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Digital control of power supplies-opportunities and constraints

Conference Paper · January 1998

DOI: 10.1109/IECON.1998.724305 · Source: IEEE Xplore

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 Digital Control of Power S u p p l i e e
Opportunities and Constraints

Petri Vallittu Teuvo Suntio Seppo J. Ovaska

EFORE Oyj EFORE Oyj Helsinki University of Technology
P. 0. Box 61 Joukontie 42 Institute of Intelligent Power Electronics
FIN-0221 1 ESPOO, FINLAND FIN-01400 VANTAA, FINLAND Otakaari 5 A
petri.vallittu @ efore.fi teuvo.suntio@ efore.fi FIN-02150 ESPOO, FINLAND
[email protected]

-
Abstract In this paper, we present a study of the opportuni- advantage, especially in companies which develop cus-
ties and constraints of digital control in power supplies. The tomer-specific products.
advantages and disadvantages between analog and digital
controllers in switched-mode power supplies are discussed in
It can be seen from international conference proceedings
detail. The effects of a digital controller on device’s reliability
and integration level are also discussed. A 48 V, 500 W recti- published in the last few years, that the interest in digital
fier having a switching frequency of 100 kHz was used as a control of power supplies has clearly increased. Too often,
practical case example. This switched-mode rectifier consists however, new techniques or methods, in the field of elec-
of two converter stages, i.e., AC/DC and DCDC converters. tronics, are rejected by practicing engineers due to the lack
Dynamic characteristics for digital controllers in both con- of adequate knowledge. Our paper provides a possibility
verters were studied by extensive simulations. Based on the for a power supply designer to recognize the important
simulation results, the values of the required sampling fre- opportunities and constraints related to digital control of
quencies were determined. According to the obtained results power supplies. One of the aims of this paper is to remove
and careful analyses made in our study, it can be stated that possible prejudices toward digital control.
digital control is certainly a viable alternative also in power
supplies. However, before digital controllers will become
dominant in high-volume power supply products, low cost Control of switched-mode power supplies has tradi-
microcontrollers or signal processors, which are tailored for tionally been based on integrated pulse width modulator
the specific application, are needed to reduce the existing cost (PWM) circuits. Mostly, the development in the control of
barrier. switched-mode power supplies has been a direct result of
the development and availability of these control ICs.
I. INTRODUCTION
This paper is organized as follows. Section I1 describes
Advances in very-large-scale integration (VLSI) have the structure of the switched-mode rectifier, which was
made possible the expanding use of digital computers in used in this study. In section 111, some design considera-
many real-time application areas. It is not only the steady tions on the digital control of the AC/DC and DC/DC con-
price reduction that has made them attractive in various verters are introduced. Section IV presents the applied
new application areas, but also the great functional devel- simulation models and the obtained results for the ACDC
opment of digital signal processors (DSPs). One of the converter. Simulation models and results for the D C D C
latest new DSP application areas is power electronics. converter are presented in section V. Advantages and dis-
Remarkable progress has been made, e.g., in advanced AC advantages between analog and digital controllers in
motor control. DSPs have become common components in switched-mode power supplies are discussed in section VI.
modern motor control applications [ 1-21. Digital signal Section VI1 reviews briefly the situation in the DSP devel-
processing techniques are not only used to replace conven- opment. Finally, section VI11 concludes the paper.
tional analog signal processing and control functions but
they open up totally new opportunities, such as fuzzy con- 11. SWITCHED-MODE POWER SUPPLY
trol.
Sampling rate plays a key role in digital control. In this
Power supplies are increasingly equipped with micro- study, the dynamic requirements of digital voltage control-
controllers and DSPs to implement digital control. It is well lers were studied by simulations in the MATLAB@ and
known that digital control has several advantages compared SIMULINK” environment. To get a reliable verification
to analog control. The main advantages of a digital ap- for simulation results, a 48 V, 500 W telecom rectifier was
proach over its analog counterpart are; lower sensitivity to used as a reference example, see Fig. 1 [3].
changes in the environment such as temperature, supply
voltage fluctuation, aging of components, and so on, and
the possibility of a lower part count, thus increasing the
integration level and improving the reliability as well as
reducing assembling costs. Shortened design cycles can
also be achieved, A short design cycle is a very important
’ MATLAB and SIMULINK are registered trademarks
of The MathWorks Inc.

