692 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 46, NO.

4, AUGUST 1999

Self-Oscillating Resonant AC/DC Converter

Topology for Input Power-Factor Correction
Humberto Pinheiro, Student Member, IEEE, Praveen Jain, Senior Member, IEEE, and G. Joos, Senior Member, IEEE

Abstract— This paper presents the analysis and design of a
single-phase single-stage high-power-factor ac/dc converter em-
ploying a series–parallel resonant topology operating in self-
sustained oscillating mode. A control approach is proposed to
achieve low total harmonic distortion of the input current. This
approach does not require sensing of the input current. In
addition, the inverter output current is limited during transients,
and the converter operates with zero voltage switching for all
operating conditions including open and short circuit. The per-
formance of the proposed scheme is verified experimentally on a
500-W prototype.
Index Terms—AC/DC power conversion, describing functions,
feedback, MOSFET’s, resonant power conversion.
I. INTRODUCTION
1) The total harmonic distortion (THD) of the input current
is high, typically 30% at full load, when operating
without active control. Even though the proper design
of the resonant circuit parameters reduces the THD of
the input current, it results in the loss of the ZVS during
full-load operation [6].
2) The ratio between the switching frequency and the
resonant frequency must be kept large, typically greater
than 1.2, to ensure operation under ZVS. This increases
the circulating current and the losses in the circuit.
3) By actively controlling the input current the THD of the
input current can be reduced significantly [6]. However,
the implementation of the input current controller re-
quires a current sensor and a multiplier, which increase
the complexity of the circuitry. Furthermore, if the con-

