The Proportional-Values Modulation (PVM), a technique for improving efficiency and power density of bidirectional DAB converters

•Easy modulation rule for full elimination of reactive power throughout the bidirectional operating range of the DAB.•Reduction of the apparent power in the high-frequency transformer, the current stress in power semiconductors and reduction of the output capacitance.•Thorough analysis of state of the art.•Deep and comparative mathematical analysis.•An experimental prototype is built and exposed the comparative results.

This work introduces the Proportional-Values Modulation (PVM), an advanced technique for modulating DC-DC DAB converters. The relative advantages of this technique are: (i) Full elimination of reactive power throughout the bidirectional operating range of the DAB; (ii) reduction of the apparent power in the high-frequency transformer, HFT, while maintaining the harmonic distortion low, and (iii) the output capacitance is lower than the one obtained using Single-Phase-Shift Control (SPSC) and Dual-Phase-Shift Control (DPSC) methods, while the AC and DC current peaks are not incremented.This set of advantages increases the overall technical efficiency and power density flow of the converter. As additional characteristics of interest, the technique uses a single feedback PI loop and no complex control rules are implemented. Both features increase the computational efficiency of the PVM above other proposals.