Flying Capacitor Multilevel Converters for Space Power Management

The overarching objective of this Phase I and potential Phase II/IIE efforts is to investigate, develop, and fabricate a scalable, radiation tolerant, high reliability, highly energy dense, energy solution to cislunar/Mars mission equipment needs for high efficiency power distribution. The program will develop and demonstrate a new power conversion architecture that is ultracompact (with 50-70% size reduction compared to present designs), very high efficiency, and that meets the emerging needs of Cislunar and Deep Space exploration of power management from high voltage sourced mains bus power. During Phase I we will focus on the development of an electrical architecture utilizing both state-of-the-art in digital control and switched mode power electronics by combining known Gallium Nitride MOSFET technology with a robust FPGA-based control. The new Multi-level derived power architecture is specifically aimed at converter needs for Gateway and surface Kilopower mission requirements but may be viewed as a fundamental building block for a wider range of power conversion topologies. Example applications range from DC-DC down conversion, fly-back and boost conversion for DC-DC step up applications, true-sine inverters, variable frequency drives, and even high frequency switching amplifiers.nbsp; The Phase I program will exit with comprehensive modeling and simulation translated into demonstration hardware at the 0.5 ndash; 1 KW that shows the large SWaP advantages this new approach introduces for mid-high power cislunar orbit/surface high voltage sourced power management.