I N ORDER TO limit voltage distortion on the ac mains,

standards such as IEC1000-3-2 impose limits on the har-
monic current drawn by equipment connected to it [1], [2].
verter has to handle overload and short-circuit conditions
an additional current has to be measured either in the
resonant circuit or at the output.
Consequently, power-factor correction has become a manda-
In order to overcome the above-mentioned disadvantages,
tory feature in such equipment. Many power-factor-correction
this paper applies a control technique for resonant converters
circuits have been reported in the literature and among them,
that ensures ZVS operation under all operating conditions. It
the single-stage topologies have the potential to reduce the
also improves the THD of the input current.
cost and complexity of the circuitry [3]–[9], especially in those
This paper is organized as follows. In Section II, the main
applications that do not require fast response at the output.
elements of the proposed rectifier are described. In Section
When single-phase converters are operated with unity input
III, the requirements for the operation with unity power factor
power factor, they draw a sinusoidal current that is in phase
are given. In Section IV, a control approach that improves the
with the input ac voltage. As a result, the converter becomes
input power factor and reduces the THD of the input current is
heavily and lightly loaded near the peak and zero, respectively,
described. In Section V, a comparison between conventional
of the input ac line. It has been demonstrated that parallel
frequency control and the proposed method is presented. In
and series–parallel resonant converters have the characteristics
Section VI, a first-order model that can be used for the design
required to provide operation with high-input power factor
of the current limiter is derived. In Section VII, experimental
and constant output voltage [3]–[8]. This is because these
results to support the theoretical analysis and to demonstrate
converters have high-voltage gain under light load and a lower
the performance of the converter are presented.
gain at full load. The converter voltage gain also depends on
the ratio between the switching frequency and the resonant
frequency. It was demonstrated in [5] that it is possible to
make the converter operate with unity input power factor by II. POWER AND CONTROL CIRCUIT DESCRIPTION
adjusting the switching frequency along the input line cycle. The power circuit and the control block diagram of the
In addition, when operating above the resonant frequency, proposed single-stage ac/dc converter are shown in Fig. 1.
these converters provide operation with zero-voltage switching A small low-pass filter ) on the dc bus is used
(ZVS), thereby reducing the switching losses. In spite of these to attenuate the high-frequency harmonics generated by the
desired features, the following issues remain unresolved. inverter. The inverter produces a high-frequency ac waveform
that is applied to the resonant circuit formed by
Manuscript received November 21, 1997; revised February 1, 1999. Ab- and When operating above the resonant frequency,
stract published on the Internet April 18, 1999. the current lags the voltage As a result, the current
The authors are with Concordia University, Department of Electrical &
Computer Engineering, Montreal, PQ H3G 1M8, Canada. has the polarity required to reset the snubber capaci-
Publisher Item Identifier S 0278-0046(99)05069-8. tors and provide operation with ZVS. At the output side,
0278–0046/99$10.00  1999 IEEE
PINHEIRO et al.: SELF-OSCILLATING RESONANT AC/DC CONVERTER TOPOLOGY
Fig. 1. Power circuit diagram of the single stage ac/dc converter based on series–parallel resonant circuit and simplified block diagram of the proposed
control circuit (SOC: self-sustained oscillating circuit).
a diode rectifier converts the high-frequency ac waveform
across the parallel resonant capacitor into a unidirectional
voltage. The output filter formed by and attenuates
both the high-frequency ripple generated by the output rectifier
and the low-frequency ripple resulting from the pulsating
nature of the power absorbed by the converter from the input
ac line.
The control circuit is comprised of a self-sustained oscilla-
tion circuit (SOC) [10], a current limiter and an output voltage
controller. In addition, the control circuit uses the input dc
link voltage to reduce the THD of the input current. The
SOC generates the gate signals for the inverter and ensures
operation with ZVS. A detailed description of the SOC is given
in Appendix I. The input of the SOC, the control angle , is
defined by the minimum of three quantities which are: 1) the
output voltage of the controller that is used to
regulate the voltage during normal operation; 2) the output
voltage of the resonant current controller that is
used to limit during short circuit, overload, and startup
operation; and 3) the voltage that is used to improve the
input power factor and reduce the THD of the input current .
As a result, the proposed scheme allows the operation with a
constant output voltage, a limited resonant circuit current, and
a low THD of the input current.
III. CONDITIONS FOR OPERATION WITH UNITY POWER
FACTOR AND ZERO-VOLTAGE SWITCHING
In this section, the profile of the control angle required
to make converter of Fig. 1 to operate with unity input power
factor, constant output voltage, and with ZVS is derived. In
order to do so, a procedure to obtain the static characteristics
of the converter in the self-sustained oscillation mode is first
described.
693
A. Self-Sustained Oscillation Mode
The describing function method [11] can be conveniently
used to determine the existence of self-sustained oscillations.
In order to apply the describing function method, based on
the first harmonic component, the filtering condition must be
satisfied. This condition requires that the linear part of the
system attenuates the high-order harmonics produced by the
nonlinearity. Indeed, this condition is satisfied for resonant
converters operating above the resonant frequency for some
of the resonant circuit variables. The proper selection of the
feedback variable allows the application of the describing
function method. In this method, the nonlinear element, that
here is the controller plus the inverter, is represented by its
describing function. An ideal inverter with the SOC can be
represented by (a) a time delay, which shifts in time the
feedback variable to provide the proper phase shift between
and in cascade with (b) a hard limit nonlinearity, which
represents the inverter. The describing function associated
with this nonlinearity is the complex ratio between the first
harmonic component of output voltage of the inverter and the
first harmonic of the input of the nonlinearity that is the current
. This describing function can be found as
(1)
where represents the peak value of the first harmonic com-
ponent of the current Fig. 2 shows the frequency response
of the transfer function between inverter output voltage and
the current through the resonant inductor . This
transfer function is given by
(2)
694
Fig. 2. Detection of the self-sustained oscillation. Operation above the
resonant frequency.
where is equal to in the case of a dc/dc converter.
Fig. 2 also shows the locus of the negative inverse of the
describing function of the inverter and controller. The intersec-
