Small-signal analysis of a low-cost power control for LCC series-parallel inverters with resonant current mode control for HID lamps

In this paper, a low-cost power control for LCC series-parallel inverters with resonant current mode control for high intensity discharge (HID) lamps is presented. These resonant inverters require controlling the power supplied to the lamp in order to avoid exceeding the maximum lamp power recommended by the lamp manufacturer. The classical control method measures the lamp voltage and current and they are multiplied analogically, obtaining the lamp power consumption measure. This control circuitry results very complex due to the lamp voltage and current wide variations range during ignition and discharge processes. Assuming a regulated input dc voltage (bus voltage) provided by the power factor correction (PFC) pre-regulator and an inverter constant efficiency along the lamp aging, the lamp power consumption may be estimated and regulated properly measuring the inverter average input current. Also, the small-signal analysis performed allows obtaining the small-signal resonant inverter input impedance and studying the connection stability between PFC pre-regulator and inverter. The inverter small-signal analysis has been performed and an electronic ballast prototype for 250-W HPS lamps has been implemented and tested verifying the low-cost lamp power control method proposed.     

Design optimization of the LCC parallel-series inverter with resonant current mode controlfor 250-W HPS lamp ballast

In this paper, the optimum design of the LCC parallel-series inverter with resonant current mode control for 250-W high pressure sodium vapor lamps is presented. With this control method the inverter does not have any reactive energy, and both switching and conduction losses are minimized. Also, the design proposed performs a precise natural power control without exceeding the maximum power recommended by the lamp manufacturer without additional lamp power control circuitry. Since it is desirable implementing a low-cost and efficient power factor correction (PFC) stage for meeting the standard IEC 61000-3-2 Class C about low-frequency harmonic content injected in the line for lighting applications, a low-cost PFC buck pre-regulator is proposed. The ignition process is optimized because no additional circuitry is necessary for the lamp ignition providing low ignition inverter current. The design proposed leads to an important size and cost reduction, avoiding the additional circuitry used in the classic designs. Simulations and experimental results have validated the design proposed in this paper.     

Digital Control of a Low-Frequency Square-Wave Electronic Ballast With Resonant Ignition

This paper proposes a two-stage low-frequency square-wave (LFSW) electronic ballast with digital control. The first stage of the ballast is a power factor correction (PFC) stage, and the second is a full-bridge (FB) converter used for both lamp ignition and LFSW drive. As a novelty for LFSW ballasts, ignition is achieved without an additional igniter circuit by operating the FB during start-up as a high-frequency resonant inverter. After ignition, the converter operates as an LFSW inverter to avoid exciting acoustic resonances by controlling the FB as a buck converter and regulating alternately positive or negative current to the lamp. Lamp power is regulated by adjusting the average current supplied by the PFC stage. Another contribution of this paper is to utilize digital control as a simple solution to achieve multimode control, including resonant lamp ignition, LFSW transitions, and lamp current and power regulation.      

Improving crest factor of electronic ballast-fed fluorescent lampcurrent using pulse frequency modulation

In case where electronic ballast employing a valley-fill passive power-factor correction (PFC) circuit is used for feeding fluorescent tamps, a new method to reduce crest factor of the lamp current is studied in this paper. It is known that a 50% valley-fill passive PFC provided for high input power factor results in undesirable value of crest factor of the fluorescent lamp current, In order to reduce crest factor to a lower value, a pulse frequency modulation technique based on the waveform of the DC-link voltage which is predetermined by the passive PFC circuit is taken into the switching control action of the electronic ballast. An equation-based analysis between the crest factor of lamp current and the effect of varying the inverter switching frequency is comprehensively performed. Several simulation and experiment results illustrate the Effectiveness of the proposed control scheme     

A lamp power control scheme for dimmable electronic ballasts to minimize the temperature effect on the lamp brightness

A hybrid lamp power control scheme for dimmable electronic ballasts is proposed. Apart from adjusting the brightness of the lamp, the proposed method can also minimize the ambient temperature effect on light output. Instead of regulating the lamp current, the proposed method is based on regulating the power supplying the lamp. First, the dimming operation is achieved by regulating the dc voltage at the ballast inverter input. Second, variation of the lamp power (due to the temperature effect) is regulated by sensing the inverter average input current to adjust the switching frequency of the inverter. An 18 W prototype has been built and tested. The lamp power and luminous output of the prototype at the ambient temperature from 5/spl deg/C to 35/spl deg/C have been studied.     

