Journal of Electrical Engineering

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DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF A DISCRETE CONTROLLER FOR

SOFT SWITCHING DC - DC CONVERTER
S.VIJAYALAKSHMI1 Dr.T.SREE RENGA RAJA2
Mookambigai College of Engineering1, Pudukkottai, Anna University of Technology2, Tiruchirapalli
[email protected], [email protected]

Abstract: In this paper, high efficiency Zero Voltage Switching buck converter with closed loop discrete PID controller is
designed and simulated. The conventional buck converter generates switching losses at turn on and turns off. The
efficiency of the buck converter can be improved by using resonant component. The only switch used in the converter is
turn-ON at zero current and turn-OFF at zero voltage by means of the resonant component Inductor and Capacitor. The
dynamic performance of the ZVS buck converter can be improved by the design of discrete PID PWM controller. A 10W /
400 KHz Soft switched Discrete PID PWM buck converter is simulated and analyzed using MATLAB / Simulink. Discrete
PI Controller, Analog PI & PID Controller is also designed and simulated whose performance parameters are compared
with the Discrete PID Controller is also illustrated.
Keywords: Buck converter, Zero Voltage Switching, Pulse Width Modulation, Analog to Digital Converter, Discrete PID
controller, Digital to Analog Converter.

NOMENCLATURE size and lighter weight (from the elimination of

S1 Main switch. low frequency transformers which have a high
D1 Main Diode. weight) and lower heat generation due to higher
L1 Main inductor. efficiency. In SMPS the role of digital controller is
C1 Main capacitor. more important. The design of nonlinear digital
L2 Resonant inductor. controller offer many advantages over their analog
C2 Resonant capacitor. counterpart. A disadvantages of the Analog
D2 Auxiliary Diode. Controller are difficulty in adjusting, Lack of
fr Resonant frequency. flexibility to higher functions and system
fs Switching frequency. alteration, Low reliability. Some advantages of
Vo Output voltage. Digital Controller are 1) Digital components are
Vs Input voltage. less susceptible to aging and environmental
iL1 Main inductor current variations. (2) They are less sensitive to noise. (3)
iL2 Resonant inductor current Changing a controller does not require an
Vc1 Voltage across main capacitor. alteration in the hardware. (4) They provide
Vc2 Voltage across resonant capacitor improved sensitivity to parameter variations.” An
k Duty cycle important advantages offered by digital controller
A,C State coefficient matrix is in the flexibility of its modifying controller
B,D Source coefficient matrix characteristics, simplicity in design, small drifting
ZVS Zero Voltage Switching of system parameters and ease of operation. It also
∆I Input ripple current provides stability, fast response and minimal
∆Vc Output ripple voltage overshoot. Various nonlinear digital techniques [4
PWM Pulse Width Modulation – 12] have been researched to achieve improved
transient performance of the SMPS.
I. INTRODUCTION In general converters using hard switching
Now a day’s utilization of Switched Mode at a high frequency, the switching loss increases in
Power Supplies (SMPS) of nonlinear controller is proportion to the switching frequency. Thus the
inevitable. The main advantage of this method is soft switching technology, which uses resonance
greater efficiency because the switching device by an inductor and capacitor, reduces the
dissipates little power when it is outside of its switching losses considerably. This paper proposes
active region. Other advantages include smaller an improved efficiency of Zero Voltage Switching
buck converter and to implement the Discrete

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Controller so that the circuit can give any required pulse is given to the ZVS Buck Converter.
buck converter output voltage. Due to the Whatever variations occur in input voltage,
controller, the circuit can withstand any change in required output voltage changes, Load resistance
the input voltage, Load resistance, filter capacitor variations and circuit component variations the
and inductor and provide constant output voltage discrete controller accordingly control the error
which is required. The soft switching can cut down and provide the regulated output. Hence the
the stress and loss produced at the switch [1 – 3]. robustness of the circuit is very high.
This paper is subdivided as stated below.
The section II of this article discusses about the III. Design of Discrete controlled ZVS Buck
block diagram of Discrete Controlled soft Converter
switching Buck converter, the section III gives the A. Buck Converter:
Design of Discrete controlled ZVS Buck Fig. 2. Shows a schematic diagram of
Converter, section IV says the Discussion of the Conventional Buck Converter. The average output
proposed Discrete Controller & its results, section voltage Vo, is less than the input voltage Vs. It
V & VI gives the conclusion and references requires only one switch and it is the simplest one,
respectively. whose efficiency is more than 90%. The buck
converter component L1 and C1 can be calculated
II. Block diagram of Discrete Controlled soft by using [15] the value of L1 & C1 is
switching Buck Converter. (1)
(2)

Fig. 2. Schematic diagram of Buck Converter.