tion point of these two curves represents a stable limit cycle, as
can be concluded by applying a small perturbation on [11].
The frequency at the intersection is the switching frequency
of the converter, The intersection point is analytically
expressed by the following equality:
For the ac/dc converter of Fig. 1 the resistance changes
along the input line cycle as a results of the pulsating nature
of the power absorbed from the input ac line.
Equation (3) can be represented by two nonlinear algebraic
equations. The first one is associated with its real part and the
second one with its imaginary part, and they can be written as
where
and is voltage at the input of the inverter.
The voltage conversion ratio, which is defined as the ratio
between the output and input voltages, is represented as
The static characteristics of the converter can be obtained
by solving (4)–(6) simultaneously for a given set of the
parameters.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 46, NO. 4, AUGUST 1999
It is worth mentioning that with the proposed control method
ZVS is achieved in a well-defined range of the control variable,
that is, when 0 180 . However, with the conventional
frequency control this range depends on the load and on the
parameters of the resonant circuit.
There are two points to be considered when selecting the
range of the control angle The first one is regarding the
operation under ZVS and the second one is regarding the
sign of the low-frequency gain of the converter. In order to
have the right polarity of the current, to provide ZVS the
control angle should be 90 180 , since in this range
the current lags the voltage On the other hand, to
avoid the change on the sign the low-frequency gain of the
converter, the switching frequency should be greater than the
resonance frequency. The resonant frequency considered here
is the one related to the transfer function between the input
and the output voltage. The locus of the resonant frequency for
different values of is also plotted in Fig. 2. It is possible
to see that the line defined by is tangent to the locus
of the resonant frequency. Therefore, if the control angle is
limited to the range 90 174 the sign of the gain of the
converter does not change since the converter always operates
above the resonant frequency.
B. Unity-Power-Factor Operation
The instantaneous power absorbed by single-phase loads
when operating with unity power factor is given by
(3) (7)
where and are the peak values of the input voltage and
current, respectively.
Aiming to simplify the analysis, the resonant circuit is
assumed to be in sinusoidal steady-state operation at each
point of the input ac line. This assumption holds since the
time constants of the resonant circuit are much smaller than
half the period of the input ac line. Therefore, for a power
circuit without losses the power sent by the resonant circuit
to the output stage is given by
(4)
(8)
As a result, the equivalent load resistor and the factor
(5) vary along the input line cycle. For a constant output voltage,
assumes the form
(9)
By solving (4)–(6) and (9) simultaneously the control angle
(6) , the current and the switching frequency when
operating with unity power factor and constant output voltage
can be found. The maximum voltage conversion ratio for
which the converter is able to keep the output voltage constant
while keeping unity-power-factor operation is defined as
For parallel resonant converters if is designed so that the
converter has enough gain at the peak of the input ac line
PINHEIRO et al.: SELF-OSCILLATING RESONANT AC/DC CONVERTER TOPOLOGY
(a)
(b)
Fig. 3. (a) Maximum voltage conversion ratio for operation with constant
output voltage and with unity input power factor as a function of the maximum
Qs factor. (b) Current through the series resonant inductor as a function of
the maximum Qs factor computed at the peak of the input voltage cycle
(!60 t = 90 ) for two load conditions.
at full load, then it has enough gain to operate with constant
output voltage at all other operating points. However, in the
case of series–parallel resonant converters, the factor must
be selected at an intermediate point between the peak and the
valley of the input dc link voltage [5]. As the ratio between the
series and parallel capacitor decreases, this point moves toward
the peak of the ac line, since the series–parallel resonant
converter characteristics become closer to the characteristics
of a parallel resonant converter. In order to select the resonant
circuit parameters, the maximum voltage conversion ratio
the minimum switching frequency ratio,
and the normalized peak of current in the resonant inductor are
plotted in Fig. 3. From Fig. 3 it is concluded that by decreasing
and , higher output voltages and lower peak values
of the current can be obtained at full load. However, by
decreasing these parameters the current at light load increases.
A good compromise between full load and fraction of full load
current stresses is achieved by selecting factor the in
the range of 2.0 and 3.5.
695
Fig. 4. Control angle required to operate with unity power factor and constant
output voltage along half cycle of the input source .
C. ZVS Operation
A necessary condition to achieve ZVS in the circuit of Fig.
1 is to have current lagging the voltage These two
quantities are expressed in the complex plane of Fig. 2 in
terms of the frequency response of to For all points
in the fourth quadrant of this complex plane the current
lags the voltage Therefore, if 90 180 , then the
current lags the voltage independently of specific values
of the resonant circuit parameters However,
in a practical implementation the angle is limited and set
smaller than 180 to provide enough current to reset the
snubber capacitors, and to avoid operation below the resonance
frequency.
IV. PROPOSED CONTROL APPROACH
A simplified control technique, which does not require
a multiplier, for buck and boost rectifier, was described in
[15]. In this section, a modified control action approach for
resonant converters that decreases the amplitude of the low-
order harmonics of the input current, without using active
control of the input current, is presented. When operating
without active control of the input current, the control angle
is kept almost constant along the entire input line cycle. As a
result, the input current becomes distorted near the valleys of
the input dc link voltage waveform due to the overboosting
action of the resonant circuit in this region. For operation
with unity power factor, the control angle at full load and
minimum input voltage should have the profile, as shown in
Fig. 4. However, the implementation of this function is not
practical since it requires the solution of (4) and (5). A good
compromise between simplicity of the control circuitry and
performance in terms of the THD of the input current can
be achieved by approximating the profile of Fig. 4. This can
be done using a clamped sinusoidal waveform, as indicated in
Fig. 5(a). In this way, the gain of the converter can be reduced
in the valley of the input voltage and the THD of the input
current becomes dependent on the constants and Once
the factor and the input voltage range are defined, these
constants can be selected so that the THD of the input current
696 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 46, NO. 4, AUGUST 1999

