2020 IEEE 4th Information Technology,Networking,Electronic and Automation Control Conference (ITNEC 2020)
Design of a High-precision DC regulated power
supply system
Wanyu Yang , Jun Huang* , Zhijian Dai
School of Automation engineering, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China
Chengdu, China
e-mail: yangwanyu@uestc.edu.cn, junhuang@std.uestc.edu.cn, daizhijian@uestc.edu.cn
Abstract—DC regulated power supplies are widely used in
teaching, scientific research, industrial production and other
fields. The accuracy of the power supply in the automatic test
system will affect the quality of the test results. In order to design
a high-precision DC regulated power supplies, based on closed-
loop negative feedback and self-calibration technology, we use
four-wire Kelvin sense and fuzzy adaptive PID control algorithm
to improve the accuracy of the output's power, while floating
output method has also been used to simplify the design. A
microcomputer has been used to control a DAC which outputs a
analog voltage to drive a power amplifier, in this way, the power
amplifier could output a adjustable voltage with continuously. At
the same time, a ADC has been used to sample the amplifier's
output and send the sample value to the microcomputer for
negative feedback control. A power dissipation control circuit has
been designed based on the junction temperature characteristics
of the power amplifier to improve power conversion efficiency
and accuracy. The experiment test results show that the designed
power supply's output voltage range is 0 ~ ± 30V, accuracy is ±
(0.25% * U ± 10mV), current range is 0 ~ ± 6A, accuracy is ±
(0.2% * I ± 5mA), maximum power is 65W, which meets the
expectations target.
Keywords—High-precision power supply; Fuzzy adaptive PID
controller; Kelvin sense; power dissipation control
I. Introduction
As a basic equipment of electronic information industry,
DC stabilized power supply is widely used in teaching,
scientific research, industrial production and other fields. With
the development of integrated circuits, automated test systems
have put forward more requirements with accuracy and power
of power supply equipment. Traditional linear power supplies
are bulky and with low conversion efficiency. Current
researches on DC stabilized power supplies are mostly about
switching power supplies with PID feedback control.
Nowadays, many studies are aimed at improving the
accuracy and power of DC regulated power supplies. A two-
stage circuit structure consisting of two types of isolated and
non-isolated topologies was proposed in reference[1] , which
improved the Power supply's output current capability through
secondary buck and closed-loop regulation method in different
output voltages . The disadvantage is that the output voltage
has only a few fixed values and cannot be continuously
adjusted. a wide dynamic range Programmable Power Supply
for data center applications[2]. Because the proposed
programmable VRM is based on multiphase interleaved
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synchronous buck topology, the accuracy of output voltage is
poor.
In this paper, we design a continuously adjustable DC
regulated power supply system based on power amplifier and
closed loop feedback controller. In order to improve the power
conversion efficiency and the output current’s driving
capability , we analyze the junction temperature characteristics
of the power amplifier, and then propose a power dissipation
control circuit to reduce the power amplifier's loss. A four-
wire Kelvin sense and self-calibration technology has been
proposed to improve the measuring accuracy, and a fuzzy
adaptive PID control algorithm has been used to adjust the
output voltage / current . The system test results show that the
designed power supply system has the advantages of high
precision, small ripple voltage, and strong driving load
capacity.
II. Power Dissipation Control
Junction temperature is an important parameter of a
semiconductor device. Excessively junction temperature will
not only affect the operation characteristics of the device, but
also make the device fail. For a semiconductor chip, the
junction temperature can be expressed as by formula (1):
TJ  TA  PD * JA (1)
In formula (1), TJ is the junction temperature, whose unit
is  C ; TA is the ambient temperature, whose unit is  C ,
typically 25  C to 45  C ; PD is the chip's power loss, whose
unit is W ;  JA is the thermal resistance from the junction to
the environment, whose unit is ℃ / W ;
It can be known from formula (1) that in order to reduce
the device junction temperature TJ , the power loss PD and
thermal resistance  JA should be minimized. PD and  JA
could be expressed with equation (2) and (3):
PD  I L * (VS  VO ) (2)
JA  JC  CH  HA (3)
In formula (2), I L is the load current, whose unit is A ;
VS is the device supply voltage, VO is the output voltage,
whose unit is V ; in formula (3),  JC represents the thermal
resistance from the juntion to the device's surface,
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CH Indicates the thermal resistance from the device's surface
to the heat sink,  HA indicates the thermal resistance from the
heat sink to the environment, whose unit is ℃ / W ;
It can be known from formula (2) that reducing the load
current or reducing the difference between the device power
supply voltage and the output voltage can reduce the device
power loss. In Equation (3),  JC is determined after the wafer
is packaged, and can be found in the device manual or
datasheet. CH depends on the material selected between the
device's surface and the heat sink. Generally, it is silicon
grease.  HA depends on the selected radiator, which is related
to the material and area of the radiator and the auxiliary heat
dissipation (fan cooling, water cooling, etc.).
