Technology, Bengaluru, India.

10.24200/sci.2023.61387.7283

Abstract

A high-end autonomous vehicle is expected to have at least a hundred different electronic subsystems. Each one of them takes power from the battery through a Power Management Unit (PMU). Having an efficient PMU is crucial and is expected to supply the required level of uninterrupted power. PMU consists of several buck converters that translate a higher voltage level to the required lower voltage levels. A PMU is more reliable if it consists of efficient and well-structured voltage converters. In this paper, a fault-tolerant buck converter is designed that outputs 3.3 V. A simple yet effective technique is proposed to design a fault-tolerant buck DC-DC converter by bypassing the faulty converter leg. The proposed system employs a signal-processing-based method for fault detection. The secondary converter is activated only upon the confirmed prognosis of a faulty primary converter. Ripple content in the output Aluminum Electrolytic Capacitor (AEC) voltage is monitored and used as a primary health indicator for the converter. An experimental setup is built and tested in the laboratory. Experimental results indicate a smooth transition from the primary converter to the secondary converter, demonstrating an uninterrupted power supply and the simplicity and effectiveness of the proposed solution.

Keywords

Main Subjects


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Volume 32, Issue 15
Transactions on Computer Science & Engineering and Electrical Engineering
July and August 2025 Article ID:7283
  • Receive Date: 03 November 2022
  • Revise Date: 01 August 2023
  • Accept Date: 09 October 2023