Modeling and Analysis of Single-phase Boost

Converter with Power Factor Correction Control

Li Bao, Lingling Fan, Zhixin Miao
Deparment of Electrical Engineering
University of South Florida
Tampa, Florida 33620
{libao, linglingfan, zmiao}@usf.edu

Abstract—When ac/dc converters are widely used in modern Diode-based

power system, harmonic component generated from non-linear converter
electronic devices becomes a major issue. The power factor cor-
Boost circuit
rection (PFC) can be employed to reduce harmonic components iL
and improve transmission efficiency. This paper presents three
is L
approaches to model a PFC circuit implemented in a single-
phase ac/dc boost converter, which is mathematical modeling, S
detailed modeling and average modeling. Harmonic analysis of vs |vs| C vo
this circuit is also carried out. These models are performed
in MATLAB/Simulink and SimPowerSystems. Simulation results
Load
are presented and compared.
Index Terms—ac/dc converter, power factor correction (PFC),
simulation model. PWM
Generator
d
I. I NTRODUCTION iL PFC vo
In power distribution systems and industrial applications, Control
it is required to use dc voltage to supply modern equipment
|vs|
such as DC motor, battery and etc. The ac/dc converters have Fig. 1: Single-phase converter with boost circuit.
been widely used to realize this kind of conversion. However,
harmonic components appear in line current and voltage since
converters consist of non-linear electronic devices such as The PFC control diagram of the boost circuit is shown in
switch and diodes [1]. These harmonic components put a high Fig. 2 [9]. Two loops are embedded in the control: inner loop
pressure on transmission wire and transformer, and even result for inductor current control and outer loop for output voltage
in overheat on distribution system [2]. control. The output voltage of boost circuit compares with
The power factor correction (PFC) control is proposed to a reference voltage, and the variation of the two voltages is
reduce harmonic components and improve transmission effi- amplified by a proportional-integral (PI) controller. The output
ciency by achieving unity power factor. Under this condition, of PI controller is multiplied with the rectified voltage to
the input voltage and current are regulated to be in-phase, generate reference inductor current, which has the same phase
so the system can be viewed as a pure resistance and all with rectified voltage. The control objective of inner loop is
power generated by source are totally transferred to load. to force the inductor current follow the voltage phase.
The efficiency is significantly improved and harmonic is also
eliminated. Due to the advantages of PFC in power system, it
becomes a hot research topic and analyzed in literature [3]– iL* d
×
*
[7]. Among these PFC systems, the boost circuit is the most vo PI PI
common application for PFC owing to its relatively simple
control.
A single-phase boost converter is shown in Fig. 1 [8], where |vs|
vo iL
an ac voltage is rectified by a diode-based converter, and
following is a boost circuit controlled by a PFC control to Fig. 2: PFC control block.
regulate output voltage and improve power factor. Since PFC
has capacity of reshaping the input current close to voltage, Although the structure and working principle of PFC control
then the system behaves like a pure resistive load even it are exploited by much research [8]–[11], the harmonic analysis
contains non-linear electronic elements. is not well explained. This paper will illustrate the circuit’s
978-1-7281-8192-9/21/$31.00 © 2021 IEEE variables such as inductor current and duty ratio at different
frequencies through fast Fourier transform (FFT) algorithm. [iL;vo]
Three PFC models also carried out as mathematical model,
iL
average model and detailed model. These models shows the Matlab Fcn [i ;vv ]
L o
almost same simulation results but their characteristics varies. xx=f(x,u)
= ʃ vo PI ×
iL*
The comparison is a good instruction for model building. Sim- t d
ulation results of variables waveform and FFT analysis are also vo* |vs|
presented and compared with the harmonic analysis. The paper PI
is organized as follows. In Section II, the system modeling
is developed. The analysis and simulation are presented in Fig. 3: Mathematical model.
Section III. Finally, Section IV concludes this paper.
II. S YSTEM MODELING v s =Vs * a b s ( s i n ( 2 * p i * 60 * t ) ) ;
Modeling of the single-phase ac/dc boost converter provides d i L = v s / L−(1−d ) / L * vo ;
the accurate analysis of dynamic and static performance. dvo = (1−d ) / C* iL−vo / C / R ;
The converter can be modeled in several ways, this section d i L d v o = [ d i L ; dvo ] ;
describes mathematical model, average model and detailed
B. Detailed model
model, all of them are developed on Matlab/Simulink and
SimPoweSystem program. Detailed model is the most intuitive simulation method to
study the power system transient problems relying on GUI.
A. Mathematical model It contains detailed electronic elements such as the different
Mathematical model simulates the circuit by using the types of switches, power sources, control blocks and etc.
differential and algebraic equations of circuit variables. Com- These elements are composed of a set of algebraic equations
pared with detailed model and average model, mathematical to represent their physical characteristics [12]. Some solvers
model building requires a total understanding of target system, such as Runge-Kutta or Euler method are employed to solve
the transient analysis also needs to be investigated. As the differential equations in power systems.
single-phase ac/dc boost converter shown in Fig. 1, if all The detailed model is built in SimPowerSystems and shown
switches are ideal and a large capacitor C ensures the output in Fig. 4. The solver for this model is ode4/Runge-Kutta.
voltage be a constant, the general differential equations (1) and "#

