Magnetic flux density bias analysis and suppression strategy for voltage‐fed single‐stage full‐bridge converter

Power transformer in the voltage‐fed single‐stage full‐bridge (SSFB) converter is easy to be saturated because of the special operating mode of this topology. First and foremost, detailed analysis about the generation mechanism of the transformer saturation in the voltage‐fed SSFB converter is presented for the first time in this paper. Second, the mathematical expression of the maximum value of magnetic flux density bias (MFDB) during every line cycle is deduced. Furthermore, a novel suppressing strategy, consisted of the digital compensating algorithm and design considerations, is proposed based on the theoretical analysis and mathematical expression. The MFDB can be eliminated and additional circuits are not needed with the proposed strategy. Finally, a 1 kW prototype with the voltage‐fed SSFB topology is built to verify the effect of the proposed approach. The voltage‐second imbalance is reduced to less than 1% using the proposed suppression strategy compared with 14% when the strategy is not used. Consequently, the system reliability and the efficiency are improved. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A novel single‐stage AC–DC converter with quasi‐resonant zero‐voltage‐switching for high power factor and high efficient applications

A new single‐stage‐isolated ac–dc converter that can guarantee both high efficiency and high power factor is proposed. It is based on a new dc–dc topology that has prominent conversion ratio similar to that of boost topology so that it is adequate to deal with the universal ac input. In addition, since it utilizes the transformer more than others based on the general flyback topology, the size of whole power system can be reduced due to the reduced transformer. Moreover, the voltage stresses on the secondary rectifiers can be clamped to the output voltage by adopting the capacitive output filter and clamp diode, and the turn‐off loss in the main switch can be reduced by utilizing the resonance. Furthermore, since this converter operates at the boundary conduction mode, the line input current can be shaped as the waveform of a line voltage automatically and the quasi‐resonant zero‐voltage switching can be obtained. Consequently, it features higher efficiency, lower voltage stress, and smaller sized transformer than other topologies. A 100 W prototype has been built and tested as the validation of the proposed topology. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A single‐stage integrated bridgeless AC/DC converter for electrolytic capacitor‐less LED lighting applications

In this paper, a single‐stage integrated bridgeless AC/DC converter is proposed. As compared to its counterpart that is composed of totem‐pole boost power factor correction (PFC) cascade fly‐back DC/DC converter, the studied circuit has less components number while overcoming the limits of the totem‐pole type. Thus, it is suitable to the low‐power LED lighting applications. Furthermore, when both PFC inductors L_b and magmatic inductance L_m of the transformer TR1 operate at discontinuous current mode, the bus voltage v_CB can be used to decouple the ac input and constant dc output power. Thus, the approach of increasing bus voltage ripple is employed to eliminate electrolytic capacitors and obtain long operation lifetime. Additionally, it is able to be compatible with our studied twin‐bus configuration for increasing the overall efficiency. A 50‐W hardware prototype has been designed, fabricated, and tested in the laboratory to verify the proposed converter validity. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A single‐stage high power‐factor bridgeless AC‐LED driver for lighting applications

An alternating‐current light‐emitting diode (AC‐LED) driver is implemented between the grid and lamp to eliminate the disadvantages of a directly grid‐tied AC‐LED lamp. In order to highlight the benefits of AC‐LED technology, a single‐stage converter with few components is adopted. A high power‐factor single‐stage bridgeless AC/AC converter is proposed with higher efficiency, greater power factor, less harmonics to pass IEC 61000‐3‐2 class C, and better regulation of output current. The brightness and flicker frequency issues caused by a low‐frequency sinusoidal input are surpassed by the implementation of a high‐frequency square‐wave output current. In addition, the characteristics of the proposed circuit are discussed and analyzed in order to design the AC‐LED driver. Finally, some simulation and experimental results are shown to verify this proposed scheme. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Optimal control of a single‐phase H‐bridge DC–AC inverter

