Multilevel DC/DC converter design for mobile applications

This paper compares different cascaded and multilevel topologies for bidirectional in current two quadrant DC/DC converters for regenerative braking systems using supercapacitors in mobile applications. The paper shows that the multilevel buck derived topology can beneficiate from both reduced voltage across the inductor and increased frequency to reduce the inductance, even if there is a need for an input LC filter to reduce harmonic content in supercapacitors.