Simple PDM Pattern Generation for an AC/AC Resonant Converter
Abdelhalim Sandali, Ahmed Chkriti and Pierre Sicard
Hydro-Quebec Research Chair on Power and Electrical Energy
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, School of Engineering
UniversitC du Qutbec a Trois-Rivihes
C.P. 500, Trois-Rivikres, Qukbec, Canada G9A 5H7
Abdelhalim-Sandali@uqtr.ca, Ahmed-Chkriti@uqtr.ca, Pierre-Sicard@uqtr.ca
-
Abstract PDM control applied to a series resonant inverter
reduces switching losses and eliminates the requirement for the
rectifier dc voltage smoothing filter. Synthesis of a PDM control
signal is quite complex and the aim of the paper is to simplify
the PDM control law based equations. In the control law
derived from the simplified model, PDM signal is generated by
comparing a triangular carrier and a power reference signal. It
is shown that the proposed simplified model is very accurate if
the carrier frequency is below a certain limit. Validation of the
simplified model is based on the comparison of harmonics
content of the input current. Simulation results validate the
proposed PDM pattern generator.
I. INTRODUCTION
Power engineers are confronted to a push for the reduction
of the size and cost as well as the improvement of the
efficiency of static converters [I]. Significant gains can be
obtained by simplification of converter topology and the
reduction of the switching stress. The PDM (Pulse Density
Modulation) control technique brings these so much desired
simplification and reduction of the constraints. Indeed, its
application to a series resonant inverter makes it possible to
eliminate the switching losses. In addition, a diode rectifier
bridge without any smoothing filter of the dc voltage can
supply the inverter [2] [3] [4]. This combination results into
an ac/ac converter without switching-loss in the inverter. The
use of a decoupling capacitor to absorb high frequency
ripples of the current in the rectifier makes it possible to
have a unity power factor at maximum output power [2] [3].
In [2]-[6], the analysis of the operation of these converters is
made under the assumption of a constant intermediate dc
voltage during all PDM sequences. Moreover, no
relationship was established between the power factor and
the transmitted power when the latter varies. A PDM control
strategy was presented in [7] using the concept of holes, with
the relaxed assumption that the intermediate dc voltage is
constant only during one switching period of the inverter. An
explicit relationship between the transmitted power and the
power factor was also established in [7]. With the same
strategy, the power factor of the converter can be improved
by adding a low-pass filter at the input of the rectifier, whose
size can be small if the number holes is high [8].
Unfortunately, the complexity of calculations increases
considerably with the number of holes in the pattern, and
there is no indication on the maximum achievable number of
holes. The main goal of this paper is to develop a control
strategy with the same level of performance as that
developed in [7], but without complex calculations. The
0-7803-7474-6/02/$17.0002002 IEEE
principle of PDM control is presented in Section 11. The
procedure to solve numerically for an optimal PDM pattern
is described in Section 111. In Section IV, the system of
equations that governs the PDM control law is simplified
and a particular solution of this system is established. A
method for automatic PDM pattern generation is presented
in Section V. Simulation results are presented in Section VI
and the conclusion in Section VII.
11. PRINCIPLE OF PDM CONTROL
PDM is one of the techniques suitable to control series
resonant inverters. Its main objectives are to maintain
switching losses at zero in the inverter and to vary the load
power. To achieve the first objective, the switching
frequency is maintained equal to the resonance frequency of
the load. To vary load power, freewheeling phases, with
duration equal to a multiple of the switching period, are
introduced into the operation cycle of the inverter. During
the freewheeling phases, the load voltage and the supply
current are zero. The control signals of the inverter switches
(Fig. la) can be generated using logical operations applied to
a signal at the resonance frequency (S-Res) and the PDM
pattern (P-PDM) (Fig. lb). The PDM pattern is
characterized by its length k and its duty cycle D . k is the
ratio of the PDM pattern period ( T p D M ) and the resonance
period ( T,, ):
= TPDM ITres (1)
The duty cycle D is defined by:
D=1-T,/TpD, 3 (2)
where is in the duration of the freewheeling phase (Fig.
1c).
If voltage E remains constant during all PDM sequences,
transmitted power (P.u.) is [ 2 ] :
p = D2 if TPDM<< z (3.1)
p = D if TPDM>> z (3.2)
where r is the time constant of the load current envelope. It
is defined by:
z =(2+L)/R (4)
Reference power is given by:
Pres = (2/7r). E . I,,, . COS @ (5)
where E is the inverter supply voltage, which we assume to
be constant during the PDM sequence, I,,, is the load
current peak value for a unity duty cycle and @ is the angle
294
between the load current and fundamental voltage of the
square wave with amplitude E. Feasibility of supplying the
series resonant inverter by a single-phase diode bridge
rectifier without smoothing filter of the dc voltage was
proven, and it was also shown that it is possible to have a
unit power factor, when the PDM is not applied (i.e. at
maximum output power) by using a decoupling capacitor
C
)(, to absorb the high frequency ripple of the current in
the rectifier [2] [3]. The result is a low size and low cost
ac/ac converter (Fig. 2). Equation (3) is not valid for the
converter of Fig. 2 because the input voltage of the inverter
is not constant and a more precise expression is developed in
Section IV.
A
I I
111. CALCULATION OF PDM PATTERN
For the control of the converter shown in Fig. 2, a new
PDM pattern generation strategy was presented in [7], with
the following characteristics (Fig. 3):
1. The period of the pattern is equal to the period of the
rectified voltage U. Therefore, the length of the PDM
sequence is constant and equal to N with:
N = Fres /(2 F ) ' (6)
where Fre, = l/Tres is the resonance frequency and
F = 1/T the ac-supply frequency.
2. This pattern comprises q holes. Each hole is characterized
by its starting index nlk and ending index nSk with
k = 1.2,..., 9 . These boundaries satisfjr:
1I rill I nsl I ...........Inlq Insq I N
In absence of the holes, the input current of the converter is:
ireC,;(t)= A, sin($t] (7)
with