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Fig. 1. Schematic structure of a 500 W telecom rectifier

In Fig. 1, the rectifier consists of two converter stages, 111. DESIGN CONSIDERATIONS ON THE DIGITAL
i.e., the ACDC and DCDC converters. The main structure CONTROL OF ACDC AND DCDC CONVERTERS
is very typical for off-line power supplies. In our rectifier,
both converters use the switching frequency of 100 Wz. Dynamic requirements of the DCDC converter differ
The two functions of the ACDC converter, i.e., the power greatly from the requirements of the PFC converter, so
factor corrector, are (1) to improve the quality of the input both converters with their controllers were simulated and
current along with high power factor and (2) to maintain analyzed. The DCDC converter has a much higher voltage
the intermediate voltage within certain limits suitable for loop bandwidth than the ACDC converter. Due to the
the subsequent conversion stage. The main target in the inherent feedforward feature of the current mode control in
design of the power factor corrector (PFC) is to comply the subsequent conversion stage a small and slowly varying
with agency regulations relating to harmonic input currents deviation in the intermediate voltage does not cause any
[4-51. A comprehensive overview of the PFC topologies significant perturbation in the output of the rectifier. There-
can be found, e.g., in [6]. Fig. 2 presents a principle fore, it can be stated that the main target in the design of
scheme of a typical boost type PFC, which was used in our the PFC is to comply with agency regulations relating to
rectifier. The control scheme in Fig. 2 utilizes average harmonic input currents [4-51.
current mode control [7].
A. AC/DC Converter (PFC)

il
U",', In high power factor preregulator circuits similar to the
one presented in Fig. 2, the input current distortion consists
mainly of the third harmonic [9], arising from two sources:
(1) input current fails to track perfectly the sine wave refer-
ence signal, and (2) the current reference signal is distorted
by the second harmonics from the output voltage feedback
and from the feedforward voltage. In this study, we concen-
I I U
trated on analyzing the output voltage feedback.

Due to the fluctuating input power and finite energy

storage element, i.e., a capacitor, the intermediate voltage
contains a low frequency ripple component at twice the line
frequency. In conventional controllers, this ripple affects
the input current waveform unless the open-loop cross-over
Fig. 2. Principle scheme of a typical boost type PFC; KI and K2 are frequency is kept well below the line frequency (typically
scaling factors. 10-20 Hz). The dynamic response of an intermediate volt-
age is sacrificed due to this limitation of the voltage control
In the DCDC converter, this telecom rectifier uses a loop bandwidth. Higher voltage error gain improves the
forward converter to convert the intermediate voltage (380 dynamic response but increases distortion. Because of this
VDC) to the output DC voltage of 48 V. The forward con- poor dynamic response, recently, the research related to
verter stage uses peak current mode control, also called power factor correctors has mainly concentrated on im-
simply current mode control. Current mode control is the proving the dynamic response (see, e.g., [lo]).
most typical control scheme in DCDC converters. Com-
pared to conventional voltage mode control current mode By means of improved dynamic response the output ca-
control has several advantages [SI, such as inherent feed- pacitor value can be lowered only if the hold-up time re-
forward characteristic and automatic peak switch current quirements are still fulfilled. Lower capacitor value results
limitation. in reduced cost and weight, but it also leads to increased
ripple voltage.

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 Remarkable benefits from better dynamics compared to
conventional voltage controllers are here questionable
because the following converter stage is designed to handle
these deviations in the intermediate voltage within speci-
fied limits. Therefore, we prefer that the design of a digital
controller for PFC should begin with a concept of a robust
and simple configuration which meets the primary task,
i.e., low harmonic currents. In addition, the implementation
of the PFC should naturally be cost effective and reliable.

