High-Performance Electric Go-Kart

Abstract

This article presents a comparison between two-level and three-level bidirectional buck/boost converters, which are consolidated topologies and carry several relevant characteristics in automotive applications and thus brought to the choice of non-isolated converter, leading to minor electromagnetic interference, high efficiency, simplicity, lower size and less weight. This addresses the comparative analysis for a brief future implementation in a full-scale electric go-kart operating with an Axial-Flux Permanent Magnet Synchronous Machine with a 60kW peak power and 36kW continuous power. The main differences between the listed converters will be covered, highlighting a comparison in their efficiency characteristics and its implications. Furthermore, this analysis impacts ideal and real static gain, operational complexity and their association with supercapacitors to better take advantage of regenerative braking, as well as to provide an optimized converter design.