A New Soft‐Switching Structure for Buck‐Boost Converter

ABSTRACT

In this paper, a new soft‐switching structure for a buck‐boost converter based on pulse width modulation (PWM) is proposed. The proposed structure introduces a simplified soft‐switching approach for buck‐boost converters that achieve zero voltage switching (ZVS) for main switches using only a single auxiliary switch composed of minimal components. Unlike conventional methods that require complex snubber networks or multiple auxiliary elements, the proposed design ensures ZVS‐ZCS operation for all semiconductor elements, significantly reducing switching and reverse recovery losses. Furthermore, its ground‐referenced input and output facilitate practical implementation and system integration. The theoretical analysis is done for the proposed converter during this paper, and its voltage gain is calculated. Also, its duty cycle and switching conditions under zero voltage are determined. Then, design considerations are presented for the proposed converter. Finally, the extensive hardware‐in‐the‐loop (HiL) simulations are carried out for the studied converter to validate the usefulness of the proposed approach under various load conditions. Moreover, experimental results obtained from a laboratory prototype are presented to further validate the theoretical and simulation findings. The prototype achieves an output voltage of 16.5 V and peak efficiency of 97.4% at full load.