Switched-capacitor converters (SCCs) are subset of switched-mode converters which can be designed to buck/boost the input voltage. However, synthesizing SCC has been a challenging task due to the large number of possible circuit realizations. This work proposes a synthesis method for constructing an efficient reconfigurable SCC that adheres to the Fibonacci canonical structure. The optimization is achieved by operating the converter with the minimum number of capacitors required to achieve a certain voltage conversion ratio (VCR). Indeed, decreasing the number of flying capacitors minimizes the equivalent output resistance of the converter which improves the converter performance, like the settling time and the power conversion efficiency (PCE). Moreover, by analyzing the differences between each VCR terminal, the number of switches required to create a unique VCR is also decreased. The performance of the proposed synthesis tool is verified using SPICE simulations for 4-stage reconfigurable SCC. The simulated converter efficiency ranges from 85% to 95% for a 50mA load tested at 1 MHz switching frequency, compared to 43.5% to 86% using the conventional method. The performance of the converter is compared with recent reconfigruable SCCs in the literature.

Photovoltaic (PV) systems are gaining popularity as a source of sustainable energy, however, undiscovered faults within these systems may cause significant efficiency reduction. Localizing these faults to the module level is important for a quick fault diagnosis and maintaining the overall system efficiency. This paper presents a new method for localizing line-to-line, line-toground, inter-string, partial shading, and open-circuit faults in an N by M PV array down to the module level. The approach utilizes a single voltage sensor and ⌈N/2⌉ switches to control the connected PV modules. The technique initially relies on identifying the faulty string, and once this string is determined, the voltage associated with each module in that string is found. Each module voltage in that string is obtained by measuring the string voltage after bypassing each module corresponding to an activated switch. Subsequently, the resulting linear equations are solved to obtain the voltage of each module in that faulty string. The technique is verfied using simulation, and expiremental setup for a 5 by 4 small-size PV system. Experimental and simulation results demonstrate that the technique can accurately localize faulty modules with only N voltage samples of the faulty string.