III. The System hardware design
The system hardware design includes overall structure of
the system， regulator circuit and voltage / current sample
circuit.
A. Overall system design
Input
PC power
Optoelectronic DC/DC with
isolator isolation
Controller Regulator
circuit
U/I sample
Flash
module
Output
Load
Fig. 1. Block diagram of the overall structure of the system.
As shown in Figure 1, it is a block diagram of the overall
structure of the system. In order to achieve floating output, the
system's gnd and the host computer's gnd signal should be
isolated, the input power also should be isolated with the
system. The system's controller communicates with the host
computer through the RS232 bus, and uses the optoelectronic
isolator device PC817 to achieve isolating function. The 48V
DC input power is converted to 24V by a DC / DC device
with isolating function URF4824QB. The 32-bit LPC2138
microcomputer is selected as the controller. The controller
controls the voltage regulator circuit according to the
command sent by the host computer. The voltage / current
sampling module samples the output voltage and current of
the voltage regulator circuit and sends the values to the
controller. The controller uses a feedback control algorithm to
adjust the output power of the voltage regulator circuit.
In order to improve the output power's accuracy, use
self-calibrated technology to calibrate the system. Firstly,
using a standard source to calibrate the sampling module.
Secondly, using the calibrated sampling module to calibrate
the voltage regulator circuit, and store the calibration data to
the FLASH memory chip. Every time the system is powered
on and initialized, the controller reads the calibration data
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from the FLASH memory chip to calibrate the system. At the
same time, the calibration data of the FLASH memory can
also be used as a sample for the design of the feedback control
algorithm.
B. Regulator Circuit
Figure 2 shows the theoretical block diagram of the
voltage regulator circuit. The controller sends data to the DAC.
The DAC's output voltage is adjusted by the gain adjusting
and filter circuit, then send it to the input of the power
amplifier. The power amplifier outputs a amplifying voltage
Vo according to the peripheral configuration circuit. As
described in the first section, reducing the difference Vs  Vo
between the power supply voltage and the output voltage of
the power amplifier can reduce the power loss PD . In other
words, the junction temperature of the power amplifier could
be lower.
Input power DC/DC with
isolation
BUCK/BOOST
Circuit
-5V
Gain adjusting Vs
ADC
circuit
Gain adjusting Power amplifying
Controller DAC
and filter circuit circuit
Output
Load
Fig. 2. Block diagram of the regulator circuit
The controller sends a control signal to adjust the output
voltage Vs of the BUCK / BOOST circuit. Vs is sampled by
the ADC and sent to the controller. The controller adjusts the
output voltage Vs of the BUCK / BOOST circuit by means of
negative feedback to ensure that Vs  Vo is always kept small.
Value. the input power is converted to -5V by using an DC /
DC device with isolating function. Connecting the -5V power
source to the negative power supply pin of the power amplifier
to ensure that the output of the power amplifying circuit can
be adjusted to 0V.
For improving the accuracy and resolution of the system's
output , the DAC in Figure 2 chose DAC8501 which has a
16-bit resolution. Considering the quantization error and
noise , its output voltage accuracy is show in formula (4):
1 (4)
 VREF
2 ENOB
In equation (4), VREF is the reference power voltage and
ENOB is the ture effective number of DAC. Assuming ENOB
ENOB is 14 bits and a reference voltage V
REF is 5V, the
accuracy of the DAC output voltage calculated is
3.05 104 V. The gain adjusting and filter circuit includes
attenuating-amplifying circuits and a second-order active filter
circuit.