a) Inverter topology
and a = 1- 7t{/J;-s. (9)

where 5 =A m is the damping ratio of the load.

2
In the presence of holes, input current ireC,; can be expressed
in terms of a Fourier series as:

Expressions for a, and b , are given in appendix. A PDM

b) Logic control circuit for the power switches
pattern with q holes generates 2q unknown variables, namely
nIk and nSk with k = 1,2,....., 4 . To determine these 2q
Tres
unknown variables, it is necessary to solve for a system with
2q equations. We formulate the 2q equations using (A.l) to
(A.9) (Appendix) and the following criterion: i) assign
values in the range 0 to 1 to the desired power (P.u.)
transmitted by the converter a,,d, ii) cancel the (2q-1)
coefficients of lower order in the Fourier series of irec,i , i.e.
coefficients 4 , a3.b ,......, q q - l , b2q-l . The system to solve
c) Inverter input control signals
Fig. I. Generation of inverter control signals

Fig.2. Ac/ac converter with intermediate stage without smoothing filter

295
 (A.4) becomes:
6, Z O (15.2)
. . . . (A.6) becomes:
if m = 2.h.(q+l)-1 (15.3)
nm
. .
P-PDM;-U
. .
....... I r
. .
a, .-'"sin(--)
mn
mlr An
2 N
if r n = 2 . h - ( q + l ) + l (15.4)

b a, S O otherwise (15.5)
O n11 nsl n1, nSq N n
where h is an integer.
Fig. 3. PDM pattern with holes (A.8) becomes:
b, z 0 (15.6)
The power then varies by steps of 2 . (q + 1)/N . This defines
a relationship between the number of holes and the
resolution with which the power varies. Considering the duty
cycle defined in (2) and that:
where E is the tolerance for the optimization algorithm. The TI = A n . Tres (16)
pattern is calculated off-line to impose the transmitted power
and TfDM = (N/(q+ l)). Tres 3 (17)
and to cancel selected harmonics of the current irec,i. This
(15.1) becomes:
control strategy makes it possible to improve the power U, Z D (1 8 )
factor of the ac/ac converter directly [7] or indirectly [ 8 ] , if
Contrary to (9,the reference power given by:
the number of holes is very large. However, the complexity
of calculations becomes very important as q increases. Pref = Ln, @ ( l + ~ ) ~ ( l + & ) - l ) ? ~ (19)
IV. SIMPLIFICATION OF CALCULATIONS
is independent of the PDM sequence. This reference is
defined for an inverter that is supplied with a rectified sine
Assume that the load has a low damping coefficient (a is
close to l), and that the PDM pattern contains a large wave voltage.
number of holes, i.e. that nlk and risk are very close. Then
V . AUTOMATIC PDM PATTERN GENERATION
amrk and bmlk terms admit small values. We then
approximate: PDM pattern can be generated by comparing a discretized
am *,,I ' (12.1) triangular carrier and a reference signal. From (13), the
maximum width of a hole is N/(q i- 1) , so that the number of
bm ',I (12.2)
If w e assume an odd number of holes q , that all the holes levels of the carrier must be equal to N / ( 2 . (q + 1)). Fig. 4
have the same width (An) and that the center of each hole is: illustrates an example of caqier when N = 40 and q = 3 .
The carrier can be assimilated to a continuous triangular
signal, whose frequency is:
F,,, = 2 ' q . F (20)
we obtain:
if the number of holes per period of the rectified voltage and
nSk = nk + An12 (14.1)
the number of levels are large. Henceforth, the resonance
nIk = nk - An12 (14.2) frequency ( Fres), the carrier frequency ( F,, ) and the
with An an even number. Under these conditions,
(A.2) becomes:
-
rectified voltage frequency ( 2 F ) must satisfy the
following condition:
An
a, zI--(q+l) (15.1) F << Fcor << Fres (21)
N
U