The control of switched power converters has been mostly accomplished using pulse width modulation (PWM). Under this type of control, it has been shown in literature that DC–AC current mode single‐phase inverter may exhibit chaotic behavior if the proportional controller of the PWM modulator is badly tuned. In this work, we present a novel method to control the inverter using an optimal control approach. Our method consists in defining the switching instances in order to achieve the reference current with minimum error. To illustrate the efficiency of our proposed method, numerical simulations and comparison with the proportional and integral controller as well as to the proportional and resonant controller are presented. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Modeling of phase‐shifted full‐bridge ZVS converter based on a new expression of effective duty ratio

This paper presents a simple but precise model of phase‐shifted full bridge zero‐voltage switching (PSFB ZVS) converter by introducing an effective duty ratio. The resonant states of PSFB ZVS converter are fully considered in the derivation of effective duty ratio, which results in a model with high precision. According to the proposed model, the output voltage of PSFB ZVS converter is not determined by duty ratio but by the phase shift, which is different from traditional models, and is verified by simulation and experiment. © 2015 Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Current sensorless control for half‐bridge based AC/DC PFC converter with consideration of conduction losses

The focus of this paper is on a simple half‐bridge converter that performs power factor correction (PFC) using current sensorless control. Current sensors increase cost, auxiliary power required, conduction losses, and volume of the PFC converter. Moreover, measurement of high frequency current is demanding, especially in cost‐sensitive applications. The PFC converter proposed combines simple half‐bridge topology and improved current sensorless‐control algorithm that takes into account conduction losses. These losses influence volt‐second balance in the input inductor and result in distorted grid current shape. Their effect is especially evident in half‐bridge converter, where input inductor operates with high voltage swing. The current sensorless control method proposed compensates this influence and allows achieving sinusoidal current shape. First, the phenomenon of current distortion was shown with numerical simulation in PSIM package. Experimental prototype rated for 350 W power was built to verify theoretical and simulation results. Experimental results are in good agreement with those obtained with simulation and theoretically. The PFC converter proposed features low cost of realization and can be used in consumer equipment for connection to the grid. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An improved single‐stage Flyback PFC converter for high‐luminance lighting LED lamps

This paper presents a high‐performance LED lamp driver with an improved single‐stage Flyback configuration. A constant current control method is used to regulate the lamp current and brightness. A laboratory prototype has been built and tested. With the prototype, high efficiency, high power factor, and constant lamp current can be achieved under different pieces of LED series connection. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

High‐power‐factor single‐switch AC to DC converter for LED lighting

In this paper, we report a novel single‐switch AC to DC step‐down converter suitable for light emitting diodes. The proposed topology has a buck and a buck–boost converter. The circuit is designed to operate in the discontinuous conduction mode in order to improve the power factor. In this topology, a part of the input power is connected to the load directly. This feature of the proposed topology increases the efficiency of power conversion, improves the input power factor, produces less voltage stress on intermediate stages, and reduces the output voltage in the absence of a step‐down transformer. The theoretical analysis, design procedure, and performance of the proposed converter are verified by simulation and experiment. A 36 V, 60 W prototype has been built to demonstrate the merits of this circuit. © 2017 Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

A half‐bridge resonant DC/DC converter with satisfactory soft‐switching characteristics

In this paper, a half‐bridge resonant DC/DC converter with constant output voltage is proposed, which possesses good soft‐switching characteristics. At rated operating point, the switches can operate almost without switching‐on and off losses. Further, at whole working range, both zero‐voltage‐switching mode of switches and zero‐current‐switching mode of diodes are maintained. Thus, the converter can achieve a high efficiency. Experimental results verify the low switching losses and high efficiency characteristics based on a 200 W prototype. System efficiency is as high as 96% and always above 90% when output power changes from 100% to 20%. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A switch‐utilization‐improved switched‐inductor switched‐capacitor converter with adapting stage number

