Multiphase Boost Converter Model for Source Current Ripple Reduction

Suryanarayana K
Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering NMAMIT Nitte Karkala 574110, India suryanarayana@nitte.edu.in
Abstract DC-DC converters play a major role in modern day power supplies. Boost converters provide voltage boost to the input supply. In single phase boost converters the inductor is directly connected to the source and the inductor current ripple is reflected on the input power supply. For the battery operated systems like inverter or UPS will introduce great amount of ripple in the battery which has adverse effect on the battery life. By connecting two or more boost converters in parallel and switching ON each converter synchronously with fixed phase delay, helps in input and output current ripple reduction. In this paper, modeling of three phase boost converter with average current mode control is discussed. The mathematical modeling of multiphase converter is carried out and output voltage is controlled using the current mode control. Result of measured battery current under full load condition of 800W high frequency inverter is provided. Keywords Boost Converter, multiphase, ripple, average current mode

H N Nagaraja
Indus Institute Of Technology and Engineering Indus University Ahmedabad 382115, India hnnagaraja@indusuni.ac.in current ripple, size reduction in the inductor and filter capacitor [2][7][8]. The reduced ripple improves system immunity towards electromagnetic interference. Working principle of multi-phase boost converter is discussed in section II. The modeling of three phase boost converter is discussed in section III. Stability analysis and the current mode control of the multiphase boost converter is covered in section IV. In section V case study of high frequency inverter is carried out and experimental results are shown. Need for multiphase converter modeling and their use is given in section VI. II. MULTIPHASE BOOST CONVERTER Multiphase converters work on the mechanism of interleaving, where the converter switches are switched synchronously with fixed delay in the gate pulses. A three phase boost converter operation is divided into three modes, depending on the range of duty cycle where converter operates. Mode 1: 0 < < 1/3 Mode 2: 1/3< < 2/3 Mode 3: 2/3 < < 1

I. INTRODUCTION Boost converters are widely used in the power electronics industry. In a boost converter the inductor current and the source current are same and any variations in the inductor current has direct impact on the connected source [1]. When a boost converter is connected to a battery, the current drawn from battery will contain the ripple current due to the switching action of the inductor. The ripple current has a negative impact on the battery life. To reduce the ripple current a bulk inductor is required so that a constant current is drawn from the supply [1]. Considering the size of the system and response time it is undesirable to have a system with large inductor. Connecting many boost converters in parallel and switching on each converted with appropriate phase delay will play a major role in current ripple reduction in the input and output of the boost converter. Single phase boost converter modeling and control is discussed in many literatures [3][5]. A detailed mathematical modeling and control using average current mode control is covered in this paper. Current mode control provides additional benefit of current balance in each phase of the converter. In multiphase converter systems with n number of phases, there are (n-1) points on the duty scale that provides zero ripple in the current waveform. Fig. 1 shows switching details of a three phase boost converter for different operating modes. Multiphase topologies helps in improved system performance, better efficiency, reduced input and output

Mode 1 operation is like a single phase boost converter operating with three times the switching frequency as in Fig. 1a. In Mode 2 at any given point one or two switches are conducting as shown in Fig. 1b. In Mode 3 at any instant two or three switches are conducting simultaneously as in Fig. 1c. First two modes are subsets of Mode 3. This paper, discusses the detailed analysis and modeling of Mode 3. A multiphase boost converter is shown in Fig. 2. The three switches S1, S2 and S3 are turned ON synchronously with a phase delay of 120 degrees. The phase current variation for Mode 3 is shown in Fig. 1d. The phase current increases when the switch is turned ON and falls linearly when the switch is turned OFF. During steady state, volt-second balance is achieved and the peak current and valley current are same at every switching cycle. The source current is sum of phase currents which is shown in Fig. 1e. The source current ripple frequency is thrice the switching frequency and the ripple approaches zero when the duty cycle is 1/3 or 2/3.

L1

iL1(t) iL2(t) iL3(t)

0 < D < 1/3

iL(t)

L2 L3

Rc R vo(t) C

Vg

v(t)

(a) 1/3 < D < 2/3

Fig. 3. Equivalent circuit of the three phase boost converter during the switching interval d1, d3 and d5

