Quadratic boost converter for Photovoltaic MicroInverter

Ashirvad M#1 and Rupesh K C*2

#
*

PG Student, EEE Dept., Siddaganga Institute of Technology, Karnataka, India

Assistant Professor, EEE Dept., Siddaganga Institute of Technology, Karnataka, India

Abstract A Quadratic boost converter for Dual-stage

photovoltaic micro-inverter with sliding-mode control is
discussed in this paper. The proposed topology is a dual-stage
structure with a quadratic boost converter in the DC-DC stage
and a full-bridge inverter in the DC-AC stage. The quadratic
boost uses a sliding-mode current controller and a proportionalintegral (PI) compensator regulating the output voltage. The fullbridge inverter uses sinusoidal pulse-width modulation[SPWM]
technique for DC to AC inversion. Each converter overall system
is discussed and simulation result are presented.

Index TermsQuadratic boost converter, Sliding-mode

control, photovoltaic panel, Dual-stage micro-inverter.
I.

INTRODUCTION

In the market of solar inverter demand has increased

dramatically in the last few years due to liberalization of
electricity market in many countries and establishing
government policies for purchasing electricity produced by
the means of renewable energy. Grid connected inverter
supply either 110 V or 220 V at 60 Hz or 50 Hz respectively.
The single-phase or three-phase structures are classified into
four categories: micro, string, multi string and central
inverters. Micro-inverter is single-phase DC-AC converter
operated with an input range of 20 Vdc to 50 Vdc and
delivering an active power not more than 500 W. String
inverter is also single-phase converter structure with an input
of 40 Vdc-200 Vdc and an output power ranges between 1KW
to 3 KW. Multi-string inverter can be single-phase or threephase structure with input of 50 Vdc and 600 Vdc and output
between 3 KW to 20 KW. A central inverter is always threephase DC-AC converter supply a power more than 20 KW for
an input voltage in the range of 200 Vdc-300Vdc.
The present trend is focused on multi-string and moduleoriented technology in medium and low power applications
[1]. The photovoltaic-module oriented technology is to install
the system with a simple mechanical assembly and is easier to
connect to a grid. The module oriented inverter is classified as
single-stage, dual-stage and multi-stage, considering the
number of power processing stages connected in cascade with
in the inverter. A recent compression identifies the dual-stage
topologies with DC-DC stage and DC-AC stage as the most
competitive solution in module oriented converter. Gridconnected solar micro-inverter basically of two stages: first
stage operating at high frequency to step up the panel voltage

upto 400 Vdc and second stage operating at grid frequency to

transform dc to ac and subsequent connection to the public
utility. These inverters are operated at the lowest power range;
their weight and volume are susceptible of minimization in
view of a mechanical integration in the back side of the same
photovoltaic (PV) panel [2].
In this approach, the first step is either to minimize or
remove of the high frequency transformer, which is a common
element in commercial micro-inverter. The second step is to
define the maximum DC gain required by the step-up voltage
converter. Finally potential converter without galvanic
isolation that could solve the voltage step-up problem.
Therefore a quadratic boost converter has a competitive
transformer-less structure to solve the problem of step-up
input voltage ranges from 20 Vdc-30 Vdc up to 400 Vdc[2].
This paper discussed a quadratic boost converter which
provides a competitive DC-DC structure for module oriented
application, also use of the known full bridge inverter in the
DC-AC stage [1]. A stable and reliable operation can be
obtained using the sliding mode control approach, since
control with simplicity and robustness, also taking the
advantage of both converters is variable structure system. In
case of DC-DC converter based on PWM control, the highgain can leads to modulator saturation since the duty cycle
near to unsafe operating region; thus sliding mode control
approach is more reliable choice. In the case of the DC-AC
converter, it is known the capacity of the sliding-mode
approach to obtain instantaneous time-varying reference
tracking, which is different from linear control approaches.
The possible existence of high-frequency oscillations in
the control signal (chattering) is a sensitive drawback of the
sliding-mode control leading to different solutions [3]. In this
sense, the hysteresis comparator offers an alternative solution
in real time implementation of power converters, keeping a
regular behavior in the controlled states [4] and eliminating
the effect of the non-modeling dynamics in the commutation
events. However, the hysteresis band leads to a non-ideal
sliding-mode introducing a frequency variation that should
also be restricted. To conclude, the hysteresis band should be
small enough to reduce the high-frequency component and
wide enough to avoid the influence of spurious noise and
transients.