(a)

Fig. 6. (a) Voltage conversion ratio M as a function of ratio between the

switching frequency and the nominal natural frequency !on for two values of
natural resonant frequency !o : (b) Angle of the transfer function between the
inverter output voltage vab and current is for two values of natural resonant
frequency !o : For operation with ZVS, the shaded area must be avoided.
(b)
Fig. 5. (a) Control angle
generated using the proposed modified control
action approach. (b) THD of the input current as a function of the constant
k1 vgm for three values of the input voltage. Operation at full load.
is minimized. According to Fig. 5 the constant must be
selected to be equal to . However, the constant cannot
be easily found by inspection. Fig. 5(b) shows how the THD of
the input current changes as a function of the constant times
the peak value of the lowest input voltage, for
factor equal to 3.28 and . It is concluded that a
good compromise in terms of the THD of the input current, for
the three input ac line voltages, is found by selecting
equal to 1.9 rad.
V. COMPARISON BETWEEN THE CONVENTIONAL
FREQUENCY CONTROL AND THE PROPOSED METHOD
The major advantage of the proposed control technique over
the conventional variable frequency control is that with the
proposed technique virtually no derating is required to ensure
operation with ZVS, even when the parameters of the resonant
circuit vary significantly. As an example, Fig. 6(a) illustrates
the impact of a 20% variation in the value of the series
resonant inductor and capacitor on the gain characteristics of
a series–parallel resonant converter. If the switching frequency
is decreased below the resonant frequency, the inverter output
current will eventually lead the voltage and ZVS
 = 1 and Qs = 3:
will be lost. Therefore, in order to ensure operation under
ZVS with conventional frequency control, the ratio between
the switching frequency and the nominal natural frequency,
should be high. For the 20% parameter variation
considered this ratio is greater than 1.25. This results in
significantly derating of the resonant converter, because the
voltage conversion ratio is low ( ). With the proposed
control technique, the frequency is not directly controlled since
the control variable is the angle As a result, operation with
ZVS can easily be ensured even when the resonant circuit
parameter are not precisely known because the angle between
and is imposed. It is possible to see in Fig. 6(b) that by
limiting the angle between and to be smaller than zero
and greater than 90 which corresponds to 90 180 ,
the current always lags the voltage , and the maximum
voltage conversion ratio can be made equal to
Therefore, no derating is required to ensure operation with
ZVS.
VI. DYNAMIC MODELS
For the design of the controllers and which,
respectively, limits the resonant circuit current and regulates
the output voltage, dynamic models of the converter are
required. The design of the output voltage controller depends
PINHEIRO et al.: SELF-OSCILLATING RESONANT AC/DC CONVERTER TOPOLOGY 697

(a) (b)
Fig. 7. (a) Control angle to the current is frequency response. The solid line represents the small signal model given by (15) and the dashed line the
=
first-order small signal model given by (16). vg 170 V, Ls = 280 H, Cs = 12 nF, 0 = 1:62 rad, p = 25 400 rad/s. (b) Amplitude of the first harmonic
component of the current is obtained with the small signal models (15) and (16), and with the modulation equation (12) compared with the actual current
waveform, when the control angle undergoes step change like variations. = [1:66; 1:75] rad, p = 21 350 rad/s.