(b) 2/3 < D < 1

d1

d2

d3

d4

d5

d6

Phase currents

(c) iL3 iL1 iL2

(d)
Source current

methods are widely used in the modeling of the power converters viz. PWM switch model and state space averaging technique. State space averaging method is used for modeling of three phase boost converter. In a three phase boost converter (Fig. 2), there are four independent energy storage elements indicating the existence of four state variables. The state variables used in the modeling are individual inductor currents and the voltage across output filter capacitor. There are six different switching instants occurring in one switching cycle as shown in Fig. 1c. The durations are d1, d2, d3, d4, d5 and d6. During d1, d3 and d5 all three switches are conducting and the equivalent circuit is as in Fig. 3. In the duration d2, d4 and d6 one of the switches is OFF and other two switches are conducting. Circuit will behave as in Fig. 4. The following section discusses the method to obtain the inductor current to duty transfer function which is required in controlling the converter by using current mode control. In Mode 3 operation, from Fig. 1c (D> 2/3), when all the switches are ON And
1 = 3 = 5 = 2 = (1 3) 3

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)

(e)

Time

Fig.1 (a) Gate pulses when 0< D < 1/3 (b) Gate pulses for 1/3 < D <2/3 (c) Gate pulses for 2/3 < D <1 (d) Inductor current in the individual phases (e) Source current
L1 L2 L3 D1 D2 Rc D3 Vg S1 S2 S3 V C R Vo

Fig. 2. Three Phase Boost Converter

2 = 4 = 6 = When all the switches are ON, from Fig. 3. 1 () = 2 () = 3 () = () 1 () = () () = () + + () = () using 7 in 6

(7)

III. MODELING OF THREE PHASE BOOST CONVERTER The mathematical modeling of DC-DC converter helps in the study of dynamic behavior of the converter. Two modeling

() 1 = () + () = () The state space model can be written in the form of = + = +

(8) (9) (10)

L1 iL(t) L2 L3

iL1(t) iL2(t) iL3(t)

Rc R vo(t) C

Vg

v(t)

Fig. 4. Equivalent circuit of the three phase boost converter during the switching interval d6

From (3), (4), (5), (6), (7), (8) and (9) the sate space model for the interval d1, d3 and d5 is given by 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 (11) = = = 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 + 0 0 1/ 0 = = = 0 0 0 + = = = (0 0 0) The state vector x and input vector u are given by () 1 2 () = = 3 () () 1/ 0 = = = 0 0 0 1/ 0 0 (12)

From (17), (18), (21) and (22) the state space is 0 0 ( ) ( + + ) 0 0 0 0 = 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 ( + ) ( + ) 1/ 0 0 0 1/ 0 = 0 0 1/ 0 0 0 0 0 = + + = (0 0 0)

(23)

(24)

(25) (26)

In similar lines, the matrices , , , , , , and for the intervals d2 and d4 are found when inductors in phase 2 and phase 3 respectively are connected to the output by turning OFF the corresponding switch. The state space model during these intervals are similar to (23), (24), (25) and (26). To obtain the complete behavior of the three phase boost converter, the state space average [1] is taken over one switching cycle. = 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + 6 Since = = , (13) 1 = 3 = 5 = and 2 = 4 = 6 = 3 Where = 1 , OFF duration of the switch = (1 3) + ( + + ) = (1 3) + ( + + ) = (1 3) + ( + + ) = (1 3) + ( + + )
=

(27)

(13) (14)

(15)

(28)

During the intervals d2, d4 and d6 one of the switches is OFF and the equivalent circuit for interval d6 is shown in Fig. 4. The system state equations become 1 () 1 (16) = [ ()] 2 () (17) = 3 () (18) = () 1 () (19) = 1 () () () = () + 1 () (20) () = 1 () + () + + Using (20) in (19) and (16) () 1 (21) = 1 () () ( + ) ( + ) 1 () = () () ( + ) 1 ( + ) (22) +

By using different state matrices in (28) the averaged state space model of the multiphase converter is obtained as,
( + ) 0 0 ( + ) ( + ) ( + ) 1 +

( + ) 0

0 ( + ) ( + ) 0

( + )

To obtain the DC gain of the converter, the differential terms are set to zero in the averaged state space model.

1/ 0 0 0 1/ 0 = 0 0 1/ 0 0 0 = + + + + = (0 0 0)

( + )

(29) (30)

(31) (32)