Contributions to the design and control of LCsCp resonant inverters to drive high-power HPS lamps

This paper presents the design criteria for full-bridge series-parallel (LC_sC_p) resonant inverters suitable for driving high-power high-intensity discharge lamps. By using the properties derived from the transfer functions of the inverter, a soft startup method is proposed. The lamp ignition is carried out maintaining the voltage and current variables below prefixed peak values, with the addition of no extra components to the power stage for this purpose. In steady-state operation, the proposed control minimizes the reactive voltamperes in the resonant tank. Moreover, the variation of the power delivered to the lamp, caused by the lamp aging, is limited in order to fulfil the standard. This design provides cost-effective circuits, simplifying the DC-AC power stage of an electronic ballast. The experimental results are given for high-pressure sodium lamps of the Sylvania SHP250W type     

Single-stage electronic ballast with high-power factor

This article proposes a single-stage electronic ballast circuit with high-power factor. The proposed circuit was derived by sharing the switches of the power factor correction (PFC) and the half-bridge LCC resonant inverter. This integration of switches forms the proposed single-stage electronic ballast, which provides an almost unity power factor and a ripple-free input current by using a coupled inductor without increasing the voltage stress. In addition, it realises zero-voltage-switching (ZVS) by employing the self-oscillation technique. The saturable transformer constituting the self-oscillating drive limits the lamp current and dominates the switching frequency of the ballast. Therefore, the proposed single-stage ballast has the advantage of high-power factor, high efficiency, low cost and high reliability. Steady-state analysis of the PFC and the half-bridge LCC resonant inverter are described. The results of experiments performed using a 30 W fluorescent lamp are also presented to confirm the performance of the proposed ballast.     

DC voltage sensorless single-phase PFC converter

We propose a simple DC voltage sensorless single phase PFC converter by detecting an AC line voltage waveform. Both DC voltage and AC current sensors used in the conventional PFC converter are not required to construct the control system. The conventional converter circuit with a boost chopper circuit in the DC side from a rectifier circuit is used as the main PFC converter circuit. In the control system, the circuit parameters such as a series inductance L and equivalent load resistance value R/sub d/ are used to generate the sinusoidal current waveform. The DC voltage is directly controlled by the command input signal k/sub d/(=E/sub d//E/sub a/) for the boost chopper circuit. The DC voltage regulation is small because of the feed forward control for the AC line voltage E/sub a/ and no dependence of the circuit parameters. The sinusoidal current waveform in phase with the AC line voltage can be obtained. The feasibility of the proposed control system is verified by some simulation and experimental results.     

部分有源PFC技术的理论分析与实验研究

变频空调的前级AC/DC功率电路一般采用完全有源功率因数校正（PFC）方案,能够带来非常好的校正效果。但是由于传统BOOST完全有源PFC方案得到的直流电压较高,使得功率器件的开关应力较大,系统效率较低,不利于大功率应用。鉴于此提出了一种结合有源PFC技术和无源PFC技术、并采用双端脉冲控制策略的Buck型的部分有源PFC方案。在理论分析这种部分PFC原理的情况下,进行了仿真验证,最后进行了具体实现。该方案适用于输出电压要求为Buck型、功率较高、对EMI要求较高的PFC应用场合,尤其适用于大功率的PFC应用场合,具有很好的应用价值。     

A Novel Constant Power Control Circuit for HID Electronic Ballast

This paper presents a constant power control circuit for a three-stage high-intensity discharge (HID) electronic ballast. The three-stage electronic ballast is composed of a boost pre-regulator to achieve a high power factor, a DC/DC buck converter to regulate lamp current with constant lamp power, and a full-bridge inverter to drive the HID lamp with a low-frequency ac squarewave current. The buck converter operating in current mode utilizes current sense level-shift technique to achieve constant power output. The proposed constant power control circuit is easily designed and implemented for the three-stage HID electronic ballast. Finally, a laboratory prototype of a 70 W HID electronic ballast is implemented. The measured results show that the proposed ballast can be applied for various HID lamps with low lamp power variation (less than 0.6%).     

