Smart DC Wall Outlet with Load Voltage Detection

A standard home in the United States has access to the 120V AC power for use with home appliances. However, many home electronics are powered by DC electricity. This introduces energy loss in the conversion process. A residential DC electrical system will avoid such conversion loss by storing energy in batteries and supplying it to DC appliances. Unfortunately, there is no existing voltage standards for DC appliances, which makes it challenging to power DC appliances straight from a DC wall outlet. The Smart DC Wall outlet addresses this by automatically adjusting its output voltage to meet any required DC load voltage. A solution involving low-voltage detection algorithm within a DC-DC converter is presented in this paper. The proposed solution monitors trends in the output current and sets the output voltage accordingly. Simulation tests resulted in identification of the required output voltage of five out of seven test devices. Results also indicate the possibility of generalizing the turn on characteristics of DC devices with more refined algorithm to improve successful voltage identification by the Smart Wall outlet.