0 N n

Fig. 4. Definition of discretized carriel

296
Taking into account (6) and (20), (2 1) becomes: I, I

1<<2.q<<2.N (22)
To obtain the PDM pattern, the continuous triangular carrier
4
Theoretics! spectrum ~

I
is compared with a control signal defined by:
=(l-Pd)'ficar, (22.1)
where U,,, is the peak value of carrier and P d is the desired
"0 100 200 300 400
power load (P.u.). Equation (22.1) simplifies to
=P d ' (22.2)
1, Simulated,spectrum I

if we invert the carrier signal by an angle of 180". Therefore

practical implementation can be obtained with the circuit of
Fig. 5. This comparison must be synchronized to positive or
negative edge of the resonance signal S-Res. This guarantees
zero-switching commutations in the inverter.
"0 100 200 300 400
VI. SIMULATION RESULTS AND DISCUSSION Order of harmonics

a ) p = 0.8 p a .
Simulations are carried out in Matlab-Simulink
environment. The model of the PDM pattern generator is 1
e Theoretical spectrum
shown in Fig. 5. We consider a load ?
I I

{L = 18.7 pH; R = 2.82 R;C = 15nF} and an ac-supply k

(1 10V/60Hz). Under these conditions, F,, = 300 kHz

<
N = 2500 and = 0.04. We also used E = 0.01 in (1 1). d

0 100 200 300 400

1
? , Simulatedspectrum ,

@ I I
carrier P-PDM

RllR+cK
S-Res

D Latch
I "0 100 200
Order of harmonics
300 400

b)p = 0.5 p.u.

Fig. 5. Generator of PDM pattern

The results of two simulation series with q = 21 and q = 41

are presented in Fig. 6 and Fig. 7. The harmonics spectrum
of irec,i calculated using (15) and obtained by simulation are

, ,I
shown. Fig. 8 compares the transmitted power and the
desired power for q = 21 and q = 41. We observe a good
agreement between the results of simplified calculations and "0 100 200 300 400
the simulation results. This proves the validity of the
determination of PDM pattern by comparison of triangular Simulated spectrum

1 , ,;, ,
? I I

a 0.4 . . . . , . . . . - , - - - - -,- - - ~ -
carrier and a voltage related to the desired power, i.e. by 4
(22.2). However, if the number of holes is very high, the
theoretical results deviate from the simulated results, = 02 . . . . : . . . . '. . . . . .'. . . . .

because assumption (12) becomes less valid. The reason is 8 .

<
that the number of the terms being neglected (amlk and n ,
bmlk) is more important and the errors accumulate. "0 100 200 300 400
Order of harmonics

c ) p = 0.2 p.u.
Fig. 6. Harmonics spectrum of irec,i for q = 2 1

297
 11 ~ Thehetical spectrum :

P-
..%.
~

. _' . . .'. . . ..
, 41 :
. . . /p. .: . . : . .:.
. . . . . . .-

4 ,
&1
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
Desired power(p.u.)
Fig. 8. Transmitted power as a function of desired power