IV. CURRENT MODE CONTROL The average current mode control uses two loops to control the output voltage of the converter [3][4][5]. One loop for inner current and one for outer voltage which provides the reference for the current loop. Fig. 7 shows the block diagram of current mode control of a multiphase converter. The output voltage of the converter is compared with desired voltage Vc. The error is compensated to get the current reference for the measured inductor currents. The compensator is designed with criteria of phase margin being more than 600. Ri is the sensor gain. The error signal from the current comparator is used to generate the desired duty cycle using the controllers. In multiphase boost converter, the sum of inductor currents is same as the input current and by controlling the inductor current input current is controlled. Average current control tracks the input current with high degree of accuracy and hence provides better dynamics performance of the system [4]. V. SIMULATION AND EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS A multiphase boost converter is used in an 800W high frequency inverter which is designed with the concept of multistage boosting. The converter is designed such that a low ripple current at the source/battery side is achieved. The system specifications are Vin = 12V, Vo = 38.7V, inductor value per phase = 6.08uH and the filter capacitor C = 60uF. From the manufacturers datasheet the capacitor ESR Rc = 4 mohm. The average current from the battery is 67A and per phase or inductor current is 22.2 A. The inductor has been designed for the ripple current of 11A. To get the desired voltage of 38.7V, the converter is operated at a duty cycle of 69%. The switching frequency of the converter is 100kHz. The simulations are carried out using MATLAB Simulink. The phase current, input current and output voltage waveforms are as shown in Fig. 8. A high frequency inverter is designed with three boost converters cascaded to achieve a DC voltage boost from 12V to 375V. In the cascaded system the first stage (12V to 37.8V) is a three phase boost converter to minimize the source current ripple. The measured source/battery current of the high frequency inverter is as shown in Fig. 9.

Fig. 5. Bode plot of the inductor current to duty Transfer Function

From (34) and (33) =

(36) + = + + The average voltage across the capacitor ESR is zero in one switching cycle as in (36). From (35) and (31) the voltage transfer ratio is
3( + ) 3( + ) = = = + 3 + 3 3 1 2 + 3 3( + ) 1

(37)

The dynamic behavior of the system is obtained by perturbing = + 1 , = + , 1 = 1 + 1 , the state variables as = 3 + 3 . 2 = 2 + 2 , and 3 Adding perturbation to phase current will lead to 1 () ( + ) (38) = 1 () () ( + ) 1 ( ) And similarly for phase 2 and phase 3. The perturbed capacitor voltage will be () ( + ) = 1 () + 2 () + 3 () 3( + ) () + ( + 3 ) 1
( ) ()

(39)

Taking the Laplace Transform and solving for the inductor current to duty cycle ratio will give
3 3 [1 + + ( + ] + 3 = (( + 3 + ( + ) + 2 ( + ) ( + )
2 [ 2 ( + ] ( + 3 ) = () (( + 3 + ( + ) + 2 ( + ) ( + ) ()

(40)

The output voltage to duty transfer function is obtained as (41)

Fig. 6. Bode plot of output voltage to control Transfer Function

The Bode plot of (40) and (41) are shown in Fig. 5 and Fig. 6.

L1 L2 L3 D1 D2 Rc D3 Vg S1 S2 S3 V C R Vo

Ri Ri

To S1 To S2 To S3

+
Compensator
+

Ri +

Logic

Vc

Fig. 7. Three boost converter with current mode control

Fig. 8. Simulation result of Phase Current, Input Current and Output Voltage.

VI. CONCLUSION The multiphase boost converters provide the advantage of reduced ripple in the source current thus providing increased life to the sources like battery. By adopting the current mode control scheme in multiphase converters, better dynamic performance of the system is achieved. The reduced ripple in the source current provide the advantage of reduced electromagnetic interference. Current ripple frequency in multi-phase converters at the source/load side is number of phases times the switching frequency. This feature of the converters provide an advantage of having lesser filter capacitor. Multiphase converters provide the option of adopting higher switching frequency and thus by reducing the size and cost of the system. ACKNOWLEDGMENT The authors would like to thank M/s HEXMOTO Controls Pvt. Ltd. for providing the facility to carry out the experiments. REFERENCES
[1] [2] Erickson R.W, Maksimovic D, Fundamentals of power electronics, 2 edition, Kluwer Publishers, 2001. Dinesh K, Analysis of Multiphase Boost Converter for High Power Application, International Journal of Applied Information Systems, Volume 1, No.7, March 2012 Philip Cooke, Modeling Average Current Mode Control, Applied Power Electronics Conference and Exposition, Volume 1, February 2000. L. H. Dixon "Average Current Mode Control of Switching Power Supplies", Unitrode Power Supply Design Seminar, 1990 W. Tang, F.C Lee, R.B Ridley, Small-signal modeling of average current-mode control, Applied Power Electronics Conference and Exposition, February 1992 Gyu-Yeong Choe, Jong-Soo Kim, An Optimal Design Methodology of an Interleaved Boost Converter for Fuel Cell Applications, Journal of Electrical Engineering & Technology Vol. 5, No.2 Benefits of multi-phasing buck converters, Tim Hegarty, National Semiconductors. Analog Circuit Design- A Tutorial Guide to Applications and Solutions By Linear Technologies, First Edition 2011 (Edited by Bob Dobkin and Jim Williams)
nd

Fig. 9. Measured source current of the static inverter

[3] [4] [5]

[6]

[7] [8]