Adaptive online auto-tuning using Particle Swarm optimized PI controller with time-variant approach for high accuracy and speed in Dual Active Bridge converter

Electric vehicles (EVs) are an emerging technology that contribute to reducing air pollution. This paper presents the development of a 200 kW DC charger for the vehicle-to-grid (V2G) application. The bidirectional dual active bridge (DAB) converter was the preferred fit for a high-power DC-DC conversion due its attractive features such as high power density and bidirectional power flow. A particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm was used to online auto-tune the optimal proportional gain (KP) and integral gain (KI) value with minimized error voltage. Then, knowing that the controller with fixed gains have limitation in its response during dynamic change, the PSO was improved to allow re-tuning and update the new KP and KI upon step changes or disturbances through a time-variant approach. The proposed controller, online auto-tuned PI using PSO with re-tuning (OPSO-PI-RT) and one-time (OPSO-PI-OT) execution were compared under desired output voltage step changes and load step changes in terms of steady-state error and dynamic performance. The OPSO-PI-RT method was a superior controller with 98.16% accuracy and faster controller with 85.28 s-1 average speed compared to OPSO-PI-OT using controller hardware-in-the-loop (CHIL) approach. © 2023 The authors.