(2) for the output voltage and inductor current are obtained +,
$%&'(
$%&'( 

"$)*#
based on its working principle and Kirchhoff current and 


"#
"#
voltage laws. " #
"#
 
  
diL
= vin − (1 − d)vo

L (1) 
 
dt  
 
"$)*#  
dvo vo   
= (1 − d)iL − .  


C (2)   
  "#



 " #

dt R  
!

where iL is inductor current, vin is input voltage, vo denotes

output voltage and d is duty ratio of switch.
The variables in equation (1) and (2) can be represented as
a function as:
ẋ = f (x, u). (3)
where iL and vo are state variables x1 and x2 , respectively,
so ẋ = [ didtL ; dv o
dt ], input u is duty ratio d.
Thus, the boost circuit can be expressed by the nonlinear
differential equations, which is integrated into the mathemat-
ical model as shown in Fig. 3.
The differential equations of boost circuit are constructed
in the Matlab function, the outputs i̇L and v̇o are sent back to
this function after being integrated. Another block t represents
the time used to produce continuous voltage signal. The code
associated with the function is shown as:
f u n c t i o n diLdvo = fcn ( u , t , d )
L = 0 . 0 0 1 ; C = 0 . 0 2 ; R= 7 ; Vs=24 * s q r t ( 2 ) ;
i L =u ( 1 ) ;
vo=u ( 2 ) ;
Fig. 4: Detailed model.
C. Average model
The idea of average model is to replace switches by equiv-
alent circuit based on the relationship of circuit’s variables,
and the equivalent circuit has the same average behavior with
detailed model.
Fig. 5 shows a boost circuit and its average model. This
circuit includes a diode and a insulated-gate bipolar transistor
(IGBT) switch. IGBT is controlled by external control signal
and diode by voltage direction. Since the switching is replaced,
there is no switching loss. Thus, the input power is identical
to output power. If the boost circuit is treated as a current
source, the current value can be calculated by equation (4).
vin iin = vout iout
P =
vin iin
⇒ iout = . (4)
vout
As the diagram illustrates, output voltage vout and input
current iin are extracted from this circuit directly, while input
voltage vin is derived based on the relationship as vin = (1 − Put equation (7) into (5) and (6), the Fourier series of the
d)vout . Since the switch is not considered, switching harmonic |vs (t)| is calculated as:
is eliminated in the average model.
2 V̂s 4
|vs (t)| = V̂s − cos(nωt) n = 2, 4, 6, ... (8)
iL π π n2 − 1
io
Since the components after second order are relatively
L
small, we only consider the fundamental (dc value) and
C
|vs| S vo second harmonic component. Thus, the rectified voltage can
Load be calculated in Fourier series as:
2 4
|vs (t)| = V̂s × − V̂s × cos 2ωt (9a)
  π   3π
VDC V̂2

Controlled vo = 21.61 − 14.4 cos(2ωt). (9b)

current source
iL Pin × B. System without PFC control
× io
/ If this system is only equipped with a voltage control to
Controlled |vs| vo regulate the output voltage, and the reference voltage is Vo∗ ,
voltage source 1-d the control diagram block is shown in Fig. 6.

PWM
Fig. 5: Schematic diagram of a boost circuit average model. Generator
d vc
III. S TEADY- STATE A NALYSIS vo* PI 2u-1 PWM
As shown in Fig. 1, the voltage source is firstly rectified ≥
by a diode-based converter and increased to another level by
the boost circuit. The line current harmonics is supposed to vo triangular
eliminated, and power factor is improved to be unity through
the PFC control. In this paper, the three models are built in Fig. 6: Diagram block of output voltage control. u represents
Matlab/Simulink and SimPowerSystem based on the following input of the block.
parameters:
√ L = 1 mH, C = 20 mF , R = 7 Ω, vs (t) =
24 2 sin(2π × 60t), the switching frequency of the switch S The output voltage is compared with a reference signal, and
is 2 kHz and the desired output voltage Vo is set as 48 V . error goes into a PI controller to generate duty ratio. A PWM
generator is used to convert duty ratio to PWM signal that
A. Fourier series analysis
applied to IGBT switch. Since the output is a dc voltage Vo ,
Considering the rectified voltage is required to be decom- which is related to dc component of the rectified voltage VDC ,
posed into harmonic components at specific frequencies, the then the duty ratio d is calculated as:
Fourier series analysis is employed. Fourier series splits a
VDC
periodic function into an infinite sum of sines and cosines d=1− = 0.55. (10)
with different magnitudes and frequencies [13]. If a periodic Vo
waveform is f (t), then the Fouries series can be written: According to equation (5), IL consists of a dc component
∞ and a series harmonic components, then the dc component can
f (t) = Fo + (an cos(nωt) + bn sin(nωt)) (5) be calculated as:
n=1 Io Vo 1
IL,DC = = = 15.24 A. (11)
where Fo is the average or fundamental value of f (t), n 1−d R 1−d
denotes the order of harmonics, an and bn are the coefficient If this circuit is powered by the other harmonic components
and are represented as: of voltage, only the inductor L is considered. Then the second