primarily upon the dynamics of the output filter. This is be- for the purpose of obtaining a small signal model that describes
cause the time constant associated with the resonant circuit are the dynamic behavior of the amplitude of the current the
much smaller and can be neglected or can be represented by a resonant circuit variables will be represented as follows:
first-order model. However, this procedure cannot be applied
for the design of the current limiter since the current through
the resonant inductor is the variable that is controlled. In (11)
this section, a model suitable for the design of the controller
that limits the current is derived. The extended describing By substituting the above equations and its time derivatives
function method is used to obtain a modulation equation into the nonlinear state space model (10) and equating the sine
that describes the dynamic behavior of the amplitude of the and cosine terms, the following modulation equation, which
first harmonic components associated with the resonant circuit describes the dynamics behavior of the envelops of the sine
variables [12]–[14]. Finally, simplified small signal models are and cosine terms, can be found:
derived for the design of the current limiter.
When the series–parallel resonant converter of Fig. 1 is
subjected to short-circuit at the load side it operates as a
series resonant converter since the voltage across the parallel
capacitor is almost zero. By applying Kirchhoff’s voltage and
current laws in the series–parallel resonant converter of Fig. 1
the following nonlinear state space model can be found as

(10)

where represents the losses in the power circuit, and (12)

for operation with constant amplitude sawtooth
signal, as described in Appendix I, and the voltage is the where sgn of (10) is evaluated using its describing
voltage across the series-resonant capacitor. function. The amplitude of the fundamental component of the
Taking into account that the resonant circuit variables have current is given by
a predominant first harmonic component, it is reasonable to
represent them by their first harmonic component. Therefore, (13)
698 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 46, NO. 4, AUGUST 1999

(a) (b)

(c)
Fig. 8. Experimental results. TR1: ac input voltage, 100 V/div. TR2: ac input current, 2 A/div, TR3: harmonic spectrum of the input current, 0.5 A/div.
Horizontal scales: 10 ms/div, and 100 Hz/div. (a) Operation with high-input voltage, (b) operation with nominal input voltage, (c) operation with low-input
voltage. Output power 500 W. The gains of the modified control action controller are k1 = 0:0067 rad/V and k2 = 1:8 rad.

The modulation equation (12) has an equilibrium point that
corresponds to operation above the resonant frequency. For
90 180 this equilibrium point is given by
where the coefficients of (15) are given in the Appendix II.
Fig. 7(a) shows the frequency response of (15). Fig. 7(a)
also shows the frequency response of a first-order model that
captures the low-frequency behavior of this transfer function.
This first-order model is given by

(16)

(14) where is the real root of the denominator of (15). This

simple first-order model can be used to design the controller
that limits the input resonant circuit current. It is worth to
point out that (15) is valid for frequencies smaller than the
where the impedance is defined as and switching frequency. Therefore, when designing a controller
and are the values of and at equilibrium point. based on (15) the loop gain crossover frequency should be
By considering a perturbation around the equilibrium point, smaller than the minimum switching frequency.
defined by (14), the transfer-function from the control angle The question that arises at this point is how well the models
to the inductor current amplitude can be computed. This (12), and (16) coincide with the large signal nonlinear model
transfer function is given by defined by (10). In order to demonstrate the above-mentioned
correlation, Fig. 7(b) plots and along the same axes
(15) when the angle undergoes a step change. It is evident that
there is a good agreement between these models.
PINHEIRO et al.: SELF-OSCILLATING RESONANT AC/DC CONVERTER TOPOLOGY 699

(a)

Fig. 9. Experimental results. Amplitude of the input current low-order

harmonics as function of the input voltage with the proposed modified control
action approach. Po = 500 W. It also indicates the limits imposed by
IEC-1000-3-2 for class A equipment.

VII. DESIGN PROCEDURE AND EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS

An experimental 500-W series–parallel resonant ac/dc con-
verter is used to verify the feasibility of the proposed control
technique. The converter operates from a 220-V ac supply and
produces an isolated 100-V dc output.

