Performance Characterization of Two Self-Oscillating Controllers for Parallel

Resonant Converters Operating with Unity Input Power Factor

H. Pinheiro P. Jain G. Joos
Dept. of Elec. & Comp. Eng.
Concordia University
1455 de Maisonneuve Blvd. West, Montreal, Que
CANADA H3G IM8

-
Abstract Single stage ac/dc converters based on series-parallel control techniques is carried out. In Section V a design
resonant circuit and operating above the resonance frequency provide procedure is suggested for the selection of the resonant circuit
high input power factor. However, with conventional variable frequency parameters; fmally, Section VI presents experimental results
control, zero voltage switching may be lost in some operating
conditions. I n this paper two control techniques for resonant converter to verify the analysis carried out and to compare the
operating above resonance frequency are compared. These control performance of the converter for VF and VFPSM control
techniques ensure zero voltage switching in all operating points allowing techniques.
operation at high frequencies. A design procedure is suggested for the
selection of resonant circuit parameters. Finally experimental results
from a 500 W power factor corrected ac/dc power supply are given to 11. VARIABLEFREQUENCY
PLUS PHASESHIFT
MODULATION
verify the predicted results. (VPSM) CONTROL
FOR RESONANT CONVERTERS
OPERATION
m SELF-SUSTAINED
OSCILLATING
MODE
I. INTRODUCTION
The performance of the variable frequency self-sustained
In order to limit the voltage distortion in the utility supply
oscillation mode ac-dc converters can be improved further by
network, standards such as IEC1000-3-2 impose limits on the
controlling the phase-shift between the legs of the full-bridge.
harmonic currents drawn by electrical equipment [I].
In order to achieve zero voltage switching in phase shift
Consequently, power factor correction has become a
modulation, the current must lag the inverter output terminal
mandatory feature in ac fed equipment. Many papers have
voltage and must cross the zero inside the PWM pulse. To
been published on resonant converters operating with high
ensure these conditions, the conduction states of legs A and B
input power factor [2-61. Reference [4] demonstrates that the
can be defined from the zero crossing of the current through
intrinsic characteristic of parallel and series-parallel resonant
the resonant circuit. Without loss of generality, it will be
converters are adequate to provide high input power factor
assumed that the voltage produced by leg B lags the voltage
and constant output voltage with a single conversion stage.
produced by the leg A in the inverter of Fig. 1. In this way,
Reference [6] proposes a self sustained controlled resonant
the voltage associated with the leg A, vo, ,defines the positive
converter topology that ensures operation above the resonant
edge of the positive PWM pulse, and the negative edge of the
frequency under all operating conditions and provides a good
negative PWM pulse. Therefore, the leg A can be used to
transient response. In all previous mentioned work, the dc
ensure that current crosses zero inside the PWM pulse. On
output voltage and the input current are controlled by varying
the other hand, leg B defines the negative edge of the positive
the switching frequency ( this technique from here after will
PWM pulse, and the positive edge of the negative PWM
be referred as VF). The range of the frequency variation,
pulse. So, leg B can be used to define the PWM pulse width.
from full load to a fraction of full load, is large when
In 161 one control angle was used to establish a well defined
operating with wide input voltage. Aiming to reduce the
phase shift between the inverter output voltage and current.
switching frequency range, the current stresses, and
As a result, it was shown that the converter operates in self-
consequently improve the overall performance of single stage
sustained operating mode above the resonant frequency. In
ac-dc converters operating with high input power factor, this
this paper we propose the use of two control angles. One of
paper proposes a modified technique of the self-sustained
them, y, ,defines the phase shift between the current i,, and
controlled [6] in which the converter control is achieved by
the voltage v,, and the other, y2 , defines the phase shift
using a combination variable frequency and phase-shift
between i,, and vho . It is possible to demonstrate that when
modulation techniques.
1SOo < (yi + y2 )< 360° the converter operates in self-sustained
This paper is organized as follows. In Section 11, the
oscillation mode above the resonant frequency. The control
description of the proposed variable frequency plus phase
block diagram interpretation of a controller that implements
shift modulation, named VFPSM, is presented. In Section 111,
the above described operation is shown in Fig. 2, and the
a procedure for characterization of the operating points of the
main wavesforms of the converter are shown in Fig. 3.
converter when operating in self-sustained oscillation is
described. In Section IV, a comparison of VF and (VFPSM)

