9. Conclusion
This paper has briefly expounded the development history of power electronics (converters) and reviewed various converters used in the past and currently. Then, a qualitative analysis has been conducted to explain the problems of conventional converters, like shoot-through, open-circuit, and limited output-voltage/current gain, which greatly hinder wide applications of power electronics in industry. This analysis reveals, in turn, that the newly proposed impedance-source converters can overcome these problems, demonstrating great potential for industrial applications, especially in renewable energy systems.
A further analysis derives a set of criteria for designing impedancesource converters, which leads to a design methodology dealing with input- and output-impedance matching, and with load-phase matching. This overcomes the shortcomings of the traditional tedious, manual and experience-dependent design methods and eases the design of new converters. With this design methodology, a Z-source half-bridge converter for electroplating applications and a dual-output Z-source half-bridge converter for hybrid electric vehicles have been designed. It is expected that a variety of impedance-source converters will to be designed in the near future addressing the needs of specific industrial applications.