A. Design Procedure for the Resonant Circuit

The following procedure is suggested for the selection of
the resonant circuit parameters:
(b)
1) Chose a value for and from Fig. 3 or from
Fig. 10. Experimental results. (a) Input power factor as a function of
the numerical solution of (4) and (5). For example, by the output load when operating with the proposed modified control action
solving (5) and (4) for and approach. (b) Overall converter efficiency as a function of the load with
it is found that the maximum voltage conversion ratio, different input voltages.
for constant output voltage along the entire line cycle,
is and the minimum switching frequency lowest input voltage. The value of the series resonant
ratio is . capacitor and the parallel resonant capacitor reflected to
2) Select the minimum switching frequency and compute the primary side of the transformer are
the series resonant inductor and the resonant capacitors.
For example, if the minimum switching frequency is 100 nF and nF
kHz the resonant frequency can be found as follows: (19)
3) Select the turns ratio of the isolation transformer to step-
rad/s (17) down the voltage to the value required at the output
of the converter. The dc output voltage for operation
The series resonant inductor is found by solving (9) for
without isolation transformer is given by
, that is
V (20)
H (18)
Therefore, for an output voltage equal to 100 V the turns
ratio of the transformer is
where is made 600 W to compensate for the
losses in the circuit, and is the peak value of the (21)
700 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 46, NO. 4, AUGUST 1999

(a) (b)

(c)
Fig. 11. Experimental results showing ZVS during three load operating conditions, that are no-load, full-load, and short-circuit. The waveforms shown are:
TR1 voltage across the leg A of the inverter vao , TR2 gate–source voltage of the Leg A bottom transistor (g4 ), TR3 current through the series resonant
inductor is : Operation near to the peak of the input ac line. (a) no-load operation. (b) full-load operation. (c) short-circuit operation is ef = 5:5 A.

B. Control Circuit the losses in the power circuit. Then the constant is adjusted
A simple lag compensator comprised of a gain and a pole at nominal input voltage and full load to minimize the THD
was used for the implementation of the controller that limits of the input current. The value of found experimentally
the current This controller was designed based on the model was 0.0067, which is in good agreement with the theoretically
(16) where a resistor was set equal to 1 to account for predicted value.
the power circuit losses. The pole of the compensator
was placed at one fifth of the minimum switching frequency. C. Converter Performance
In this way, the ripple at twice the switching frequency, that is Fig. 8 shows the input current and voltage at full load
generated by the rectification of , is significantly attenuated. for three input voltages values. It also shows the harmonic
On the other hand, the gain of the compensator was spectrum of the input current. It is possible to see that the
adjusted to make the loop gain crossover frequency to be amplitude of the low-order harmonic components are very
equal to half of the minimum switching frequency. For the small at the nominal input voltage. Fig. 9 shows the magnitude
implementation of a conventional proportional plus of these harmonic components as a function of the input
integral controller was used. voltage. At upper and lower limits of the operating input
The constants and are selected to minimized the THD voltage range the third harmonic component is dominant and
of the input current. First, the gain is adjusted to allow reaches 11% at the lower limit. Fig. 10(a) shows the input
the converter to provide full power at the lowest ac input power factor as a function of the load for three values input
voltage. The value of found experimentally was 1.8 rad voltage. At full load the power factor is greater than 0.99 and
instead of 1.57 rad as predicted theoretically. The main reason the THD of the input current is in the range of 6.7%–11.8%.
for this difference is attributed to the fact that the theoretical Fig. 10(b) shows the overall efficiency of the ac/dc converter.
analysis carried out in Section IV does not take into account This efficiency was measured from the input ac line to the
PINHEIRO et al.: SELF-OSCILLATING RESONANT AC/DC CONVERTER TOPOLOGY 701

dc output and it includes the losses in the control circuit. The

efficiency increases with the load and it is greater than 91%
at full load.
In order to illustrate the operation with ZVS, the voltage
across the leg A of the inverter and the gate–source voltage
of the bottom switches at three operating conditions, which
are short-circuit, full-load and no-load are shown in Fig. 11. It
is possible to see that when the gate–source voltage becomes
high, the drain–source voltage is already zero indicating that (a)
ZVS takes place.

VIII. CONCLUSIONS
In this paper, a control technique to improve the input power
factor of single stage ac–dc converter based on a series-parallel
resonant converter operating in self-sustained oscillation mode
is described. In addition to the improved power-factor op-
eration, ZVS is ensured under all operating conditions and
the current through the resonant inductor is limited during
transient operations. Experimental results demonstrate that
at full load the proposed scheme results in a good overall
efficiency, greater than 91%, and high-input power factor
greater than 0.99.

