U-Heart is a new concept of multi-port isolated DC-DC converter developed to bring optimum availability with minimum redundancy. It is beneficial in sectors where outage and maintenance costs are high, but still with concerns regarding the system installation cost: datacentres, more electrical aircraft, grid-connection of renewable energy generators, etc. As an isolated multi-port converter, U-Heart can furthermore be used to connect several power networks with minimum loss. It can for instance be used to interface energy storage (batteries, super-capacitors), the main grid, renewable energy sources (wind generator), etc.
U-Heart is a reconfigurable multicellular. When a fault is picked-up in one of the cells, said cell is excluded from the power transfer and the rest of the reconfigured converter resumes operating, at a slightly decreased power rating. Various disconnection techniques have been investigated to meet specific application needs. In fields where keeping all cells operating is required, an improved technique was developed: by self-healing, the converter can keep operating at full power.
U-Heart is therefore truly an Unbreakable-Highly Efficient and Reliable Transformer.
