Because of the increasing emphasis on environmental concerns, there has been a growing demand for lower fuel consumption in modern transportation applications. To reduce fuel comsumption, higher efficiency, higher power density power converters are desired. The new generation of wide bandgap (WBG) power semiconductor devices pushs the switching frequency and output power of the electric system in transportation to a higher level thanks to their higher blocking voltage, higher operating frequency, and smaller parasitic elements. With benefits such as size reudcetion, costs saving, and reliability improvement, integration technologies have been widely adopted in power electronic systems, especially with the emergence of WBG semiconductor devices. These improvements will futher translate into reduced fuel consumption, extended operating range, and increased passenger compartment.

Transportation applications pose a challenging environment for converter integration. The fast switching speed and the high blocking voltage of WBG semiconductor devices also put forward higher requirements for converter integration. First, the power converters used in transportation applications are often powered from the batteries that support multiple loads. During load changes, crank, or jump-start, undesired transients exist, which requires the power converters to be capable of operating under a wide-input-voltage range. This requirement results in a very limited design region of acceptance, making the converter hard to handle uncertainties. However, the integration process might bring large uncertainties, such as material property changes. This phenomenon can degrade converter performance or even cause design failures. Besides, the power converters for transporation applications often work in harsh environment, such as high ambient temperature or low air density. The former can lead to overheated and the latter degrades insulation strength, both of which hinder high power density design. Moreover, with the advent of all kinds of portable devices, converters are required to deliver more power. The introduction of universal serial bus (USB) power delivery (PD) extends the delivered power. To meet the specification, the power converters should provide a wide-output-voltage range, which brings challenges to the converter design. Furthermore, the charger is usually fed by an ac voltage of more than 100 V, which is then stepped down to 5 V – 20 V. The high step-down ratio increases the converter loss.

To address the wide-input-voltage and high-temperature challenges, a dual-output, PCB-embedded transformer based active-clamp Flyback (ACF) gate-drive power supply (GDPS) for automotive applications is proposed. It has been demonstrated that the PCB-embedding technique effectively improves converter power density. The final prototype achieves a power density of 53.2 W/in3, a peak efficiency of 89.7 %, a transformer input-output capacitance of 9.7 pF, an input-voltage range of 9.9 V – 28 V, and a maximum operating temperature at low-line (LL) voltage of 105 °C and 115 °C at high-line (HL) voltage.

Yet the above unit failed to meet all of the design targets due to the material property degradation in transformer. This degradation is caused by the mechanical stress induced in the integration process. To investigate its impact on wide-input-voltage converter design, several PCB-embedded magnetic boards are fabricated with different core materials and stress levels. Based on the analysis, experimentally derived correction factors are proposed and applied to the models used in the multi-objective optimization (MDO) process. The improved design successfully achieves the targeted wide-input-votlage range.

When aircrafts climb during flight, air density reduces and the breakdown voltage decreases correspondingly. The insulation design becomes a challenge for the gate driver for SiC-based airborne applications. To provide sufficient insulation strength and achieve high power density simultaneously, a Paschen curve based insulation co-ordination is proposed. Electric-field control methodology is applied to the layout design. By properly designing the field control plates, the peak electric field has been shifted from the air to fr4 material that features much higher dielectric strength. The proposed gate driver attains a small size of 128.7 mm × 61.2 mm × 23.8 mm. Partial discharging tests are conducted in an altitude chamber. The experimental result shows that the proposed gate driver provides sufficient insulation strength at 50, 000 ft.

To tackle the wide-output-voltage range and high-step-down ratio challenges in the USB-C PD charger in airborne applications, a LLC converter with PCB-winding based transformer with built-in leakage inductance is presented. A flying-capacitor based voltage divider (FCVD) switching bridge is proposed to replace the conventional half-bridge or full-bridge switching bridge. The propsed FCVD shows a current reduction of over 50 % than the conventional half-bridge with the same circuit elements. The prototype achieves a high efficiency of 90.3 % to 93.2 % over 5 V to 20 V outputs, and a high power density of 73.2 W/ in³, which is almost two time larger than the state-of-the-art power density. Partial discharging tests are also conducted in an altitude chamber. A partial discharing inspection voltage of 800 V is found at 10, 000 ft, which is much higher than the requirement.