Application Note AN-2301

Power Supply Systems

Understanding Regulation Modes: Constant Voltage (CV), Constant

Current (CC), Constant Power (CP) and Constant Resistance (CR)

I ntroduction. Power supplies can be used in many different fields in real-world applications
and a wide variety of behaviours are requested depending on the specific task that needs to be
performed. This application note is focused on giving a power supply user a brief overview on
the possible scenarios related to the power converters depending on needs and requirements.

A very important first distinction has to be made on the dynamic requirements of the
considered application: in principle, all requirements can be classified as for DC (Direct
Current) sources or for AC (Alternate Current) sources. Additional distinctions apply - e.g. DC
pulsed sources or other types - but this topic will not be covered on this application note.
Besides these dynamic requirements of the power supply, a very important distinction has
to be made on the type of regulation that should be performed on the power supply output.

Most of the applications require the power supply to work either in Constant Voltage (CV)
mode, where the output voltage needs to be kept at a chosen value, or in Constant Current
(CC) mode, where the value to be kept stable is referring to the output current. In some specific
application the requested value to be regulated is depending to a value which is related to
both voltage and current: this could be, for example, the output power or the equivalent output
resistance, thus requesting the Constant Power (CP) mode or the Constant Resistance (CR) one.

R egulation Modes. Taking a closer look at the previously listed regulation modes, the schematic
representation of each one of them on the V-I plane can be represented as shown in Figure 1.

I I The CV mode is the most common regulation scheme

for power supplies and it is often called also fixed-
CV CC
voltage mode. The majority of the consumer AC/DC
adapters have a CV control scheme at its output so that
V V the output voltage is kept constant: the power supply
I I adapts its output current based on the connected load
values. Some other applications require the mirrored
CR
CP situation (CC) where the output voltage is adapted in
order to maintain the output current at a stable value.

V V
In typical but more uncommon situations, the
Figure 1: CV, CC, CP and CR regulation modes
required value that needs to be held stable
by the power supply is the output power (CP) or the equivalent output resistance (CR).

Rev. 1.0 - March 23rd, 2023 Application Note AN-2301

 Understanding Regulation Modes: CV, CC, CP and CR

A mathematical representation of these regulation schemes can be summarized in formulas (1) to (4).
In these equations Vo(t), Io(t), Po(t) and Ro(t) are the output voltage, current, power and
resistance respectively and K is an arbitrary constant
(within the allowable range of the power supply).
Depending on the model of power supply the behavior
of the unit itself is more complex - e.g. a CV power supply
usually moves to a CC mode when its maximum rated
current is reached - so we will have a practical example
of one of our high-performance programmable power
supplies capable of running in all these four modes.

E xample. We will analyze the working principles of one power supply of the FAST-Bi-1K5 series, in
particular the 5040 model which has ratings of ±50 A, ±40 V and a maximum output power of 1.500 W.

The FAST-Bi-1K5 digital power supply (Figure 3) is a bipolar, bidirectional and regenerative power unit: this
means that it is capable of working in all four (4) quadrants of the V-I plane. In other words, it can act both
as a source and as a sink/load
and when acting as a load
it can put back the excess
energy in the AC mains
network with only a very small
amount of dissipated power.

The operation in the V-I

plane of the unit is shown
in Figure 2. As it can be
seen, the operation can take
place at any point of the four
quadrants of the V-I plane as
long as it is within the vertical
lines of Vo = 40 V and Vo
= -40 V (CV), the horizontal
lines of Io = 50 A and Io =
-50 A (CC) and the curves of
constant power Po = 1.500
W and Po = -1.500 W (CP). Figure 2: V-I operation of the FAST-Bi-1K5 5040
Two sample lines are shown
for the Constant Resistance (CR) mode of operation, respectively
Ro = 0.6 Ω and Ro = 1.066 Ω (and the corresponding negative ones).
The power supplies of the FAST-Bi-1K5 series run a digital control loop on
an embedded System-on-Chip (SoC) that is configurable and adaptable
to the specific connected load and application at the user’s convenience.
A list of very important applications that all need a
Figure 3: FAST-Bi-1K5 unit different type of bipolar (or 2-quadrant) operation

Rev. 1.0 - March 23rd, 2023

 Understanding Regulation Modes: CV, CC, CP and CR

of the power supply are hereafter listed (and can be graphically seen in Figure 4):