0-7803-3840-5/97/$10.00 0 1997 IEEE 692

 Two typical cases arise by the appropriate selection of this .
control angle. +SI

A. Variable Frequency (VF) Control:

By making yI equal to y, the converter with variable Veal, 'ea2

frequency, with a square voltage applied to the resonant

circuit. Operation above the resonance frequency can be "a0
ensured by limiting the maximum value of y1 and y, to be
smaller than 180' , which is in agreement with the results
shown in [ 6 ] . "bo

B. Variable Frequency plus Phase Shy%Modulation (VFPSM)

control: 'ab
By fixing y, , say equal to 180°, and using y, as the control is*
variable, the converter operates as a combination of variable
frequency and phase shift modulation. In practical
implementations the angle yI is made smaller than 180' to y2
ensure enough current and dead-time to charge and discharge
Fig. 3 Converter and controller main wavefilmis. y , =180° (a) Control
the snubber capacitors. action y, =55' . (b) Control action y, =12So .

111. STEADY
STATEANALYSIS

This section presents a generalized steady state analysis

applicable for resonant converters for both VF and VFPSM
controls when operating in self-sustained oscillating mode.
In order to simplify the steady-state analysis of the
following assumptions are made:
(i) The power transistors and diodes; are ideal switches.
(ii) The transformer is ideal with one to one turns-ratio.
(iii) An ideal voltage source is at the input of the bridge.
(iv) The resonant circuit is assumed t'o be in steady state
along the ac line cycle.
Fig. 1 Series-parallel resonant converter power circuit and simplified block (v) The output voltage is constant.
diagram of the proposed control circuit. (vi) At each point of the ac input line the output stage (diode
................................................ rectifier, LC filter and load ) is represented by an
equivalent resistance.
The Tsypkin method [7,8] is used to determine the exact
current amplitude and switching ftequency of the converter in
self-sustained oscillations. According to this method, first the
output of the converter is assumed to have a specific wave
form, for instance, a symmetrical Pwhll voltage produced by
a phase-shift modulated full-bridge inverter. Then, the
Resonant current through the series resonant inductor isl is determined
Circuit for the assumed converter output voltage. The necessary
Hard switching conditions that i,, must satisfy, to achieve the
Nonlinearit
..............................................
ControIler plus assumed converter output voltage are then investigated. For
Inverter the system shown in Fig. 2 the necessaty switching conditions
45 -1 are
i , , ( t ) = 0 and 0 at t =0 (1)
dt
Fig. 2 Control block diagram interpretation of the proposed scheme. The current iYl(t)can be expressed as a sum of two
components. One of them is due to vaoand another is due to

693
the various voltages in terms of Fourier series representation

-
+
i(n(co,f-y,)) / ( , , ( Q J i - y 2 ) ) ) G\,B-lah (jnw ~) dt
vo =
are given by: nn

Vao(0 c
CO
jv,
= N=-CO nn:
J(n(m,i-y1)) + vg (8)
2 (2) and GI, ,,a,, is the transfer function of the inverter output
and voltage to the voltage across the primary side of the
transformer, and os0t = 2 n: 60 t rad. This transfer function is
Vl,"(t> = c
C O -
&J(t!(m,/-Y2) + vfi (3) given by :
n=-m nn 2
jnoC,I
where n represents the order of the odd harmonic. L,,C,iC,>R,, + ( j f i ~ ) ~ L , i C+(C,JR,,
,i +C,iR,q)(Jno)+l)

The current i,,(t) represented in terms of Fourier series is (9)

The equations (1) and (8) when solved simultaneously, for
given by
a given set of parameters, result in the operating point of the
c
l \ l ( ~ )=
"
(J"peJ('('J-yl)) + J V X e / ( ' i ( r o s i - y 2 ) )G ~ ~ , - , , ~ ~ ( ~ U O , ) converter. Fig. 4 shows the result of this approach, where the
nx nx
first 17 harmonics were considered.
(4)
~,

where the transfer function Gisl ,,oh is:

(5)
In a similar way, the time derivative of isl(t) is given by

-31

for 0 < yi < 180° and 0 < yz< 180°.

