Fault Detection in DC-DC Converter: A Solution Based on Kalman Filtering

Direct current to direct current (DC-DC) power converters are electronic components widely used in different contexts, ranging from automotive to biomedical wearable systems. Typically these components had been designed by mainly considering their energy efficiency. In the last years, the requirements for their stability and reliability has noticeably increased. For this reason, the availability of real-time monitoring system for detecting a possible degradation of electronic components in a power converter is gaining interest both in the industrial and also scientific community. In this context, we aim at proposing a preliminary on-line method which allows the detection of faults concerning the output filter capacitor of a buck converter. As here discussed, model-based methods that exploit the innovation signal provided by the Kalman filter seem to provide an interesting solution