This article presents the design of a cryogenic power electronics converter using wide bandgap (WBG) devices. A 20-kVA two-level current source inverter (2L-CSI) is designed and validated under both room temperature (RT) and cryogenic temperature (CT) of 77 K. CSI has been neglected because of the physically large and heavy dc-link inductor compared to the dc-link capacitor of voltage source inverters (VSIs). However, higher power, together with operation at CT in fully electric aircrafts (FEAs), makes them superior in size, volume, and power quality. The advantage in volume is primarily attributed to the utilization of air-core inductors with superconducting tapes as dc-link storage elements. Therefore, a 2L-CSI with both power stage and associated components at CT is designed and evaluated. As part of converter development, commercially off-the-shelf (COTS) products, including integrated circuits (ICs), isolated auxiliary power supplies, and passive components, were utilized. Numerous laboratory prototypes of cryogenic subsystems were built to screen out the cryocompatible components. Based on components screening, converter subsystems, namely, the gate driver (GD) board and the double-pulse test (DPT) platform, were also developed. Characterization of these subsystems was performed both at RT and CT, where both individual testing and integrated testing were carried out.

中文翻译：

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用于全电动飞机的 20kVA 全低温两级 GaN 电流源逆变器的设计和验证


本文介绍了使用宽带隙 (WBG) 器件的低温电力电子转换器的设计。 20 kVA 两电平电流源逆变器 (2L-CSI) 在室温 (RT) 和 77 K 低温 (CT) 下进行设计和验证。CSI 由于物理上又大又重的直流链路而被忽略电感器与电压源逆变器 (VSI) 的直流母线电容器相比。然而，更高的功率以及全电动飞机 (FEA) 中 CT 的运行，使其在尺寸、体积和电能质量方面具有优越性。体积上的优势主要归因于使用带有超导带的空芯电感器作为直流链路存储元件。因此，设计并评估了具有功率级和 CT 相关组件的 2L-CSI。作为转换器开发的一部分，使用了商用现货 (COTS) 产品，包括集成电路 (IC)、隔离式辅助电源和无源元件。建造了许多低温子系统的实验室原型来筛选低温兼容组件。基于组件筛选，还开发了转换器子系统，即栅极驱动器（GD）板和双脉冲测试（DPT）平台。这些子系统的表征是在 RT 和 CT 上进行的，其中进行了单独测试和集成测试。