A low frequency AC to high frequency AC inverter with build-in power factor correction and soft-switching

This paper presents a full bridge AC-AC inverter for high frequency power distribution system with power factor correction stage controlled by a unified controller. The proposed inverter has the following features: 1) load independent output voltage with constant frequency and very low total harmonic distortion (THD); 2) soft switching of the full bridge switches for a wide range of input voltage and load conditions; 3) low DC bus voltage; 4) simple control and cost effectiveness for the power factor correction stage. Operating principles and performance characteristics are presented, and guidance to design the converter is given. Experimental results of a 90-265V/sub ac/ input, 30 V/sub ac/ output at 100 kHz, 250 W laboratory prototype are given to verify the theoretical and simulation results. The proposed ac-ac inverter is attractive for low power (up to 250 W) high frequency applications.     

Acoustic-resonance-free electronic ballast for automotive HID lamps

A novel cost-effective and acoustic-resonance-free electronic ballast used to drive automotive high intensity discharging (HID) lamps that utilise a constant lamp power control scheme is proposed. The presented ballast is comprised of a buck-boost flyback converter to provide negative DC voltages and a half-bridge-type inverter to supply the lamp with low-frequency, square-wave AC voltage/ current. Owing to its low-frequency operation, no acoustic resonance occurs on the automotive HID lamps. Design guidelines and experimental results are demonstrated for a 35 Wautomotive HID lamp prototype ballast operating at 400 Hz switching frequency with battery input DC voltage of 12 V.     

TRIAC dimmable ballast with power equalization

A two-stage, two-wire TRIAC dimmable electronic ballast for fluorescent lamps is presented in this paper. It is constructed by using a flyback converter as the input power factor corrector to supply a half-bridge series-resonant parallel-loaded inverter to ballast the lamp. The flyback converter is operated in discontinuous conduction mode so that the filtered input current profile is the same as the TRIAC-controlled voltage waveform. The switches in the inverter are switched at a constant frequency slightly higher than the resonant frequency of the resonant tank. Based on the constant average input current characteristics of the inverter, the dimming operation is simply achieved by pulsewidth modulation control of the magnitude of the flyback converter output voltage. No synchronization network is required between the input and output stages. In addition, a linear power equalization scheme is developed so that the dc-link voltage (and hence the lamp power) is in a linear relationship with the firing angle of the TRIAC. The average output voltage of the dimmer controls the equalized flyback converter output voltage. Modeling, analysis, and design of the ballast will be described. A prototype was implemented to verify the experimental measurements with the theoretical predictions.     

Charge pump power-factor-correction dimming electronic ballast

A voltage-source charge pump power-factor correction (CPPFC) continuous dimming electronic ballast is proposed in this paper. The basic charge pump PFC principle is presented, and its unity power factor condition is then reviewed. Constant lamp power control and crest factor correction technique in dimming mode operation are then discussed. A continuous dimming controller with average lamp current control and duty-cycle modulation is developed so that the lamp is able to operate in constant power and low crest factor from 20% to 100% dimming level. The developed dimming electronic ballast has features of higher than 0.99 power factor, low crest factor, and low-DC-bus voltage     

Low-cost high power-density electronic ballast for automotive HIDlamp

A low-cost high-efficiency high power-density electronic ballast for 35 W automotive high intensity discharge (HID) is presented along with the results of theoretical computations and experimental tests. The ballast circuits is based on a 100 kHz resonant inverter, a half-wave rectifier and a 400 Hz operated square-wave inverter. The converter operates at zero turn on losses, nearly zero turn off losses, and at a reduced electromagnetic interference level. The ballast circuit is designed to prevent inappropriate operations due to the acoustic resonances. The lamp voltage waveform has limited dv/dt and no DC component contributing to a long operating life of the lamp. A breadboard of the electronic ballast was designed and experimentally tested on a 35 W lamp, for a DC input voltage ranging from 9 V to 16 V. The electronic ballast performs all the features required to turn-on, warm-up and drive at the steady state a 35 W HID lamp and operates at a maximum steady state efficiency η=84%,     