Selecting OPA549S as the power amplifier. Its positive
power supply rail can reach 60V , bipolar supply can reach
30V , and the maximum output continuous current can reach
8A. The maximum junction temperature is 150  C , the
maximum safe junction temperature is 125  C , and the
thermal resistance parameter  JA is 1.4 ℃ / W during DC
operation. For a good heat dissipation effect, a copper heat
sink with a large area and with slotting is selected in the
design, active cooling with air cooling. The contact surface of
the heat sink with the OPA549S heat sink pad is filled with
silicone grease. Thermal resistance parameter CH is 0.4
℃ / W ,  HA is 3.1 ℃ / W , assuming the ambient
temperature TA is 35  C , and the maximum junction
temperature TJ is 125  C . The maximum allowable power
loss of the power amplifier PD( MAX ) shows in eauation (5)
could be obtained by equations (1) and (3):
TJ  TA
PD( MAX ) 
( JC  CH  HA )
Calculated from equation (5), PD( MAX )
it is 18.37 W .
Combined with formula (2), when the output load current is
6A, could be calculated from equation (6):
Vs  Vo  MAX
PD( MAX )
(VS  VO )MAX 
IL
the calculated value is 3.07V, The controller always
guarantees Vs  Vo   Vs  Vo  MAX through feedback
control.
Figure 3 shows the schematic diagram of the BUCK /
BOOST circuit, where M1, M2, M3, and M4 are MOSFET
transistors, and PWM1, S2, PWM3, and S4 are the control
signals to control the corresponding MOSFET turning on or
off. Input Vin is the power input of the regulator circuit, and
output Vs is the positive power supply of power amplifier.
Vin M1 L M4
on alternately, where M3 is a switching tube and M4 is a
synchronous freewheeling tube. According to the volt-second
product balance on the inductor L, Vs could be expressed in
equation (8):
Vin
Vs  (8)
1D
In equation (8), D is the duty cycle of the PWM wave of
the control signal PWM3.
Selecting a small Rson MOSFET to reduce the conduction
loss. While for inductor and capacitor, would be more
complicated[3].
C. Voltage/Current Sample Circuit
Figure 4 shows the block diagram of the voltage Vo,
(5)
current Io sampling circuit. The power amplifying circuit
could provide a required high-precision power for the load.
Two-channel 16-bit AD7903 is used to sample the output
voltage and current respectively. In general, the signal-to-
noise ratio (SNR) is 94dB and the SINAD is 93.5dB.
ENOB  (SINAD  1.76) / 6.02 (9)
From the equation (9) Obtains the ENOB is 15 bits. And
the reference voltage is 5V, According to formula (4), ADC’s
(6)
accuracy is 1.53  104V .
Comparator and Schottky diode are adopted to the output
overvoltage and reverse protection of the power amplifying
circuit, and the current limiting and monitoring functions
provided by the power amplifier OPA549S are used to achieve
the overcurrent protection. The output of the power
amplifying circuit can reach 30V. In order to meet the ADC's
input range, the current sampling resistor is connected at the
low end of the load circuit. At the same time, for improving
the current's accuracy, selecting a one-ten-thousandths
precision and low-temperature drift sampling resistor.
Designing a selectable sense level circuit to resolve different
measuring range.
Vs

M2 M3 Cout
Over-voltage
Over-current
Reverse protection FORCE RETURN
PWM1 S2 PWM3 S4

Power amplifier Vo Sense

Controller Load Io
circuit resistance
Sense+ Sense-
Fig. 3. The schematic diagram of the BUCK / BOOST circuit
Selectable Selectable
When Vs is less than Vin, the circuit operates in BUCK sense level sense level
state. At this time, M4 is always turning on, and M1 and M2
are turning on alternately, where M1 is a switching tube and Gain adjusting Gain adjusting
M2 is a synchronous freewheeling tube. According to the volt- and filter circuit and filter circuit
second product balance on the inductor L, Vs could be ADC ADC
expressed in equation (7):
Controller
Vs  Vin * D (7)
In equation (7), D is the duty cycle of the PWM wave of Fig. 4. voltage / current sample circuit.
the control signal PWM1.
The four-wire Kelvin sense technology is used to improve
When Vs is greater than Vin, the circuit operates in the voltage sampling accuracy. The output interface ports of
BOOST state. At this time M1 is always on, M3 and M4 are the designed high-precision power supply system include

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high level output signal-FORCE, low level output signal-
RETURN, high level detection signal-Sense +, and low level
detection signal-Sense-.