Fig. 1. Block diagram of Discrete controlled Zero B. Zero Voltage Switching Buck Converter :
Voltage switching Buck Converter. The switches of a ZVS converter turn ON
and turn OFF at zero voltage. Fig. 3. Shows the
Fig.1. Shows a Discrete Controlled Soft proposed converter with Zero Voltage Switching.
switching buck converter. It consists of Soft In this circuit inductor L2, Diode D2 and capacitor
switching Buck converter, Analog to Digital C2 for accomplishing the soft switching of S1. The
converter, discrete PID controller, Pulse Width capacitor C2 is connected in parallel with the
Modulator and Digital to Analog converter. The switch S1 to achieve ZVS. The internal switch
output of the ZVS Buck converter is compared capacitance Cj is added with the capacitor C2, and
with the reference voltage in a comparator whose it affects the resonant frequency only, thereby
output is an error signal. The analog error signal is contributing no power dissipation in the switch. If
converted into a digital signal by means of Analog the switch is implemented with MOSFET S1 and
to Digital Converter. The Digital error output is an anti parallel diode D2 as shown in Fig. 3., the
corrected by Discrete PID controller. The discrete voltage across C2 is clamped by D2, and the
control output is converted into Digital Pulse width switch is operated in a half-wave configuration.
signal by DPWM block. The digital PWM pulse is The resonant component of L2 & C2 can be
again converted into analog PWM pulse by Digital calculated by using [15].
to Analog Converter. Finally the analog PWM (3)

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(4)
(5)

Table 2 Losses occur in ZVS Buck Converter at

Vs =12V, R=10Ω, & fs=400 KHz.

Losses due to Losses (mW) Losses (mW)

Hard Soft
Switched Switched
ESR of the main 0.5491 1.204
capacitor
ESR of the main 7.526 16.5
inductor
ESR of the -- 10.62
resonant
capacitor
ESR of the -- 13.1
resonant inductor
Conduction Loss 0.5956 0.9763
of the MOSFET
Fig. 3. Schematic diagram of Zero Voltage Switching Loss 62.14 --
Switching Buck Converter of the MOSFET
Freewheeling 112.6 118.5
Table I. Design parameters of ZVS Buck Converter diode conduction
losses
S. Parameter Value Total losses 183.4 160.9
No.
1 Output power Po 10 W
Table 2 shows the Losses of various
2 Input Voltage Vs 12 V
3 Switching frequency fr 400 KHz
components in the hard switched (Buck Converter)
4 Sampling frequency fs 1 MHz & soft switched (ZVS Buck Converter). Though
5 Input ripple current ∆I 0.6 A other losses in the various components are greater
6 Output ripple voltage ∆Vc 20 mV in soft switched converter, it has no switching
7 Main Inductor L1 12µH losses in the MOSFET. In general switching losses
8 Main Capacitor C1 10µF in the power semiconductor is more than other
9 Resonant Inductor L2 2.4µH losses. Hence total losses in the Hard switched is
10 Resonant Capacitor C2 66.3nF greater than that of Soft switched converter.

The efficiency of the conventional buck converter

and ZVS buck converter can be calculated by

Table 3 Calculated Efficiency of Buck Converter and ZVS Buck Converter.

Buck Converter ZVS Buck Converter

R Io Vo Po Losses η (%) R Io Vo Po Losses η (%)
2.5 1.78 4.45 7.93 0.7706 91.14 2.5 1.353 3.38 4.59 0.2931 92.12
5 0.9 4.49 4.04 0.3664 91.68 5 0.982 4.911 4.824 0.2867 94.38
7.5 0.60 4.50 2.70 0.3177 91.71 7.5 0.794 5.959 4.735 0.2073 95.8
10 0.45 4.51 2.03 0.1834 91.76 10 0.677 6.773 4.522 0.1608 96.57
12.5 0.361 4.51 1.62 0.1494 91.8 12.5 0.594 7.422 4.406 0.1254 97.23
15 0.31 4.65 1.44 0.1292 91.86 15 0.528 0.726 4.188 0.0997 97.67

Load Resistance (R), Output current (Io), Output voltage (Vo), Output power (Po), Losses an Efficiency (η
(%)) of Buck Converter and ZVS Buck Converter.

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Equation (5) is used to find efficiency of describe the input and output relation of a ZVS
the Buck Converter and ZVS Buck Converter. Buck Converter. All state variables are subscribed
Table 3 Shows the various values of Load ‘s and all sources are subscribed u’s.
Resistance (R), Output Power, Losses, The state equation method as follows
corresponding efficiency of the Buck Converter (6)
and ZVS Buck Converter. For every load (7)
resistance the efficiency of the ZVS Buck The state equation method is applied to Fig. 3.
converter is greater than that of the conventional ZVS Buck Converter. Where
= iL1
Buck converter.
iL2
vc1
vc2 (8)

0 0

0 0 0
A= (9)
0 0 0

0 0
Fig. 4. Efficiency comparison at 400 KHz.