II.

D3

OVERALL SYSTEM DESCRIPTION.

RL1

RL2

D1

D2

light_intensity
Rv1

VOUT

C1

Temp

C2

RLOAD

Rv2

vrefer

PI

delta

VOUT

Vgt

IL1
R Q

Fig. 1. Block diagram of a two-stage

stage photovoltaic micro-inverter
micro

The micro-inverter
inverter as shown in Fig. 1 composed of a
power block and a control block. The power block has a DCDC converter and a DC-AC
AC converter connected in cascade.
The control block has a dedicated controller for each power
stage and a maximum power point tracker (MPPT). The
control of the DC-DC
DC stage regulates an output voltage to a
value between 15 to 30
0 times higher than the one of input
voltage. The control of the DC-AC
AC stage shapes a sinusoidal
voltage waveform.
inverter has a quadratic boost converter in the
The micro-inverter
DC-DC stage and a full-bridge
bridge inverter in the DC-AC
DC
stage.
The quadratic boost operates
ates in continuous conduction mode
(CCM) along with its overall operational range, while the fullfull
bridge inverter uses bipolar commutation. The quadratic boost
is controlled to regulate a DC voltage bus with a level higher
than the peak voltage of the utility
ity in order to guarantee the
adequate direction on the power flow. Meanwhile, the fullfull
bridge inverter employs SPWM technique is used to control
the inverter as it can be directly controlled the inverter output
voltage and frequency according to the sine function [5].
Sinusoidal pulse width modulation (SPWM) is widely used in
power electronics to digitize the power so that a sequence of
voltage pulses can be generated by the on and off of the power
switches.
III.

DC-DC
DC STAGE: QUADRATIC BOOST
CONVERTER

The quadratic
ratic boost converter shown in Fig. 2 results
from the generalized cascaded boost topologies with a single
switch introduced in [5]. This converter allows covering gain
ranges which are not available with the single boost converter
even though, cubic boost converter gives more gain;
efficiency is low compared to quadratic boost converter [2].
Considering variable quadratic boost converter structure, with
an input gating signal u, the non-linear
linear equation for the system
are given in eq. 1(a)-(d)

Fig. 2. Quadratic boost converter and control scheme

Taking into account that this model corresponds to a

variable structure system controlled by the signal u, we obtain
the nonlinear equation system (1).
1

(1.a)

(1.b)
1

(1.c)

(1.d)

The sliding-mode
mode control is naturally well suited for
the control of variable structure systems. Characterized by
switching, power converters are inherently variable structure
systems. Therefore, sliding-mode
sliding
is appropriate to apply
control on power converters. Sliding-mode
Sliding
control offers
excellent large-signal handling
andling capability, which is important
for DCDC
DC converters. Since the design of conventional
pulse-width
width modulation (PWM) controllers is small-signal
small
based, the converters being controlled operate optimally only
for a specific condition and often fail to perform satisfactorily
under large parameter or load variations (i.e., large-signal
large
operating condition). By replacing linear PWM controllers
with SM (nonlinear) controllers, power converters can achieve
better regulation and dynamical performance for a wider
wi
operating range [6].As shown in Fig. 2, if the PI compensator
loop is annulled; an indirect sliding-mode
sliding
current control is
used to stabilize the output voltage only using a fixed current
reference [7]. Considering the current reference as the timetime
varying function IL1ref ,, we obtain the sliding surface
expression as in eq. (2).
S(x) = IL1ref iL1

(2)

The surface S(x) constitutes a current control loop so that in

equilibrium (steady-state)
state) iL1 = IL1ref. This surface can also be
used to regulate the output voltage provided that the current

reference IL1ref is given by an external loop that processes the

output voltage error by means of a compensating network. In
our case the compensating network is given by a PI circuit and
therefore the switching surface consisting of both inner and
outer loops is given as in eq. (4)
$&' ! "

!"

#%

!"

!"