Gisl_vnb(jn@s))
'gnl
h

The switching conditions defined by (1) will be used in the ~ i 4 Analytical

~ . results for the converter with the controller. y I = 175' and
next section to determine the possible operating points of the yl= 60'.
converter along the ac input voltage cycle. However, in order
to obtain a unique solution an additional constraint must be
OF VF AND VFPSM
IV. COMPARISON
considered.

A . Input Output Power Balance Constraint
Under the assumption of sinusoidal steady-state operation
of the resonant circuit, the average power sent by the inverter
to the resonant circuit, P,,,, over one switching interval, is
equal to the averaged power delivered by the resonant circuit
to the output stage, Po. This assumption is valid considering
that the frequency of the resonant circuit is much higher than
the frequency of the input ac line voltage. On the other hand,
taking into account that the energy in the output filter
components does not change significantly in one switching
interval, the output load, output filter, and rectifier can be
Now, the two control techniques described in Section I1
are compared. In comparing these approaches it is assumed
that the converter is operating with the input voltage ranging
from 90 to 250 V and with the output load varying from full
load to 10 % of the full- load.
The following ratio are used to carry out the comparison
: This is the ratio between the present value of the
V P peak input voltage and the peak of the lowest
input voltage.
' $ 1 rills .. This is the ratio between the rms value of the
~

represented by an equivalent load resistor. The value of the current in the resonant inductor, computed over
one switching period, and the peak value of the
equivalent resistor is given by input current when the converter is operating at full
load and with the lowest input voltage.
<,
UJ

where, V, is the dc output voltage , which is expressed as: -': This is the ratio between the switching frequency
0 0 and the resonant frequency associated with the
series resonant branch.

694
 . This is the ratio between the rms value of the --
i . , ~rm,i VF VFPSM
--
l d 1ms
+ i,, 1.4
z ~ t ~ currentat the inverter input, computed over 1.2
one switching period, and the peak value of the
1 0
input current when the converter is operating at full
load with the lowest input voltage. 0 8

0.6
A. The Control Anglesfor Operation With Unity Power 0.4
Factor and Constant Output Voltage
0.2

Fig. 5 shows the control angles required to maintain unity 0 90 180

power factor at the input while keeping the output voltage 0 6 0t ( degrees ) I
06,, ( degrees )
constant. In order to reduce the circulating currents, the
Pig. 6 Current through the series resonant inductor along the input line
resonant circuit parameters should be designed so that the cycle. The lines marked with “1” refer to operation at 10% of full load and
converter has barely enough gain to keep the output voltage the ones marked with “2” refer to operation at full load.
constant along the entire input line cycle at full load with
lowest input voltage, i.e. GS / Cgn, = 1 . C. The Switching Frequency Range
The main advantage of the VFPSIl4 method over the VF
method is the reduction in the switching frequency range. As
I80 shown in Fig. 7, with VFPSM the operating frequency range
is reduced to 50% that of the VF method. The reduction in
150 the switching frequency leads to a decrease in the magnetic
losses on the series resonant inductor and the isolation
120 transformer.
VF VFPSM
90 -
a s
2.2
a0
2 .O
60
1.8
30
1.6
0
0 90 180 0 90 180 1.4