By using Table 3 there is a response curve B=

between Load Resistance (R) and % efficiency (%
η) of the conventional Buck Converter and ZVS (10)
Buck Converter are shown in Fig. 4. From the
Fig. 4. Efficiency of the ZVS Buck Converter is
improved by 5% than the schematic Buck 0
Converter. 0
C. State Variable modeling of ZVS Buck
Converter: C = [ 0 1] ; D=[0] (11)
The state-space averaging is an
approximate technique that can be applied to

By using equation (9),(10) & (11) the transfer function of the ZVS Buck Converter is calculated from [17]

(12)
D. Analog to Digital Converter:
It is a device that converts a continuous
quantity to a discrete time digital representation.
Fig. 5. shows an error signal e(t) is converted
into Discrete sample signal by an Analog to Fig. 5. Analog to Digital Converter
Digital Converter. The A/D conversion process
involves deriving samples of the analog signal at E. Discrete PID Controller:
discrete instants of time separated by sampling PID controller is versatile enough to
period T (1µS) sec and the quantization interval is control wide variety of industrial processes. The
1/128. common practice is to interface a PID controller to
the process and adjust the parameters of the

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controller online, by trial – and – error, to obtain (16)

acceptable performance. The control Algorithm to
design discrete PID controller as follows: Equation (15) represents Analog PID
Obtain experimentally the dynamic characteristics controller transfer function. The equation (13) can
of the process. be converted into discrete PID form [15], it
1. Based on dynamic characteristics of a process, becomes
tuning rules have been developed by Ziegler- (17)
Nichols method, refer Table 4.
Table 4. Ziegler–Nichols tuning formulae. The equation (17) is converted into poles & zeros
Type of Kp Ti Td form as
Controller (18)

P 0.5Kcr ∞ 0

PI 0.45Kcr 1/1.2Pcr 0

PID 0.6Kcr 0.5Pcr 0.125Pcr Fig. 6. Discrete PID Controller

F. Digital PWM:
2. Equation describing the Analog PID controller The output of the discrete time Integral
is as follows: Controller is converted into Analog form by means
of quantizer, whose quantization interval is
1/1024. The Output of the saturation is in digital
(13) form which is one of the input of the comparator is
(14) compared with the carrier signal (400 KHz). The
comparator output (d) is the PWM pulses. This
By using Ziegler – Nichols Tuning PWM output pulse is the gate pulse of the ZVS
formulae obtain control parameters Kp, Ti, & Td.. buck converter switch.
The value of Kp, Ti, & Td. for ZVS Buck Converter
whose plant model transfer function (12) is Kp =
0.001, Ti =2.14e-5, & Td=5.36e-6 where Kc=Kp.
Now
U(s) = 0.001 [1+
(15)
The actual discrete transfer function of the form as
Fig. 7. Discrete PWM Pulse generator

Fig. 8. Matlab/Simulink diagram of Discrete Controlled ZVS Buck Converter

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Fig. 8. Shows the overall Matlab /

Simulink diagram of Discrete Controlled ZVS
Buck Converter, whose output voltage response is
shown in Fig. 9. Fig. 10, 11, 12 shows the output
voltage response of the Discrete PI controller,
Analog PID controller and Analog PI controller
respectively.

Fig. 11. Output voltage of Analog PID Controller.

Fig. 9. Output voltage of Discrete PID Controller.

Fig. 12. Output Voltage of Analog PI Controller.

Fig. 10. Output voltage of Discrete PI Controller.

Table 5 Comparison of the Performance Parameters of Discrete and Analog controlled ZVS Buck Converters

Controller Settling Peak Overshoot Rise Time Steady Output Ripple

Time (ms) (%) (ms) State Error Voltage (V)
(V)
Discrete PID Controller 1.25 4.25 0.6 0 0
Discrete PI Controller 1.4 4.8 0.51 0.03 0.008
Analog PID Controller 12.2 4.33 5.3 0.215 0
Analog PI Controller 10.8 4.31 5.2 0.0029 0

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Table 6 Performance of the Discrete PID Controller with the variations of the different parameters.

Output Response for Load variations Output Response for Input Voltage variations

Reference Output Vs Reference Output

R(Ω) L(µH) C(µF) Voltage(V) Voltage(V) Voltage(V) Voltage(V)
2.5 - - 5 5 10 5 5
5 10 - 5 5 14 5 5
15 14 12 5 5 8 5 5
25 15 8 5 5 6 5 5
40 12 12 5 5 16 5 5
60 17 15 5 5 18 5 5

IV. Discussion high frequency SMPS controllers. Simulation

The ZVS Buck converter has High results are presented for 10W/400KHz, 12V to 5V
Efficiency than the conventional Buck Converter is point of load. The response of the system is much
tabulated in Table 3. The ZVS Buck Converter faster and it works well for all the possible values
with Discrete PID controller and many other of the duty cycle and the change in the load
controllers are designed and simulated. The output resistance, inductance, capacitance and Input
voltage performance of the Discrete PID and PI voltage. In future we can change the load from
Controller and Analog PID & PI Controller are resistive to Inductive or motor load. This controller
shown in fig. 9, 10, 11 & 12 respectively. The circuit can be implemented to control different
performance parameters of the Discrete PID Special machines like Brushless DC motor,
controller are better than all other Controllers are Switched reluctance motor etc.
illustrated in Table 5. Discrete PID Controller has
less settling time, less Peak overshoot, less rise VI. References
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