单相两级有源功率因数校正变换器的研究

文中对两级有源功率因数校正变换器进行研究,设计了一台510W两级式开关电源。该电源前级采用平均电流控制的Boost型PFC电路,实现功率因数校正;后级采用不对称半桥型DC／DC变换器,实现开关管的零电压开关。控制电路采用PFC／PWM复合控制芯片ML4824,缩小电源体积。通过实验证实该开关电源具有高功率因数与高效率的特点。     

A novel single-stage full-bridge buck-boost inverter

A novel single-stage full-bridge series-resonant buck-boost inverter (FB-SRBBI) is proposed in this paper. The proposed inverter only includes a full-bridge topology and a LC resonant tank without auxiliary switches. The output voltage of the proposed inverter can be larger or lower than the dc input voltage, depending on the instantaneous duty-cycle. This property is not found in the classical voltage source inverter, which produces an ac output instantaneous voltage always lower than the dc input voltage. The proposed inverter circuit topology provides the main switch for turn-on at ZCS by a resonant tank. The nonlinear control strategy is designed against the input dc perturbation and achieves well dynamic regulation. An average approach is employed to analyze the system. A design example of 500 W dc/ac inverter is examined to assess the inverter performance and it provides high power efficiency above 90% under the rated power.     

Design and analysis of power-CMOS-gate-based switched-capacitor boost DC-AC inverter

A multistage power CMOS-transmission-gate-based (CMOS-TG) quasi-switched-capacitor (QSC) boost DC-AC inverter is proposed and integrated with a boost DC-DC converter for a step-up application with AC or DC load. In this paper, using CMOS-TG as a bidirectional switch, the various topologies can be integrated in the same configuration for achieving two functions: boosting and alternating; boosting for getting a sinusoidal output in which the peak is the result of a many times step-up of the input; alternating to realize the positive/negative half sinusoidal of the output. The inverter does not require any inductive elements as inductor and transformer, so integrated circuit (IC) fabrication will be promising for realization. By using the state-space averaging technique, the large-signal state-space model of the inverter is proposed, and then both the static analysis and dynamic small-signal analysis are derived to form a unified formulation for inverter/converter. Based on this formulation, there are presented for theoretical analysis/control design, including steady-state power, conversion efficiency, voltage conversion ratio, output ripple percentage, capacitance selection, closed-loop control and stability, and total harmonic distortion (THD), etc. Finally, a six-stage QSC boost DC-AC inverter is simulated by PSPICE, and the simulations are discussed for some cases, including: 1) steady-state AC output, ripple percentage, and power efficiency; 2) transient response of the regulated inverter for load variation; 3) a practical capacitive load: electromagnetic luminescent (EL) lamp, and 4) efficiency, ripple percentage, and THD for different loads. The results are illustrated to show the efficacy of the proposed inverter.     

A power-factor-corrected AC-AC inverter topology using a unified controller for high-frequency power distribution architecture

High-frequency power distribution architecture (HFPDA) has gained more and more attention from both academics and industry in recent years. It is not only applicable in space systems, but also found attractive in power system design for emerging telecommunication and computer systems. As the technology has matured, HFPDA even seems to be attractive for powering the desktop computers employing the latest generation fast microprocessors. This paper presents an ac-ac inverter for HFPDA. The inverter includes a high-frequency resonant inverter and a buck-boost converter for power-factor correction (PFC). A unified controller controls both the resonant inverter and the PFC stage. Unlike other single-stage power-factor-corrected inverter topologies, the proposed inverter system has reduced dc-bus voltage stress for the universal input line voltage. The proposed inverter is found attractive in low-power applications.     

A digital power factor correction (PFC) control strategy optimized for DSP

A predictive algorithm for digital control power factor correction (PFC) is presented in this paper. Based on this algorithm, all of the duty cycles required to achieve unity power factor in one half line period are calculated in advance by digital signal processors (DSP). A boost converter controlled by these precalculated duty cycles can achieve sinusoidal current waveform. One main advantage is that the digital control PFC implementation based on this control strategy can operate at a high switching frequency which is not directly dependent on the processing speed of DSP. Input voltage feed-forward compensation makes the output voltage insensitive to the input voltage variation and guarantees sinusoidal input current even if the input voltage is distorted. A prototype of boost PFC controlled by a DSP evaluation board was set up to implement the proposed predictive control strategy. Both the simulation and experimental results show that the proposed predictive strategy for PFC achieves near unity power factor.