#
(4)

To design the PI compensator, the transfer function (5) of the

inner loop is obtained by linearizing the resultant sliding
dynamic, this allowing the application of any linear control
design method [8].

!
Where M= (")!

!(

(5)
)!

Sliding mode control law can be implemented by using a

hysteresis comparator. With a hysteresis band of 2
between*+, the control law is defined by (6).
,
IV.

1, .
0, .

/
1

+
2
+

(6)

DC-AC STAGE: F ULL- BRIDGE INVERTER

The full-bridge is a converter topology, which is
commonly used in voltage source inverters (VSI), current
source inverters (CSI), power factor correction (PFC)
rectifiers, and active power filters (APF) among others. This
converter can operate using both a bipolar technique and a
unipolar technique. The bipolar technique switches both arms
of the bridge at high frequency while the unipolar technique
switches an arm at high frequency and the other one at low
frequency. The unipolar technique is preferred because of two
features: a) it has lower switching losses; and, b) its
application requires the use of smaller filtering components.
However, the control circuit of a bipolar commutated fullbridge has less complexity; hence, we focus this preliminary
work in this approach. The full-bridge topology can be
operating with either a pulse width modulator (PWM) or a
hysteresis comparator. However, a SPWM technique is
employed by comparing the sinusoidal wave (reference wave)
with the triangular wave (carrier wave).

Fig. 3.

Full-bridge inverter and control scheme

In this technique sine waves and a triangular carrier wave

are used to generate PWM signal. The frequency of these
sinusoidal waves is chosen based on the required inverter
output frequency 50 Hz. The carrier triangular wave is usually
a high frequency (in KHz) wave. The switching signal is
generated by comparing the sinusoidal waves with the
triangular wave. The comparator gives out a pulse when sine
voltage is greater than the triangular voltage and this pulse is
used to trigger the respective inverter switches [9]. The ratio
between the triangular wave and sine wave must be an integer
N, the number of voltage pulses per half-cycle, such that, 2N=
fc/fs.
Frequency modulation ratio (3 ) is defined as the ratio of
carrier frequency to the reference frequency. eq.(7).
,3

.
().

(7)

Where, .( - Carrier frequency Hz, . - Reference

frequency in Hz.
Amplitude modulation ratio is defined as the ratio of
amplitude of reference wave to amplitude of carrier wave.
eq.(9).
34

!
)!
(

(8)

Where, ! =Amplitude of reference wave, !( =Amplitude

of carrier wave.

For synchronous PWM, 3 should be an integer. The

reason for using this type of PWM is asynchronous PWM
results in sub harmonics that are undesirable. It can be
avoided by choosing 3
45 7. 8. , 15 3 , hence there will
be 45 sinusoidal modulated pulses in one complete cycle.
So to get3
45, the carrier frequency .( would
be 2250 <= for 50 <=, similarly .( is varied proportionally to
reference wave.
The rms output voltage can be varied by varying the
modulation index M. It can be observed that area of each
pulse corresponds approximately to the area under the sine
wave between the adjacent midpoints of off periods on the
gating signals. If +> is the width of the mth pulse, [9] then the
rms equation is given by eq.(9).
!?

!@ A>D
"

+>)
C

(9)

The outputs of an inverter contain large amount of

harmonics content. This harmonic attenuation can be achieved
by several methods such as by resonating the load, by an LC
filter, pulse width modulation, sine wave synthesis, selected
harmonic reduction and by poly-phase inverters. Moreover in
PWM technique, if the carrier frequency is increased, the
harmonics components are reduced. A well designed filter can
attenuate switching frequency components but impacts on
control band width and the impedance presented to grid
distortion []. RC &LC filters are the most used passive filters.
They are divided into 1st order, 2nd Order & 3rd order filters
according to the combination of the passive components [10].
LC is a 2nd order filter and eq.(10).
.E
V.

