Triple Active Bridge Modeling and Decoupling Control

The increased penetration of power electronics interfaced resources in modern power systems is unlocking new opportunities and challenges. New concepts like multiport converters can further enhance the efficiency and power density of power electronics-based solutions. The triple active bridge is an isolated multiport converter with soft switching and high voltage gain that can integrate different sources, storage, and loads, or act as a building block for modular systems. However, the triple active bridge suffers from power flow cross-coupling, which affects its dynamic performance if it is not removed or mitigated. Unlike the extensive literature on two-port power converters, studies on modeling and control comparison for multiport converters are still lacking. Therefore, this paper presents and compares different modeling and decoupling control approaches applied to the triple active bridge converter, highlighting their benefits and limitations. The converter operation and modulation are introduced, and modeling and control strategies based on the single phase shift power flow control are detailed. The switching model, generalized full-order average model, and the reduced-order model derivations are presented thoroughly, and a comparison reveals that first harmonic approximations can be detrimental when modeling the triple active bridge. Furthermore, the model accuracy is highly sensitive to the operating point, showing that the generalized average model better represents some dynamics than the lossless reduced-order model. Furthermore, three decoupling control strategies are derived aiming to mitigate cross-coupling effects to ensure decoupled power flow and improve system stability. To assess their performance, the TAB converter is subjected to power and voltage disturbances and parameter uncertainty. A comprehensive comparison reveals that linear PI controllers with an inverse decoupling matrix can effectively control the TAB but exhibit large settling time and voltage deviations due to persistent cross-coupling. Furthermore, the decoupling matrix is highly sensitive to inaccuracies in the converter’s model parameters. In contrast, linear active disturbance rejection control and sliding mode control based on a linear extended state observer achieve rapid stabilization, demonstrating strong decoupling capability under disturbances. Furthermore, both control strategies demonstrate robust performance under parameter uncertainty.