1 2π harmonic component of inductor current is given as equation
an = f (t) cos(nωt)d(ωt) n = 1, 2, 3, ... (6a)
π 0 (12).

1 2π V̂2 V̂2
bn = f (t) sin(nωt)d(ωt) n = 1, 2, 3, ... (6b) Iˆ2 = = = 19.1 A. (12)
π 0 XL 2ωL
In single-phase converter, assuming the voltage source mag- The boost circuit with voltage control is implemented in
nitude is Vs and angular frequency is ω, the rectified voltage Matlab/SimPowerSystems and simulation results are displayed
can be presented as: in Figs. 7 and 8. From Fig. 7, it can be observed that the
|vs (t)| = V̂s | sin(ωt)|. (7) output voltage follows the reference signal as 48 V , while the
duty ratio is 0.55, which is corresponded to the analysis from
equation (10). Fig. 8 shows the waveform of inductor current
and its FFT analysis. The inductor current mainly contains 4
PDC = V̂s IˆL (13a)
two components: dc component is about 15.2 A and 120 Hz π2
 2
component is around 19.3 A. The two components are close to 1 4
P2 = V̂s IˆL (13b)
the analysis. Moreover, the power factor is calculated as 0.83 2 3π
by using the measurement tools in Matlab/SimPowerSystems. P =PDC + P2 . (13c)

By comparing PDC and P , the power from dc component

60 4
is accounted as 4 1π2 4 2 = 81.43% of the total power, so
Vo and V*o (V)

π2
+ 2 ( 3π )
40
the rest of 18.57% is generated from the second harmonic
20 component.
V
o

V* Based on the parameters of this model, the total power is

2
calculated as P = 487 W = 329.15W . Thus, the dc component
o
0
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4

of current can be derived as:

0.6

81.43% × P 81.43% × 329.15

0.4 IDC = 2
= 2
√ = 12.4 A. (14)
π V̂s π × 24 2
d

0.2

0
And the current in second harmonic component is:
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4
Time(s)
π 4
Iˆ2 = × IDC × = 8.27 A. (15)
Fig. 7: Boost circuit output voltage Vo and duty ratio d.. 2 3π

The boost circuit can be decomposed into two circuits based

on the harmonic components, one is powered by dc voltage
150 20 and another by voltage harmonic. Fig. 9 shows the equivalent
30 circuit.
100 20
Magnitude (A)

10 15
0

50 3.48 3.5 3.52

IL (A)

10
0 I IDC I2
5
+ L +
-50 L
-100
0 1 2 3 4
0
0 100 200 300 400
S = VDCC S1 Vs1 + S2 Vs22
Time(s) Frequency (Hz)
- -
(a) Inductor current waveform (b) FFT analysis of inductor current ||V
Vscos(ωt)| V2cos(2ωt)
Fig. 8: Boost circuit inductor current waveform and its FFT Fig. 9: The boost equivalent circuit.
analysis without PFC control.

where |Vˆs cos(ωt)| is the input voltage of boost circuit,

VDC and V̂2 are dc and second harmonic components of input
C. System with PFC control voltage, IDC and I2 are the circuit currents, respectively. The
inductor L is not considered in dc system.
In this model, the PFC control shown in Fig. 2 is employed As the figure shows, the output voltage can be treated as the
in the converter. The input voltage and current are supposed sum of a dc voltage Vs1 and an ac voltage Vs2 with double-
to be synchronized to realize unity power factor. The analysis frequency. Vs1 and Vs2 are calculated as:
of PFC control is illustrated as follows.
According to equation (9), when the input voltage and Vs1 = VDC (16)
current are regulated to be in same phase, both of them are
V̄s2 = V2 − j2ωLI2
composed of a dc and a second harmonic component. Each

1
component could produce power, so the total power of the = √ V̂22 + (2ωLIˆ2 )2 ∠θ (17)
circuit transferred is their sum. In the single-phase converter, 2
the total power P , dc component power (PDC ) and second
harmonic component (P2 ) power can be calculated as: where θ = arctan(− 2ωLI 2
V2 ).
 Based on equations (9), (15)-(17), the duty ratio is derived
0.6
as: 1.5
1