B. DC/DC Converter (Forward Converter)

The requirements in the output stage of the rectifier are

Fig. 4. (a) Boost converter and (b) continuous mode behavior model.
far more strict than in the PFC. The specified response
times are much shorter in the DC/DC converter than in the
PFC converter. In addition, several special conditions such The second converter stage in rectifiers represents a con-
as overload-protection need fast reaction times and there- stant power load for the PFC converter, so constant power
fore, must be taken into consideration. However, an addi- load was also used in the simulations. Fig. 5 presents the
tional current limiting circuitry is still needed to set an SIMULINK block diagram by means of which the dynam-
absolute maximum for output current. ics of the voltage controller was analyzed.
I lin I
One special condition can be seen in Fig. 3. The output

+
D
of the rectifier is short-circuited and we can see how the
Law-irequency
output current behaves. Interesting, in this particular ex- line voltam boost model

ample, is that the analog controller is not capable of rapidly Saturation

performing active current control, but the total settling time ~ UOUt
is about 18 ms. Therefore, the sampling rate requirements
~~~~~r
for the digital controller are not based on the absolute cur-
rent limiting. This means that by means of an external cur- Feedback
gain

rent limiting comparator the required speed for the current

controller is reduced, making it possible to use the average Fig. 5.Control scheme of the PFC in SIMULINK environment.
current mode control instead of peak current mode control.
The current controller in Fig. 5 is a simple PI
(Proportional Integral) controller. The output signal of the
current controller is the duty cycle D, which is allowed to
vary between zero and one, Our low-frequency boost
model gets this signal as its input parameter. The amplitude
of the line voltage was kept constant so the feedforward
signal was not used and the line-regulation was not exam-
ined. The applied PFC converter parameters are presented
in Table I.
P

TABLE I
PFC CONVERTER PARAMETERS

Fig. 3. An example of the measured output current waveform when the

output of the rectifier is short-circuited.
R in Fig. 4 h = 1.5 0 I capacitor ESR = 0.1 R

IV.SIMULATION MODELS AND RESULTS FOR As it was mentioned above, the dynamic requirements of
BOOST TYPE PFC (AC/DC) the voltage controller in PFC are low, so a reasonably low
sampling frequency is adequate.
To examine the performance of a voltage controller, a
low-frequency model for boost topology was constructed. Fig. 6 presents the analog error amplifier stage which
Fig. 4 presents a continuous mode model for a boost con-
controls the intermediate voltage. The parameters of the
verter. Resistors rL, rd, r,s, and r, are the series resistances
3 V, Ri= 660 kL2,Rd =
analog voltage controller are: iJref=
of the inductor L, diode d, switch SW and capacitor C,
5.25w2, Rf = 470 WZ, C, = 47 nF. In the simulations, the
respectively.
step response was tested. Load was changed from 10 % to
100 % of the nominal 550 W power, and vice versa.

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 """'P d P l Also some other control schemes, such as simple PI con-
troller, Sample-and-hold, and Notch filter, were studied
[ 111. Sample-and-hold is simple and allows low computa-
tional burden due to low sampling frequency, i.e., twice the
line frequency. However, sampling must be synchronized
to line-frequency zero-crossings, which requires some
additional functions.
Fig. 6. Voltage error amplifier: (Ur@=3 V, Ri = 660 kQ, Rd = 5.25 kQ, R,
= 470 kQ, CO = 47 nF). V. SIMULATION MODELS AND RESULTS FOR
FORWARD TYPE DCDC CONVERTER
The simulation model was first verified by comparing
the measured waveforms with simulated waveforms, see The goal of these simulations is to outline how high a
Figs. 7 and 8. As it can be seen from Figs. 7 and 8, re- sampling frequency is needed in a digital voltage controller
sponses to load changes are highly similar. The maximum in order to keep the dynamic performance of the converter
deviations in load changes are approximately on the same on the same level as it is with the currently implemented
level as well as the corresponding response times. analog controller. This information is obtained by trans-
forming the analog controller into the z-domain and exam-
ining the lowest sampling frequency which gives satisfac-
I" tory results in terms of dynamics.
(A
A continuous mode low-frequency model is used to ex-
amine the behavior of the converter at low frequencies, i.e.,

*
much lower than half of the switching frequency. Fig. 9 (a)
presents the forward converter and (b) its low-frequency
V
model. In Fig. 9, NI and N2 are the number of turns in the
transformer's primary and secondary windings, respec-
tively.
Fig. 7. Measured intermediate voltage deviation and input current wave-
forms.

2 0

-10

-20

Fig. 9. (a) Forward converter and (b) continuos mode behavior model.

Fig. 10 illustrates the control scheme in SIMULINK en-

vironment. The current controller is a PI controller which
Fig. 8. Simulated intermediate voltage deviation and rectified input
