Digital twin based monitoring and control for DC-DC converters

• Published in: Nature communications 2023-09, Vol.14 (1), p.5604-11, Article 5604
• Main Authors: Lei, Zhongcheng, Zhou, Hong, Dai, Xiaoran, Hu, Wenshan, Liu, Guo-Ping
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: 639/166/987; 639/705/117; 706/703/559; Buck converters; Controllers; Digital twins; Electric vehicles; Humanities and Social Sciences; Monitoring; multidisciplinary; Renewable energy; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Synchronism; Synchronization; Voltage converters (DC to DC)
• ISSN: 2041-1723; 2041-1723
• DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-41248-z

The monitoring and control of DC-DC converters have become key issues since DC-DC converters are gradually playing increasingly crucial roles in power electronics applications such as electric vehicles and renewable energy systems. As an emerging and transforming technology, the digital twin, which is a dynamic virtual replica of a physical system, can potentially provide solutions for the monitoring and control of DC-DC converters. This work discusses the design and implementation of the digital twin DC-DC converter in detail. The key features of the physical and twin systems are outlined, and the control architecture is provided. To verify the effectiveness of the proposed digital twin method, four possible cases that may occur during the practical control scenarios of DC-DC converter applications are discussed. Simulations and experimental verification are conducted, showing that the digital twin can dynamically track the physical DC-DC converter, detect the failure of the physical controller and replace it in real time. In this work, authors explore DC-DC converter monitoring and control and demonstrate a generalizable digital twin based buck converter system that enables dynamic synchronization even under reference value changes, physical system model variation, and physical controller failure.