A novel closed‐loop switched‐inductor switched‐capacitor converter (SISCC) is proposed by using the pulse‐width‐modulation (PWM) compensation for the step‐up DC–DC conversion/regulation, and together by combining the adaptive‐stage‐number (ASN), control for the higher switch utilization and wider supply voltage range. The power part of SISCC is composed of two cascaded sub‐circuits, including (i) a serial‐parallel switched‐capacitor circuit with n_c pumping capacitors and (ii) a switched‐inductor booster with m_c resonant capacitors, so as to obtain the high step‐up gain of (n_c + 1) × m_c /(1 ? D) at most, where D is the duty cycle of PWM adopted to enhance output regulation as well as robustness to source/loading variation. Besides, the ASN control is presented with adapting the stage number n (n = 0, 1, 2, …, n_c) of pumping capacitors to obtain a flexible gain of (n + 1) × m_c /(1 ? D), and further in order to make the SISCC operating at a properly small duty cycle for improving switch utilization and/or supply voltage range. Some theoretical analysis and control design include formulation, steady‐state analysis, ASN‐based conversion ratio, efficiency, output ripple, stability, inductance and capacitance selection, and control design. Finally, the performance of this scheme is verified experimentally on an ASN‐based SISCC prototype, and all results are illustrated to show the efficacy of this scheme. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Harmonic balance‐based control of a boost DC/AC converter

The achievement of step‐up inversion with a boost DC/AC converter requires appropriate periodic references for inductor currents, which have to satisfy ordinary differential equations (ODE) of the Abel type. These are equations with highly unstable solutions for which the existence of periodic solutions remains unproved. Hence, the studies reported so far in this subject obtain periodic output voltages that approximately track the expected profile using different periodic current references that do not exactly satisfy the Abel ODE. However, neither an explanation of why are periodic output voltages still obtained, nor an assessment of the output voltage error is provided. This paper analyzes the effect of using periodic current references in a Lyapunov‐based controlled boost DC/AC converter performing step‐up inversion tasks. It is shown that, for sufficiently accurate current references, the system exhibits asymptotically stable periodic solutions with bounded error. Moreover, the paper propounds the use of Harmonic Balance (HB)‐based techniques to obtain such current references. Simulation and experimental results confirm that this choice yields periodic output voltages with an error that may be lowered using higher HB approximations. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Fast‐scale bifurcation in single‐stage PFC power supplies operating with DCM boost stage and CCM forward stage

This paper describes the fast‐scale bifurcation phenomena of a single‐stage single‐switch power‐factor‐correction (PFC) regulator comprising a boost stage operating in discontinuous conduction mode (DCM) and a forward stage operating in continuous conduction mode (CCM). The two stages combine into a single stage by sharing one main switch and one control loop. Using ‘exact’ cycle‐by‐cycle computer simulations, the effects of various circuit parameters on fast‐scale instabilities are studied. The results are qualitatively verified by experimental measurements. This work provides a clear picture of how the variation of certain practical parameters can render such a circuit fast‐scale unstable. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A gain/efficiency‐enhanced bidirectional switched‐capacitor DC‐DC converter

A closed‐loop gain/efficiency‐enhanced bidirectional switched‐capacitor converter (BSCC) is proposed by combining an adaptive‐conversion‐ratio (ACR) phase generator and pulse‐width‐modulation (PWM) controller for bidirectional step‐up/down DC‐DC conversion and regulation. For realizing gain‐enhanced, the power part consists of one m_c‐stage cell and one n_c‐stage cell in cascade between low‐voltage (LV) and high‐voltage (HV) sides to boost HV voltage into m_c × n_c times voltage of LV source at most, or convert LV voltage into 1/(m_c × n_c) times voltage of HV source at most. For realizing efficiency‐enhanced, the ACR idea with adapting stage number m, n is built in the phase generator to obtain a suitable step‐up/down gain: m × n or 1/(m × n) (m = 1, 2, …, m_c, n = 1, 2, …, n_c). Further, the output regulation and robustness to source/loading variation can be enhanced by PWM on the LV/HV sides. Some theoretical analysis and control design are included as: modeling, steady‐state analysis, conversion ratio, efficiency, capacitance selection, and control design. Finally, the performance of this scheme is verified experimentally on a BSCC prototype, and all results are illustrated to show the efficacy of this scheme. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A soft‐switching high step‐up DC‐DC converter with a single magnetic component