Capacitor C1

50F

Capacitor C2

100F

Kp constant

Ki constant

0.02

Hysteresis band

0.5

LC filter value

2mH,
20uF

Table 2 SOLAR PANEL PARAMETERS

Design parameter

value

Number of cells ns

54

Maximum power pmax

215

Voltage at pmax

26.6

Current at pmax

8.09

Open-circuit voltage voc

33.2

Short-circuit current isc

8.78

Temperature coeff. Of voc

-0.36

Temperature coeff. Of isc

0.06

Sd light intensity s0

1000

Sd temperature tref

25

No of panel in parallel

02

(10)

"F

SIMULATION RESULTS

In order to evaluate the above presented control scheme

and verify the analytical procedures, simulation done in PSIM
scheme shown in Fig. 4, which contains the cascaded
connection of the DC-DC and DC-AC stages tied to a power
source. The corresponding parameters are shown in table I.
Table 1 SIMULATION PARAMETERS
Quadratic Boost Converter

Full Bridge Inverter

Design Parameter

Value

Design Parameter

Value

Nominal power

300W

Nominal power

300W

Input Voltage

30V

Input voltage

400V

Output Voltage

400V

Inverter voltage

230V

Inductor L1

600H

Inverter frequency

50Hz

Inductor L2

10mH

Modulation
frequency

2250Hz

Fig. 4.
Schematic diagram of PSIM simulation of the overall microinverter system

Fig. 5.

Quadratic boost Converter Input and Output Voltage waveform

Fig. 6.

Inductor Current IL1 Waveform

Fig. 7.

Inverter Voltage Waveform Vac

Fig. 8.

Inverter Voltage Waveform Vac(Expanded scale)

Fig. 10.

Detail of the hysteresis band on sliding-mode surfaces

Fig. 11.

Detail of the SPWM generation.

A. Input voltage disturbances

The systems starts-up at 0 s with an input voltage of 15 V and
reaches the steady-state. However, it is worth to point out that
in real operation with a PV module, the power reference and
the input voltage changes simultaneously as shown in Fig. 5.
B.

Start-up condition

As shown in Fig. 5,6,7, simulation results of the proposed

micro-inverter reveal two main aspects. Firstly, a poor output
current tracking is observable when the DC voltage is
reaching its steady-state value. Hence, it is possible to assert
that is necessary to use a converter with the afore-mentioned
high-gain with regulation in the output voltage. Further, a
minimum overshoot is observed in the input current and even
more in the DC voltage. This fact is mainly due to the selected
values of the Kp and Ki constants of the outer loop in the DCDC converter, which control the resultant sliding-mode of the
Fig. 9.

Load current Waveform Iac(Expanded scale)

inner control loop and significantly change the overall

behavior dynamic.
C.

Sliding-mode controllers operation and SPWM

Generation

As shown in Fig. 10, two hysteresis comparators have been

involved in the control scheme. Each one corresponds to the
sliding-mode approach of the control of the DC-DC and DCAC stage respectively. The simulation captures in figure 8
depict the hysteresis band of the states involved in the sliding
surfaces of each converter. It is possible to observe the
constraint of the currents in the hysteresis band defined
around its equilibrium points. It is worth mentioning that the
input current shows a sinusoidal low frequency ripple due to
the DC-AC conversion. Fig. 11. is the details about the
SPWM pluses for full bridge inverter.

[4]
[5]

[6]
[7]

[8]

[9]
[10]

D.

System Efficiency

Simulation Results shows that the Quadratic boost converter

cascaded with full bridge inverter for micro-inverter system
has an efficiency of 88%. Power absorbing by the panel is
280 W and power feeding to the load through full bridge
inverter is 250 W. The total harmonic distortion is 2.8%

III.

CONCLUSIONS

The application of the sliding mode control in a dual-stage

micro-inverter has been explained in this preliminary work. A
PI-based sliding surface has been proposed and successfully
used in the control of a quadratic boost converter in the DCDC stage which feeds full-bridge inverter as load. The control
of this inverter has been also proposed using the SPWM
technique. In both cases simulation results has a reliable
operation. However, it is clear that the use of the hysteresis
comparators in these applications reduces the complexity of
the sliding-mode implementation avoiding the chattering and
modulator saturation. To summarize, this work explains the
compatibility between the quadratic boost converter and the
bipolar full-bridge inverter operating together as a Microinverter when sliding mode based controller and SPWM
technique are used in DC-DC and DC-AC stages. Future work
will be focused in the overall analysis including the MPPT
block and grid intergation.

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