Voltage sense method and circuit which alleviate reverse current flow of current bi-directional converters

Abstract

The Voltage Sense Method is introduced and a number of its implementations using Voltage Sense Circuit are demonstrated to solve problems associated with the start-up of parallel switching converters, each converter having output synchronous rectifiers or more general Current Bi-directional Switches: prevention of the excessive reverse current, elimination of the excess voltage stress of the input switches and elimination of the voltage overshoot in the common output voltage. The Voltage Sense circuit added to each converter generates a Simulated Output Voltage, which predicts how would the output voltage of each particular unit rise during the start-up with enabled synchronous rectifiers if that particular unit were to operate alone. When the simulated output voltage of one converter reaches the actual common output voltage, synchronous rectifiers/CBS switches of that particular converter are all enabled so that their body-diodes, used up until that time to prevent reverse current flow, are by-passed eliminating all start-up problems. The introduced Voltage Sense Method and a number of its Voltage Sense Circuitries are also applicable to solve problems associated with the start-up of the current bi-directional converters with a battery load.