US 11,799,371 B2
Automotive power converter with rail-powered clamping circuitry
Yantao Song, Northville, MI (US); Baoming Ge, Okemos, MI (US); Lihua Chen, Farmington Hills, MI (US); Fan Xu, Novi, MI (US); and Serdar Hakki Yonak, Ann Arbor, MI (US)
Assigned to Ford Global Technologies, LLC, Dearborn, MI (US)
Filed by Ford Global Technologies, LLC, Dearborn, MI (US)
Filed on Aug. 21, 2019, as Appl. No. 16/547,284.
Prior Publication US 2021/0057978 A1, Feb. 25, 2021
Int. Cl. H02P 27/06 (2006.01); H02M 1/08 (2006.01); H02M 7/5387 (2007.01); B60L 15/04 (2006.01); B60L 50/50 (2019.01); H02M 3/158 (2006.01)
CPC H02M 1/08 (2013.01) [B60L 15/04 (2013.01); B60L 50/50 (2019.02); H02M 7/53871 (2013.01); H02P 27/06 (2013.01); B60L 2210/10 (2013.01); B60L 2210/40 (2013.01); H02M 3/158 (2013.01)] 17 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. An electric drive system comprising:
an electric machine;
a traction battery; and
a power converter configured to transfer power between the electric machine and traction battery, and including a pair of series connected switches defining a phase leg, a pair of gate driver circuits configured to respectively provide power to gates of the series connected switches, a DC-link capacitor in parallel with the phase leg, a positive DC rail electrically connecting the DC-link capacitor and phase leg, and a clamping circuit directly connected to the positive DC rail and including a clamping switch, wherein the clamping circuit is configured to, responsive to one of the gate driver circuits being de-energized, activate the clamping switch with energy from the positive DC rail to clamp a gate of one of the series connected switches associated with the one of the gate driver circuits to another terminal of the one of the series connected switches to prevent the one of the series connected switches from achieving an ON state.