w60 t ( degrees ) t ( degrees ) 1.2

Fig. 5 The angles required to keep unity power factor at constant output
1 .o
voltage for two load conditions. The lines marked with “1” refer to 90 180 0 90 180
operation at 10% of full load and the ones marked with “2” refer to t
060 ( degrees ) t ( degrees
06,, )
operation at full load.
Fig. 7 Switching frequency along input line cycle. The curves marked with
B. The Current Through the Resonant Inductor “1” are for operation with 10 % of rated load and the ones marked with “2”
The current through the resonant inductor plays an are for full load operation.
important role in the design of the converter. This is because
this current has a direct impact on the inverter conduction D.The lnput Current Profde
losses, inductor rating and the voltage stress across the series The instantaneous rms current at the input of the inverter
resonant capacitor. Fig. 6 shows the “instantaneous rms” with VFPSM is smaller than with VF. Again, the difference
current through the series resonant inductor along the line is more significant when operating over a wide input range.
cycle when the converter is operating with unity power factor The input filter in the case of VFPSM is slightly smaller
and a constant output voltage. The VFPSM results in smaller than in case of the VF for the same THD in the input
currents as compared with the VF, especially when operating current. The inverter input current is shown in Fig. 8.
with high input voltages.

695
 VF VFPSM possible to see from Fig. 9 that for each value of p there is a
L
m
rl
s.4 value of Q,,,, that minimizes the conduction losses. These
i,m 1 . 2
values are presented in Table I. Table I also shows the
1 .o
maximum voltage conversion ratio and the reactance
0.8 associated with the series resonant branch at full load. It is
0.6 possible to see from Table I and Fig. 10 that by reducing p
0.4 the conduction losses and the switching fi-equency range are
0.2 reduced. However, by reducing p the reactance of the
0 90 180 0 90 180
resonant circuit increases. Therefore, a trade off between
inductor size, conduction losses and switching frequency
L ( degrees ) wG0 ( degrees )
range should be made when selecting these parameters.
Fig. 8 Rms current at the input of the inverter along input line cycle. The
curves marked with “1” are for operation with 10 % of rated load and the 2
IL! I ! ! 1 ! m
ones marked with “2” are for full load operation.

V. DESIGN CONSIDERATIONS
When operating with a wide input voltage range the
conduction losses in the inverter become an important design
driving factor. This is because the resonant circuit must be
designed for the minimum input voltage, and the current
through the resonant circuit does not change significantly
with the increasing input line voltage.
For the design of the resonant circuit parameters the
following ratios are defined
(10) Fig. 9 Rms current at the inverter output when operating with lowest input
voltage and full output power.

TABLE
I. MINIMUM LOSSES
CONDUCTION RATIOS
Switching Frequency Ratio
Q, M Q,M2 M’aQ,, a = a,?
I w,
max /a VF VFPSM
5 72 0 79 a [3 3-2 81 a [3.9-4 51 a [ I 09-1271 a [ I 08-1 251
b [1.24-1.70] b [1.22-1.34]
4,max 328 077 a[1.7-1.3] ap.3-291 a [1.17-1.50] a [ l 13-1.461
b [I 43-2.201 b [ I 41-1.591
241 076 a[l.l-08] a[17-24] a [1.24-1.70] a [ l 19-1.651
b [I 60-2.64 b [ I 58-1.801
2 08 0 73 a LO.9-0.61 a [ I 5-2 I ] a [ I 30-1.881 a [ I 23-1.811
b 11.76-3 011 b 11.73-2001
I 70 0 74 a [ O 7-0.41 a [I 3-1 91 a iI.36-2 OSi a i l ’28-1.963
b [ I 91-3 311 b [ I 87-2 171
ion with full load b: Operation with 10% of full load
150

(15) VF+PSM
120
,z
.” VF
I m _rms
2
2:2 90
(16)
C=(TT cogp
3x 60
The ratios Qmax@/a and @aQJmax are proportional to
the reactance of the series resonant capacitor and inductor
-8 8
gz 30
respectively. The voltage conversion ratio, M, is proportional e.

to the maximum achievable output voltage. On the other oi I , , I

hand, the ratio C,, is proportional to the conduction losses in 1 5 2 25 3 35 4 4 5 5 5 5

the inverter. By multiplying C by 2 &,,2~Ds(on) the conduction Maximum Q Factor, Q c m a x

losses of the inverter, at full load and minimum input voltage

can be found. ~ i 9 shows~ . the ratio c as a function of the Fig. 10 Percentage of variation of the switching frequency from full load at
low input voltage (vnl vP=l ) to 10 % of full load with high input voltage
maximum Q factor , e,,
, for three values of ,B which is a (vg I vpl= 2 78 ).
ratio between the series and parallel resonant capacitors. It is