A soft‐switching high step‐up DC‐DC converter with a single magnetic component is presented in this paper. The proposed converter can provide high voltage gain with a relatively low turn ratio of a transformer. Voltage doubler structure is selected for the output stage. Due to this structure, the voltage gain can be increased, and the voltage stresses of output diodes are clamped as the output voltage. Moreover, the output diode currents are controlled by a leakage inductance of a transformer, and the reverse‐recovery loss of the output diodes is significantly reduced. Two power switches in the proposed converter can operate with soft‐switching due to the reflected secondary current. The voltages across the power switches are confined to the clamping capacitor voltage. Steady‐state analysis, simulation, and experimental results for the proposed converter are presented to validate the feasibility and the performance of the proposed converter. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A systematic approach to designing a wide‐current range,MOS capacitor‐based switched‐capacitor DC‐DC converter with an augmenting LDO

Switched‐capacitor DC‐DC converters (SC DC‐DC) are analyzed for loss sources, voltage regulation integrity, start‐up latency, and ripple size, while the trade‐offs between these metrics are derived. These analyses are used to design a SC DC‐DC that achieves high efficiency in a wide load current range. Four‐way interleaving was employed to reduce the output ripple and efficiency loss due to this ripple. The design can be reconfigured to achieve gains of 1/3 and 2/5 for inputs ranging between 1.4 and 3.6 V to generate output voltage range of 0.4 to 1.27 V and can supply peak load current of 22 mA. It uses thin‐oxide MOS capacitors for their high density and achieves 75.4% peak efficiency with an input frequency of 100 MHz and a load capacitor of 10 nF. An augmenting LDO that only regulates during sudden load transients helps the converter respond fast to these transients. The chip was implemented using a 65‐nm standard CMOS process.     

A power decoupling control method for an isolated single‐phase AC‐to‐DC converter based on a high‐frequency cycloconverter

This paper proposes a new power decoupling method for a high‐frequency cycloconverter which converts the single‐phase line‐frequency ac input to the high‐frequency ac output directly. The cycloconverter consists of two half‐bridge inverters, two input filter capacitors, and a series‐resonant circuit. The proposed power decoupling method stores the input power ripple at double the line frequency in the filter capacitors. Therefore, the proposed method achieves a unity power factor in ac input and a constant current amplitude in the high‐frequency output without any additional switching device or energy storage element. This paper theoretically discusses the principle and operating performance of the proposed power decoupling method, and the viability is confirmed by using an experimental isolated ac‐to‐dc converter based on the high‐frequency cycloconverter. As a result, the proposed power decoupling method effectively improved the displacement power factor in the line current to more than 0.99 and reduced the output voltage ripple to 4% without any electrolytic capacitor.     

DC voltage control and harmonic current suppression in a single‐phase PFC converter

This paper presents a DC voltage control scheme for a single‐phase PFC converter which can realize both the harmonic suppression of the input current and the fast dynamic response to the DC voltage. Instead of using a constant DC voltage reference, the controller calculates a fluctuating DC voltage reference, having the frequency at twice the source frequency. In the calculation of the DC voltage reference, the circuit parameters are used. Since the parameter errors may cause an error in the DC voltage reference, parameter identification is also described. The effectiveness of the proposed control algorithm has been verified experimentally. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 141(1): 54–64, 2002; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www.interscience.wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/eej.10060     

Pulse current regenerative resonant snubber‐assisted two‐switch flyback‐type ZVS PWM DC‐DC converter

In this paper, a two‐switch high‐frequency flyback transformer‐type zero voltage soft‐switching PWM DC‐DC converter using IGBTs is proposed. Effective applications for this power converter can be found in auxiliary power supplies of rolling stock transportation and electric vehicles. This power converter is basically composed of two active power switches and a flyback high‐frequency transformer. In addition to these, two passive lossless snubbers with power regeneration loops for energy recovery, consisting of a three‐winding auxiliary high‐frequency transformer, auxiliary capacitors and diodes are introduced to achieve zero voltage soft switching from light to full load conditions. Furthermore, this power converter has some advantages such as low cost circuit configuration, simple control scheme, and high efficiency. Its operating principle is described and to determine circuit parameters, some practical design considerations are discussed. The effectiveness of the proposed power converter is evaluated and compared with the hard switching PWM DC‐DC converter from an experimental point of view, and the comparative electromagnetic conduction and radiation noise characteristics of both DC‐DC power converter circuits are also depicted. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 152(3): 74–81, 2005; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www.interscience.wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/eej.20081