APPENDIX I
DESCRIPTION OF THE SOC
The operation of the SOC is based on a constant amplitude (b)
sawtooth signal that is synchronized with the current . Fig. 12. SOC: Self-sustained oscillation circuit. (a) Block diagram represen-
The sawtooth signal with constant amplitude at different tation. (b) Relevant waveforms (simulation results).
switching frequencies is required to make the control angle
proportional to a control voltage. The block diagram of satisfies the following inequality:
the circuit suggested for the implementation of the constant
amplitude sawtooth generator and its main waveforms are
shown in Fig. 12. The sawtooth like signal is synchronized (24)
with the current since the integrator reset pulses
are generated from the zero crossing of the current . The
averaged value of is kept constant at using the APPENDIX II
integrator . The value of defines the peak value COEFFICIENTS OF (15)
of the sawtooth waveform. The comparison of and the
control signal results in the pulses, and that together The coefficients of the small signal transfer function (15)
with the sign of are used to generate the gate signals are given by
of the inverter. Assuming that the switching frequency is a
slow-varying quantity, the following equality holds:

(22)

where is the switching period. By solving (22) for results

(23)

In order to design the gains of the sawtooth generator,

and , a tradeoff between speed of response and distortion
in the sawtooth waveform must be considered. The variable
approaches an ideal sawtooth waveform for decreasing
values and . However, by increasing and
faster transient responses are obtained. A good compromise is
(25)
achieved by selecting the highest product of and that
702 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 46, NO. 4, AUGUST 1999

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[1] IEC 1000-3-2: International Standard, IEC Electromagnetic compati-
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emissions, First edition, 1995.
[2] R. Redl, “Power electronics and electromagnetic compatibility,” in
PESC Conf. Rec., 1996, pp. 15–21.
[3] D. Chambers, “A new high frequency resonant technique for dynamic
correction of offline converter input current waveforms,” in Proc.
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B.E.(hons.) degree from the University of Alla-
habad, India, the M.A.Sc and Ph.D degrees from
the University of Toronto, Canada, in 1980, 1984,
and 1987, respectively, all in electrical engineering.
He is currently a Professor at Concordia Uni-
versity, Montreal, PQ, Canada, where is engaged
in teaching and research in the field of power
electronics. Prior to this (1989–1994) he was a
Technical Advisor with the Power Group, Nortel,
Ottawa, Canada, where he provided guidance for
research and development of advanced power technologies for telecommuni-
cations. During 1987–1989, he was with Canadian Astronautics Ltd., Ottawa,
Canada, where he played a key role in the design and development of high-
frequency power conversion equipment for the Space Station Freedom. During
1980–1981, he was a design engineer and production engineer at Brown
Boveri Company and Crompton Greaves Ltd., India, respectively. He has
published over 100 technical papers and hold 9 patents (additional 10 are
pending) in the area of power electronics. His current interests are power
electronics applications to space, telecommunications and computer systems.
Dr. Jain is a member of Professional Engineers of Ontario and an Associate
Editor of IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER ELECTRONICS.
G. Joos (M’78–SM’89) received the M.Eng. and
Ph.D. degrees from McGill University, Montreal,
PQ, Canada, in 1974 and 1987, respectively.
Since 1988, he has been with the Department
of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Concordia
University, Montreal, where he is engaged in teach-
ing and research in the area of power converters
and electrical drives. From 1975 to 1978, he was a
Design Engineer with Brown Boveri Canada, From
1978 to 1988, he was a Professor at the Ecole de
Technologie Superieure, Montreal.

Humberto Pinheiro (S’96) was born in Santa

Maria, Brazil, in 1960. He received the B.S. degree
from Federal University of Santa Maria, Santa
Maria, Brazil, in 1983 and the M.S. degree from
the Federal University of Santa Catarina, Brazil, in
1987, both in electrical engineering. He is currently
working toward the Ph.D degree at Concordia
University, Montreal, PQ, Canada.
From 1983 to 1990, he was an research engineer
with BK Electronic Controls, Brazil. He lectured
power electronics at PUC-RS University, Brazil,
from 1987 to 1991, and is currently an Associate Professor at the Department
of Electronics and Computer Engineering, Federal University of Santa Maria.
His research interests include resonant converters, uninterruptible power
supplies, and control of static converters.