current waveforms (SIMULINK). controls the averaged inductor current. Current controller is
tuned to be so fast that it controls the current almost ideally
By means of the simulation results, the dynamic re- (K,= 10, Ti = 0.001). The output signal of the current con-
quirements for digital controllers were specified in terms of troller is the duty cycle D, which is allowed to vary in the
the required sampling rate. The continuous-time transfer range [0, O S ] . The input voltage U,, i.e., the intermediate
function was transformed to the discrete-time domain. With voltage multiplied by the transformer turn ratio, is kept
this particular controller scheme, it was found that the constant. For example, the ripple component at twice the
sampling frequency of 500 Hz was adequate to give com- line-frequency does not cause any variation in the output
parable dynamic characteristics as the analog voltage con- voltage due to the fast current controller. Therefore, the
troller. Therefore, our the conclusion is that a reasonably constant input voltage is a justified simplification.
low sampling frequency can be used in PFC's voltage con-
troller.

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 0uIp"l
voltage
done by lowering the total gain. Lower gain, however,
D'Um
leads to larger, though reasonable, output voltage devia-
Uin=IN2iNlI'Ud

Law.freq"e"c"
buck model 1, tion.

VI. ANALOG VS. DIGITAL CONTROLLER

b-DGbdm
current
conl,oller Sum Vollaqe

controller
Urd
The advantages of digital control are mainly due to pro-
grammability of digital processors as well as their comput-
ing and communication capabilities [ 2 ] .First of all, flexi-
bility is the key word related to digital control. The fact
Fig. 10. Control scheme of the DC/DC converter in SIMULINK envi-
ronment. that processor-based control systems are programmable
gives the designer a possibility to modify the design or its
To get a meaningful verification for the simulation parameters without changing the hardware. Analog control-
model, the same parameters as in the existing 500 W recti- lers are hard-wired solutions making modifications and
fier were used. The SIMULINK model uses the converter upgrades in the design difficult, because also the PCB
parameters presented in Table 11. Verification is presented layout has to be modified.
in Figs. 11 and 12. Load was changed from 10 % to 100 %
of the nominal power, and vice versa, There are still many control applications where the only
solution is to implement an analog controller. Analog con-
TABLE I1 trollers can be used for very high bandwidth systems. They
DC/DC CONVERTER PARAMETERS. also give high resolution of a measured signal, and there-
fore provide precise control. Possible adaptation, for ex-
ample to a varying operation point, is one of the advan-
tages of the digital controller. Satisfactory performance can
then be obtained within a larger operation range.
R in series w i u ~L = 0.2 s2 capacitor ESR = 0.05 R

The overall integration level can be increased when im-

plementing a processor-based control system. This results
in reduced PCB area required for control circuitry. The
same integrated processor-chip can perform several tasks
which would require own discrete circuitry in analog im-
l . l , I T. I I I L . 1
plementation. As a more 'intelligent' controller, a digital
computer can provide improved diagnostic capabilities,
which forms the basis for better maintainability and higher
reliability. Also, a faster manufacturing process can be
achieved, e.g., by increasing the level of automatic tuning
of various parameters. Analog controllers require very
Fig. 11. Measured output voltage deviation and output current wave-
forms. often tuning done by potentiometers. This takes more time
and also causes an unreliability factor in the production
phase.

The simulation results answered to our primary question:

how high sampling frequencies are required in the voltage
controllers. However, if only the voltage controller is digi-
tal, a specific modulator IC is still needed. In addition, a
digital to analog converter (DAC) is needed to construct
the analog current reference signal which is fed to the
Fig. 12. Simulated output voltage deviation. modulator circuit. However, fast and high resolution D/A
converters are expensive components. It should also be
Again, the continuous-time transfer function was trans- reminded that both analog and digital controllers require
formed into the discrete-time domain. By means of the their own input and output interface circuitry.
simple simulation model of the forward converter the goal
of this study was achieved. The level of the required sam- A much more compact and also more reliable controller
pling frequency was obtained. Without any modifications, configuration would be achieved if the current controller
the sampling frequency needed to be over 100 kHz which was implemented digitally as well. Digitally implemented
is in practice much too high for a DSP. However, accord- peak current mode control is not a practical alternative due
ing to the further examinations, it was shown that by means to unreasonably high sampling frequency requirements, but