'(! \00 '200 ' 300- 4bb 0!5 VII. CONCLUSION

Order of harmonics
A new step towards real-time generation of PDM patterns
a) p = 0.8 p.u. for the control of an aclac converter was presented. Under
reasonable conditions, pattern generation depends only on
l r r 1 the resonant frequency of the load and does not require any
calculations. PDM patterns are generated by comparison of ii
05 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
triangular carrier at frequency equal to 2.q.F (F is the ac-
supply frequency) and a reference voltage equal to (1 - Pd )
( P d is the desired load power). Cumbersome calculations
are thus avoided, whereas the effects on the input current OF
"0 100 200 300 400 500 the converter are comparable to those of a calculated PDM
pattern. However, a very large number of holes degrades the
resolution of the variation of the transmitted power and the
precision of the simplified model. The converter, object OF
this paper, can be used in low power applications including
induction heating. The implementation of the proposed PDM
control is similar to the well-known PWM control, but with
additional frequency and synchronization constraints.
0 100 200 300 400 500
Order of harmonics VIII. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
b) p = 0.5 p.u.
This project was supported by grants received from the
Hydro-Qukbec Research Chair on Power and Electrical
Energy (CPEE) and the Natural Sciences and Engineering
Research Council of Canada (NSERC). Simulations were
performed on a system obtained with the support of
Canadian Innovation Funds, Government of Quebec, Opal,-
RT Technologies inc. and the Japanese Research Institute.

"0 100 200 300 400 500 IX. REFERENCES

~ Simulatedspectrum I
[ 13 D. Staffiere and M. Mankikar, "Power technology
. , . . . - , - . - -
? 0.4.. . . r . . -,- - -
4 roadmap," in Proceeding of the 2001 Applied Power
d I I Electronics Conference, 01CH3718-1, pp. 49 - 53.
121 H. Fujita and H. Akagi, "Pulse-density-modulated power
control of a 4 kW 450 kHz voltage-source inverter for
induction melting application," IEEE Trans. Ind:
"0 100 200 300 400 500 Applicat., vol. 32, no. 2, Mar.1Apr. 1996, pp.279-286.
Order of harmonics [3] H. Calleja and R. Ordonez, "Induction heating inverter
with active power factor correction," International
c) p = 0.2 p.u.
Fig. 7. Harmonics spectrum of ire=,; for q = 41

298
 journal of electronics, vol. 86, no. 9, 1999, pp. 1113-
1121.
[4] H. Calleja and R. Ordonez, "Improved induction-heating
inverter with power factor correction," in Proceedings of
the I999 Power Electronics Specialists Conference,
99CH3632-0, pp. 1132-1 137.
[5] H. Calleja and J. Pacheco, "Power distribution in Pulse-
Density-Modulated waveforms," in Proceeding of the
2000 Power Electronics Specialists Conference,
00CH37018, pp. 1457-1462.
[6] H. Fujita and H. Akagi, "Control and Performance of a
Pulse-Density-Modulated Series-Resonant Inverter for
Corona Discharge Processes," IEEE Trans. Ind.
Applicat., vol. 35, no. 3, MayIJune 1999, pp.621-627.
[7] A. Sandali, P. Sicard, and A. ChCriti, "PDM Control
Strategy of a Rectifier - Series Resonant Inverter Set," in
Proceeding of the 2001 IASTED International
Conference - Power and Energy Systems, pp. 99-105,
November 19-22,2001, Tampa, Florida, USA.
[8] A. Sandali, P. Sicard, and A. ChCriti, "Power factor
Improvement of an aclac converter by association of
PDM control and passive filtering," in Proceedings of the
2002 Power Electronics Specialists Conference, pp. 250-
255, June 23-27, 2002, Cairns, Australia.

APPENDIX

4
We write a i and b, as a, = am,l+ C amIkand b, = bm,l+
k=l
ib,,, (A.1)

with,form= 1, al,l= I - 5-+-Z

k=l N
1 '[ ( );
h k = I
sin 2n- -sin
k = l ( 2n- ;)] (A4

altk= -- (A.3)
N CO

bl,l = _f_
2TC k=l
i[cos(2n%)-cos(2n%)] (A.4)

bltk =-- N
A(nIk9nSk)
CO { a2(N-nsk) +cos a-
( e) + a-2n.yk 3
h=k+l
a2nSh cos
( nSh
N )
a2nlh
cos(n%)}
(A.5)

'{
and, for m + l am,1=- -Csin (m+l)%x
n m+lk=l N ' ( ) ( -sin (m+l)-x
) -
m-lk=I
~ s i n ( ( m - I ) ~ n ) - - s i n ( ( m - l ) ~ n ) } (A.6)

where

299