FORCE R1
X1,X2 Sense+ R2
X4,X8 Load
Sense- R3
RETURN R4
Fig. 5. four-wire Kelvin sense diagram
As shown in Figure 5, The load is connected to the output
port between FORCE and RETURN , the additional
resistance and lead resistance R1 and R4 caused by cable and
wire will be generated in the circuit[4]. When the designed
system output a large current , The voltage Vo' across
FORCE and RETURN port is shown in Equation (10). The
voltage in the additional resistance and lead resistance will
cause a deviation between the voltage at the power supply
system's output port and the load. If this voltage Vo' is sent to
the voltage sampling circuit, a large error will be introduced.
Vo '  VR 1  VRL  VR 4 (10)
The high levle detection Sense + and low level detection
Sense- ports are connected to both ends of the load to
eliminate the deviation as previously mentioned. As shown in
Figure 5, where R2 and R3 are the additional resistance and
lead resistance generated by Sense +, Sense-port cables and
wires. Sense + and Sense- signals are connected to the voltage
sampling circuit. and the sampling circuit includes gain
adjusting circuit. In the sampling circuit, the Sense + and
Sense- signals are sent to a high-impedance instrumentation-
operational-amplifier. Because the input resistance of the
instrumentation amplifier is very large, the voltage on the R2
and R3 could be ignored. Therefore, the sense voltage sent to
the sampling circuit is consistent with the voltage at the load
end, and errors caused by additional resistance and lead
resistance are eliminated.
IV. The System Software design
A. The Flow Chart of Software
The system software mainly includes RS232
communication module, DAC conversion module, ADC
conversion module, BUCK / BOOST control module, voltage
/ current sampling control module, closed-loop feedback
control module, etc. The software adopts a structured program
design. The main program flowchart is shown in Figure 6.
When the system power on, running the initializer first, which
mainly includes initializing the parameters, ports of each
module, reading calibration data, and performing self-
calibration. Then start the communication program to
communicate with the host computer to obtain the preset
voltage / current value. Thirdly ,the BUCK / BOOST buck-
boost circuit is controlled to output the voltage Vs , and
controller will driving the ADC module B to sample Vs, and
then execute the feedback control program B.
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Start
Initializer
Communication
BUCK/BOOST
DAC module controller
Sampling of Sampling of
U and I U and I
ADC module A ADC module A
Feedback Feedback
controller A controller A
Stop
Fig. 6. The flow chart of software
At the same time, the DAC module is driven to output a
adjustable voltage from the voltage amplifying circuit ,then
controller will control the ADC module A to sense the voltage
and current on the load. finally, executing the feedback control
program A to adjust the system's output voltage or currert.
When the output voltage Vs of the BUCK / BOOST buck-
boost circuit and the system's output voltage Vo or current Io
meet the required accuracy , the feedback control procedures
A and B will be ended.
B. Design of The Feedback Control Algorithm
For the ordinary PID feedback control algorithm, the
discrete PID control law can be expressed by formula (11) as
n 1
U (n )  K P e(n )  K I  e(i ) 
i 0 (11)
K D [e(n )  e(n  1)]
In the formula (11), U (n) is the output of the controller at the
nth sampling time; e (n) is the input of the controller
(deviation signal) at the nth sampling time; KP, KI, and KD
are proportional and integral And differential coefficients[5].
Because the conventional PID controller does not have the
function of online parameter setting, usually adopting a trial
and error method to set the parameters, which is cumbersome
to debug and limits its effect. In this design, according to the
circuit characteristics, both feedback control A and feedback
control B use fuzzy adaptive PID control algorithm.
Figure 7 shows the flow chart of the fuzzy adaptive PID
control algorithm. The input e is the deviation between the
preset value r and the output value c, and ec is the change rate
of the deviation e, ec = de / dt. For module feedback control A,
e = preset output voltage / current-voltage / current on the load.