of a modified controller lower sampling frequency was instead the average current mode control should be studied.
allowed (lower limit is in the range of 20 - 25 kHz). In the One idea in digital current control could be that sampling
modified controller, low-pass filtering was increased in the would be more like a 'checking' action. In digital control-
output of the voltage controller. Another modification was ler, by means of knowing the instantaneous duty cycle and

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 the moment when the sample is taken, the average value of More compact and cost effective solutions for a digital
the current can be estimated. By calculating the current controller in DCDC converters can be constructed if DSP
estimates between two successive samples DSP can control controllers will be equipped with more accurate PWM
the instantaneous duty cycle. Sampling as the checking generators. Also the suitability of application specific inte-
action is used only to keep the error of the estimates small. grated circuits (ASIC) as well as the use of new control
techniques based on fuzzy logic and neural networks
However, if we succeed to implement digital current
should be studied. In the near future, it will be interesting
controller, there are still some limitations to be considered.
to see what will be the role of fuzzy control in the control
For example, some control and monitoring functions in
of practical power supplies [12].
power supplies require rapid response, and analog com-
parator circuitry is needed to detect the change of the con-
trolled signal. The logic level change in the output signal of It can be stated that digital control will be a very notable
alternative in power supplies. However, before digital
the comparator can then be used to cause an interrupt in the
controllers will become dominant in high-volume power
running software rcutine, and the particular ‘emergency’
supply products, low cost microcontrollers or signal proc-
functions will be performed. The overload-protection is
essors, which are tailored for the specific application, are
one example which requires fast detection.
needed to reduce the existing cost barrier.
Another limitation arises from the duty cycle resolution
when the duty cycle is generated digitally as processor’s
REFERENCES
output signal. If the resolution of DSP’s PWM generator is
50 ns, it leads to duty cycle resolution of 1% with 100 kHz G. C. D. Sousa, B. K. Bose, and J. G. Cleland, “Fuzzy logic based
switching frequency. In our rectifier, this means that the on-line efficiency optimization control of an indirect vector-con-
minimum controllable voltage step in rectifier’s output is trolled induction motor drive,” IEEE Trans. Industrial Electronics,
1.5 V, which is absc’lutelytoo high. Sixteen bit duty cycle vol. 42, no. 2, April 1995, pp. 192-198.
resolution gives 2.29 mV, respectively. Naturally, the B. K. Bose, Microcomputer Control of Power Electronics and
higher the switching frequency the higher is the required Drives, IEEE Press, New York, N Y 1996, p. 640.
PWM resolution. T. Suntio, P. Vallittu, T. Laurinen, and M. Ikonen, “Design of an
AC/DC power supply for telecom applications,” in Proceedings of
the I997 Finnish Workshop on Power and Industrial Electronics,
VII. TRENDS IN DSP DEVELOPMENT Espoo, Finland, August 1997, pp. 85-92.

In the last few years, it has been seen that microcontrol- EN 61000-3-2, Electromagnetic compatibility (EMC), Part 3:
Limits, Section 2: Limits for harmonic current emissions
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R. Redl, P. Tenti, and J. Van Wyk, ”Power electronics’ polluting
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supplies,” Application Handbook, Application Note U-140, Uni-
seen to be continuing due to a whole new range of control trode, 1997.
applications, which are or will be anxious to use DSPs as a
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verters, Applications and Design, John Wiley & Sons, New York,
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mization,” Power Supply Design Seminar Manual, SEM-1100,
VlII. CONCLUSIONS Unitrode, 1996.
G. Spiazzi, P. Mattavelli, and L. Rossetto, ”Methods to improve
In the field of elecLronics, one general ongoing trend is dynamic response of power factor preregulators: an overview,” in
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ported this development. The same trend can be seen in the P. Vallittu, Digital control of power supplies-rjpportunities and
power supply busineswower supplies will be increas- construints, Masters thesis, Helsinki University of Technology,
Espoo, Finland, 1997, p. 97.
ingly equipped with I>SPs and microcontrollers. The per-
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in D C D C converters is often sufficient, and digital control- fuzzy controller for DC-DC converters,” IEEE Trans. Power
Electronics, vol. 12, no. 1, January 1997, pp. 79-86.
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ics. However, the rehability and total cost of the digital
c o n t r o l l e r can provide the desired result.

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