696
A. Design Example From the above discussion it is evident that the proposed
Consider a 500 W converter operating from an ac line with converter topology is best suited for a narrow input ac voltage
the minimum voltage equal to 90 V. For the selection of the range. However, the universal ac input voltage range could
resonant circuit parameter the fidlowing procedure is be achievable only if many MOSFETS are paralleled in the
suggested: full-bridge configuration.
(i) From Table 1 or Fig. 10 select tlhe value of e,,
and /?.
For example, the selection of Q, = 2.41 and p=1.5 results in a
VI. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
switching frequency variation of 5 1%, for VFPSM, without
causing excessively high rating of the resonant circuit. A 500 W series-parallel resonant converter operating with
(ii) Select the minimum switching frequency and compute unity power factor from an input voltage greater than 90 V
the series resonant inductor and capacitor. For example, if has been used to verify the analysis and to demonstrate the
the switching frequency is 1OOkHz then using the frequency operation with VFPSM in self-sustained oscillating mode.
ratio given in Table I, a=1.19, the resonant frequency can The main parameters of converter in the bread-board
found as follows implementation are shown in Table 11.
Table 11. IMPLEMENTATION CIRCUIT PARAMETERS
a L, I C,
The series resonant inductor is found by substituting (15) into 42 pH llOnF
(1 1) and solve the former for the inductance. The value of the
inductance is given by Fig. 11 shows the current at the output of inverter along
M2ig the input line cycle. The measured switching frequency and
e, ~
peak current at inverter output of 97.1 kHz and 13 A
4= = 42.7 pH (18) respectively . For the resonant circuit parameters given in
an
and the values of the series and parallel resonant capacitor are Table I1 the following ration were analytically found for the
found as: same operating point of the converter: Qs=2.09 , a=1.32, and
p= I .4 1. The corresponding switching frequency obtained
analytically is 97.68 kHz and the current peak through the
inductor is 15A, which is in good agreement with the
(iii) The dc output voltage V , without isolation
experimental results.
transformer is given by
V, = M.vgmln= 96.7 V (20)
The turns ratio of the transformer is used to step-up or step-
down the voltage V, to the value required at the output of the
converter.
B. Input Voltage Range
Three typical input voltage ranges are considered and
compared in terms of the resulting conduction losses for an
output power of 500W.
(i) For the input voltage range of 90V-135V, the use of
IRFP264 ( RDS[,,) = 0.135 SZ at 100" C) would result in
total inverter conduction losses of 27.2'W at the 90V input.
(ii) For operation with wider input range, say 90-265 V,
a transistor with higher voltage blocking capability must be
selected. Typical transistor for this power is the IRFP460.
However, it results in very high conduction losses in the Fig. 11 Experimental results. Inverter input voltage and output current
inverter, 98 W. As the conduction loss of the full-bridge Operating conditions P,=500 W, V,,, ,.,ns= 90 V, V,,,,= 97 V, switching
frequency near to the peak of the input voltage 97 1 kHz Scales Vertical.
inverter itself represents approximately 20% loss in 50 V/div and 10Ndiv Horizontal 2ms/div and zoom 5 ws/div
efficiency, a number of MOSFETs are required to be
connected in parallel. Otherwise, the operation of the On the other hand, Fig. 12 shows that the input current of
proposed topology is not practical for a universal input ac the converter is near sinusoidal and i!j in phase with the input
voltage. voltage. Power factor close to unity was obtained in all
(iii) For the input voltage range of 185-265 V. The use of operating conditions.
IRFP 460 ( RDS(on)= 0.43 at 100°C ;I would result in total
inverter conduction losses of 15W.