For module feedback control B, e = (preset output voltage +
2.5V) - Vs. The output of the fuzzy controller is the PID
parameters KP, KI, KD. e and ec converted to the discrete
universe through the quantization factors Ke and Kec, and use
the trigonometric membership function to obtain the fuzzy sets
E and EC. The distinguish rules adopt if E and EC then U
fuzzy conditional statements. The rule base is built according
to the controller rule. While the fuzzy set U of the output
variable is defuzzified by the center of gravity method. And
then the parameters KP, KI, KD are obtained with the scale
VI. Conclusions
factors. The PID regulator uses an incremental control In this paper, we propose a novel idea to design a high-
algorithm with the parameters KP, KI, KD. For feedback precision DC power supply system, which has great
control A, the controlled object is the DAC module, and for significant impacts in academic and application areas. The
feedback control B, The controlled object is BUCK / BOOST floating design and negative feedback control technology is
Circuit. used. For decreasing the junction temperature of the power
Start amplifier and improving the power conversion efficiency, we
ADC sampling
propose a power dissipation control circuit. In the voltage
sense curciut, for eliminate the impact of contact resistance
Calculating e and ec caused by the connection cables between the system and the
Y
e <△？
load, the lead resistance caused by wires on the PCB, we
N
adopt a four-wire Kelvin sense and self-calibration technology.
Stop Fuzzification In view of the shortcomings of conventional PID controllers,
of e and ec we design a fuzzy adaptive PID control based on the
Fuzzy reasoning characteristics of the designed system. The test results show
that the high-precision DC regulated power supply system
Calculating KP,KI,KD designed in this paper has a excellent performance.
Calculating result
At the same time, there is also has something to be
Actuator improved. Firstly, due to the influence of gain errors and
offset errors of the power amplifier, the system’s output
Time to
N Y accuracy is limited. Secondly, we could try to determine the
sampling？
rule base of fuzzy controller by using neural network to
Fig. 7. The flow chart of the fuzzy adaptive PID algorithm improve the output response of the system.

Acknowledgment
V. System Test This work was supported in part by the Fundamental Resear
For testing the system's performance, we use the ch Funds for the Central Universities under Grant ZYGX2019
instruments including DC electronic load KEITHLEY 2380- J055, and the National Key R&D Program of China under Gra
120-60, six and a half digital multimeters Agilent 34401A, nt SQ2017YFF0106802.
and digital oscilloscope DS1102E. The test results are shown
in Table I. References
[1] Liu Lei. Research on high-current multi-output switching power supply
TABLE I. TEST RESULTS [D] .Xi'an University of Electronic Technology, 2017(in Chinese)
[2] R. Christen, J. Smajic, A. Sridhar and T. Brunschwiler, "Design and
Preset Resistance Actual voltage optimization of a wide dynamic range Programmable Power Supply for
Precision
voltage V  V data center applications," 2019 IEEE Applied Power Electronics
5.2 20 5.2041 0.08%±10mv Conference and Exposition (APEC), Anaheim, CA, USA, 2019, pp.
2210-2217. doi: 10.1109/APEC.2019.8722072
15 20 15.0135 0.09%±10mv
[3] M. Ahmeid, M. Armstrong, and S. Gadoue, "Computationally Efficient
25.5 20 25.5267 0.11%±10mv Self-Tuning Controller for DC–DC Switch Mode Power Converters
30 20 29.9672 0.11%±10mv Based on Partial Update Kalman Filter," in IEEE Transactions on Power
15 10 15.0174 0.11%±10mv Electronics, vol. 33, no. 9, pp. 8081-8090, Sept. 2018.doi:
10.1109/TPEL.2017.2768618.
15 5 14.9757 0.16%±10mv
[4] M. Rerecich and C. D. Young, "Proposed one-dimensional passive array
10 2 9.978 0.22%±10mv test circuit for parallel kelvin measurement with efficient area use," 2019
-5 15 -5.0034 0.07%±10mv IEEE 32nd International Conference on Microelectronic Test Structures
-10 15 -10.009 0.09%±10mv (ICMTS), Kita-Kyushu City, Fukuoka, Japan, 2019, pp. 85-88.
doi: 10.1109/ICMTS.2019.8730948
-20 15 -20.0198 0.1%±10mv
[5] T. Chaiyatham and I. Ngamroo, "Improvement of Power System
-25 15 -24.9703 0.12%±10mv Transient Stability by PV Farm With Fuzzy Gain Scheduling of PID
-30 20 -29.9643 0.12%±10mv Controller," in IEEE Systems Journal, vol. 11, no. 3, pp. 1684-1691,
Sept. 2017.doi: 10.1109/JSYST.2014.2347393.
It shows that the output voltage range is 0 ~ ± 32V, the
minimum accuracy of valtage is ± (0.25% * U ± 10mV), the
output current range is 0 ~ ± 6A, the minimum accuracy of
current is ± (0.2% * I ± 5mA), ripple voltage ≤40mVpp.

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