• battery charging/discharging (Q1 and Q4); I

• correcting electromagnets (Q1 and Q3);

Superconducting Battery
Q2 Q1
• superconducting magnets (Q1 and Q2). Magnets Charging/Discharging

In battery testing it is necessary to work in the first V

quadrant (as a source) when charging the battery

(+V, +I) while the fourth quadrant (as a sink) is Corrector Q3 Q4
Electromagnets
Electromagnets
needed in order to discharge it (+V, -I). Also, in these
applications, most of the times, a different regualtion
scheme needs to be applied (in the simplest case Figure 4: Application examples requiring
rechargeable batteries need to be charged using bipolar operation
only CC and CV modes but many other models apply).

Power supplies for corrector electromagnets need to always work as a source (except for transients when
they need to discharge the back-EMF from a largely inductive load) so that the first quadrant (+V, +I) is
needed to generate a magnetic field while the third one (-V, -I) needs to be used to invert the field direction.

Superconducting magnets require the power converter to work in a third different bipolar way: they need to
be charged operating in the first quadrant (+V, +I) but the huge amount of energy stored in the quasi-purely
large magnetic load usually requires the power supply to invert its voltage polarity - i.e. second quadrant
(-V, +I) - in order to discharge it. In some superconducting applications all four quadrants are needed.

S ummary. Real-world applications are widely heterogenous and different devices

may need to have a power supply with the right characteristics connected to them.
The main regulation schemes are CV, CC, CP and CR and most of the programmable
power supplies on the market can perform only one (or two) of these regulations.
Additionally, these available power supplies have a fixed regulation loop (most of the times analog)
that is designed to cover a wide range of loads but it is not optimized to a specific condition.
The dynamic behavior of these units is thus strongly affected by the
characteristics of the load and the application usually is not fulfilled at its best.

The FAST-Bi-1K5 can operate in all regulation modes and the control loop
together with its parameters can be tuned considering the connected load
and the desired performance. All this can be done with the same device.

Beside these aspects the regenerative architecture allows feeding back into the AC network
the excess energy when the unit needs to act as a sink / electronic load: this reduces
power dissipation, increases reliability and consequently minimizes operation costs.

Battery testing, active loads, superconducting magnets, electromagnets and many other
applications may be all performed with the same hardware unit at the state-of-the-art level

Application Note AN-2301

 by only configuring the device for the specific need.

An example of different Constant Power (CP) curves,

About Us
corresponding to different power levels (source and

CAEN ELS is a leading company in the sink) on a FAST-Bi-1K5 5040 can be seen in Figure 5.
design of power supplies and state-of-
the-art complete electronic systems
for the Physics research world, having Constant Power (CP) - FAST-Bi-1K5 5040

its main focus on dedicated solutions

for the particle accelerator community
and high-end industrial applications.

Power Supply Systems

Precision Current Measurements

Beamline Electronics Instrumentation

FMC and MicroTCA

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34149 - loc. Basovizza - Trieste (TS)
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www.caenels.com Figure 5: Constant Power (CP) curves

The previous curves clearly trace the paths that

the power supply needs to follow - at different values - in order to reach the desired

power setpoint when configured in the Constant Power (CP) regulation mode.

C onclusions. The embedded Web-Server, running on a Linux OS makes the FAST-Bi-1K5

easy to access and platform independent. The regulation parameters can be configured

and set remotely for all the regulation modes, any waveform scheme can be reproduced

with the embedded high-speed Arbitrary Waveform Generator (AWG) and the behavior of

the current, voltage, power and equivalent resistance monitored directly on the embedded

4-channel oscilloscope (with all curve tracing, triggering capabilities, and much more).

Different ratings are available for our power supply series and, in this specific case, up to four units of

the FAST-Bi-1K5 of identical output ratings can be paralleled to have higher equivalent power ratings.

Different waveforms - e.g. custom-defined routines - as well as different regulation schemes can

be directly configured by the user. A unique procedure for automatically find and set the best

parameters for the specific application is also available for these units as an additional license

(called AUTO-TUNING). Please check our website www.caenels.com for more information.

C Copyright © CAEN ELS s.r.l. - 2023

All rights reserved. Information in this publication supersedes all previous versions.
Specifications subject to change without notice.
Rev. 1.0 - Printed in March 2023