697
 The main wave forms of the circuit are shown in Fig. 13, It
demonstrates that zero voltage switching of the converter is
achieved as the current crosses zero inside of the PWM pulse.
15msidiv
Fig. 12 Experimental results. Input current and voltage. Output power 500
W, output voltage 97 V. Power factor 0.995. Efficiency 86 %. Vertical
Scale: 50 V/div and SA/div. Horizontal Scale Smsidiv.
Fig. 13 Experimental results Voltage and current at the inverter output and
the voltage across the parallel resonant capacitor Operating conditions
P,=500 W, Vtn rms= 135 V, Vout= 97 V, switching voltage 107 7 kHz
Scales: Vertical 100 Vidiv and 10Ndiv; Horizontal, 2ps/div
Fig. 14 shows the efficiency of the converter for both VF and
VFPSM techniques. It is possible to see that VFPSM and VF
result in an almost identical efficiency for the minimum
voltage that the converter is designed for. However, as the
input voltage increases the VFPSM results in a better
efficiency.
100
schemes in self-sustained oscillation mode has been presented
€or a single phase ac-dc series-parallel resonant converter.
Generalized steady-state analysis has been given and its
performance compared with respect to a variable frequency
control technique. The improved technique has resulted in a
narrower range of frequency control, a reduction in the
conduction losses, and a lower rating of the components.
Finally, the experimental results have confirmed the
superiority of the proposed control technique.
V. REFERENCES
R.Red1, “Power Electronics and Electromagnetic Compatibility,”
PESC Conference Record, 1996, pp. 15-21,
J. Hong, D.Maksimovic, R.W. Erickson and I. Khan, “Half-Cycle
Control of Parallel Resonant Converter Operated as a High Power
Factor Rectifier,” IEEE Trans. Power Electron..vol 10, pp. 13,
January 1985.
J.He and N.Mohan, ‘‘ Input-current shaping in line rectification by
resonant converters,” IEEE Industry Applications Society Conference
Record, 1993, pp.833-840.
M.J.Schutten, R.L.Sreigervald and M.H. Kheraluwala,
“Characteristics of Load Resonant Converters Operated in a High-
Power Factor Mode,” IEEE Trans. Power Electron..vol 7 , pp. 304-
314, April 1992.
V.Belaguli, A.K.S. Bhat, “ A Hybrid Resonant Converter Operated as
a Low Harmonic Rectifier With and Without Active Control,” PESC
Conference Record, 1996, pp.720-726.
H.Pinheiro, P.Jain, G. Joos, “Series-Parallel Converter in the Self-
Sustained Oscillating Mode for Unity Power Factor
Applications,”, APEC’97 ConJ Rec., pp.477-483, 1997.
Tsypkin, YA. 2.:“Relay Control Systems,” (Cambrige University
Press, Cambridge,l984 ).
A.P. Loh, V.U. Vasnani, “Necessary Conditions for Limit Cycles in
Multiloop Relay System,” IEE Proc.-Control Theory Appl.,
Vo1.141,No.3, May 1994.
R.L. Steigenvald, ‘‘ A comparison of Half-bridge resonant converter
topologies.” IEEE Trans. Power Electron., vol 3, pp. 174-182, April
1988.
LISTOF SYMBOLS
-Current at the input of the inverter.

95
I I i I ’ I I -Peak value of the current i, with the lowest input voltage.
I,,,, _Tms -Rms current at the output of the inverter computed over one
,VFPSM 500 W cycle of the input line voltage.
90
h

& +VF 500 W zrl -Current through the series resonant branch.
85 vOb -Voltage across the inverter output terminal.
6 +VFPSM 250 W
g
.$ 80 +VF 250 W v,, -Voltage produced by the leg A of the inverter.
!5 15
-+-VFPSM 125 w vh0 -Voltage produced by the leg B of the inverter.
+VF 125 W
vg -Voltage at the output of the input diode rectifier.
85 90 95 I00 10s 110 115 120 125 VIgt,, -Peak value of the voltage v g with the lowest input voltage.
Input Linevoltage (V)
vCOl -Voltage that defines the y, .
Fig. 14 Efficiency at different operating conditions for operation with VF v , , ~ -Voltage that defines the y2
and VFPSM
w -Resonant frequency associated with the series resonant
IV. CONCLUSIONS branch.
In this paper an improved control technique which o ~ -Switching frequency.
combines the variable frequency and phase-shift modulation a,, -Frequency of the a c mains.

698