Due to limitations of low power density, high cost, heavy weight, etc., the development and application of battery-powered devices are facing with unprecedented technical challenges. As a novel pattern of energization, the wireless power transfer (WPT) offers a band new way to the energy acquisition for electric-driven devices, thus alleviating the over-dependence on the battery. This paper presents an overview of WPT techniques with emphasis on working mechanisms, technical challenges, metamaterials, and classical applications. Focusing on WPT systems, this paper elaborates on current major research topics and discusses about future development trends. This novel energy transmission mechanism shows significant meanings on the pervasive application of renewable energies in our daily life.

The development of high-frequency power converters is continuously improving their power density, efficiency and fast dynamic response. Among them, high-voltage-conversion-ratio (HVCR) dc–dc converters are widely used in high gain, i.e., step-up/-down or bidirectional applications, such as power supply for data center, dc micro-grids, electrical vehicle charging systems, etc. In this article, the current main high-frequency HVCR dc–dc converters are classified into inductive-based and capacitive-based approaches, which can then be described further by four kinds in detail, namely transformer-based, coupled-inductor-based, and switched-capacitor-based, as well as combination of coupled inductor and switched capacitor. A comprehensive analysis and comparison is given, which can provide guidance for proper topology selection and further topology optimization.

This paper presents an investigation and a comprehensive analysis on fault operations in a conventional three-phase voltage source inverter. After an introductory section dealing with power converter reliability and fault analysis issues in power electronics, a generalized switching function accounting for both healthy and faulty conditions and an easy and feasible method to embed fault diagnosis and reconfiguration within the control algorithm are introduced. The proposed system has simple and compact implementation. Experimental results operating both at open- and closed-loop current control, obtained using a test bench realized using a dSPACE system and the fault-tolerant inverter prototype demonstrate that the proposed solution is effective and feasible and makes all faults easily managed by the controller itself.

This paper proposes a new multilevel inverter (MLI) topology that utilizes trinary sequence for the dc sources. It gives maximum output voltage level with minimum dc source and switch count when compared to other sequences such as symmetric, natural, binary and quasi-linear. This is due to the fact that the trinary sequence generates of all additive and subtractive combinations of input dc levels in the output voltage waveform. The concept is implemented on a 9-level asymmetric MLI using only four active devices. Multicarrier unipolar pulse width modulation technique is adopted to create the switching pulses. Theoretical calculation of total harmonic distortion in both voltage and current waveforms has been performed using asymptotic time domain formula. These values are compared with simulation and experimental values for different modulation indices. Power loss calculation for proposed topology is discussed with appropriate mathematical equations.

In this paper, a non-isolated three-port DC-DC converter with high voltage conversion ratio is proposed. In the proposed converter, by changing the place of input voltage source between each of the three ports, three different single-input two-output operation modes are achieved. The input current ripple of the proposed converter is eliminated at the low voltage side for the whole range of duty cycles. The voltage conversion ratios of the proposed converter can be increased by increasing the turns ratio of second winding of coupled inductors. Moreover, the proposed converter has achieved proper output voltage regulations for all output ports, simultaneously. The proposed converter can be utilized in the renewable energy conversion systems such as in photovoltaic and fuel cells. In this study, the voltage conversion ratios of the output ports, the voltage stress on switches, the average currents of switches and inductors and the required condition for cancelling input current ripple at low voltage side are calculated theoretically. The theoretical results are verified and experimental results for 24 V input voltage and 304 V, 240 V output voltages with 400 W power are extracted for two different operation modes.

We consider the tracking control problem for a class of stochastic nonlinear systems in strict-feedback structure via output feedback signal in this paper. The controlled plant is assumed subject to unknown dead-zone input. By Utilizing the fact that the unknown dead-zone input function can be modeled as a time-varying nonlinear function and a bounded disturbance, and selecting appropriate design parameters, we show that the effect of unknown dead-zone can be compensated. We design a fuzzy state observer via fuzzy logic modelling technique, to estimate the unknown system states. Then, we prove, via Lyapunov stability analysis, that the controlled plant is bounded in probability. In addition, all the signals in the closed-loop system are guaranteed to be globally bounded in probability. The tracking errors are also ensured to converge to a small neighborhood of the origin. Finally, to show the effectiveness of the proposed control strategy, a simulation example of one-link manipulator is presented in the simulation section.