0.8

0.6

0.4

Magnitude
0.4
Vs1 + V̄s2 1 3.28 3.3 3.32

Duty ratio
1−d= (18a)
V

o
0.5
0.2

VDC V̂22 + (2ωLIˆ2 )2 0

=⇒ d =(1 − )− cos(2ωt − θ)
Vo Vo -0.5
0 1 2 3 4
0
0 100 200 300 400
(18b) Time(s) Frequency (Hz)

=0.55 − 0.33 cos(2ωt − 23.4 ).

o
(18c) (a) Duty ratio waveform (b) FFT analysis of duty ratio

Fig. 12: Duty ratio waveform with PFC control and its FFT
It can be seen that the duty ratio also contains a second
analysis.
harmonic under the unity power factor condition.
The simulation results of the converter with PFC control
are displayed in Fig. 10-12. From Fig. 10, it is clear that D. Comparison of boost circuit with and without PFC control
output voltage is controlled by reference voltage, and the outer
loop PI controller generates a constant value, which is the Fig. 13 compares the input voltage and current waveform
same with duty ratio duty ratio. Inductor current reference is with and without PFC control. The voltage and current almost
generated by the outer loop output multiplies rectified voltage are in synchronization under the PFC control, which ensures
√
24 2 × | sin(2ωt)|. So the PFC controls output voltage by unity power factor and high efficiency, while the power factor
outer loop and regulates current phase by inner loop. Result in the system without PFC control is only 0.83. The current
and FFT analysis of inductor current are shown in Fig. 11, is discontinuous and has a phase shift with voltage if there is
where magnitude of dc component is 12.4 A and 120 Hz no the PFC control. Moreover, the higher peak value of this
component is 8.5 A. The duty ratio and its FFT analysis are current will result in a higher pressure on transmission line.
shown in Fig. 12. The dc and 120 Hz components are 0.55
and 0.32, respectively. These results are well corresponded to With PFC control Vs
the analysis from equations (14), (15) and (18).
Vs (V) and IL (A)

40 IL

60 0.7 20
Vo
Outer PI controller output

50 0.6
V*o
0
Vo and V*o (V)

0.5
40
0.4 4 4.01 4.02 4.03 4.04 4.05
30
0.3 Time(s)
20 Without PFC control Vs
0.2
Vs (V) and IL (A)

10
0.1
IL
40
0 0
0 1 2 3 4 0 1 2 3 4
Time(s) Time(s)
20
(a) Vo and Vo∗ (b) Output of outer PI controller
0
Fig. 10: Output voltage Vo and outer loop PI controller output. 4 4.01 4.02 4.03 4.04 4.05
Time(s)

Fig. 13: Inductor current and rectified voltage with and without
15
PFC.
30 15
10
IL

5
Magnitude (A)

0
3.5 3.52
20 10
IL (A)

E. Model comparison
10 5
The three models shown in Figs. 3, 4 and 5 are compared
0
for the inductor current, duty ratio and simulation time. All
0
0 1 2 3 4 0 100 200 300 400 models are implemented in the same step size as 20 μs. The
Time(s) Frequency (Hz) simulation hardware is Windows Server with Intel Xeon CPU
(a) Inductor current waveform (b) FFT analysis of inductor current E5-2698 v3 2.3 Ghz and 32 GB RAM. As Figs. 14 and 15
show, the inductor current and duty ratio in detailed model
Fig. 11: Inductor waveform with PFC control and its FFT has a high-frequency harmonic due to its IGBT switch, but the
analysis. average values are the same with other two models. Since both
average model and mathematical model neglect the switching
loss and capacitor voltage variation, their simulation results duty ratio of the boost circuit and is validated by simulation
are ideal. results. Three approaches to model the system are evaluated
25 Average model and compared. The mathematical model is derived from boost
Mathematical model
Detail model circuit equations, average model is based on power relation
20 and detailed model is built by using Matlab/SimPowerSystem
blocks directly. By executing the same simulation time period,
15 results of the three models show that the mathematical model
is the most efficient, average has the lowest simulation speed,
IL (A)

10
and the detailed model shows higher harmonics.
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TABLE I: Comparison of execution time

Time to be Average Detail Mathematical

simulated model model model
2 sec 21 sec 17 sec 7 sec
8 sec 1 min 2 sec 57 sec 21 sec
30 sec 5 min 33 sec 4 min 22 sec 1 min 23 sec

IV. C ONCLUSION
This paper analyzes the single-phase diode-based ac/dc
converter with boost PFC control. Results show that the power
factor of the system with PFC control is greatly improved.
Harmonic analysis is also implemented for line current and