INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CIRCUIT THEORY AND APPLICATIONS

Int. J. Circ. Theor. Appl. 2008; 36:857–874

Published online 18 January 2008 in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI: 10.1002/cta.468

Control of nonlinear phenomena in DC–DC converters: Fuzzy

logic approach

Kamel Guesmi∗, † , Abdelaziz Hamzaoui and Janan Zaytoon

University of Reims Champagne Ardenne, IUT de Troyes 9, rue de Québec,
B.P. 396, 10026 Troyes Cedex, France

SUMMARY
DC–DC power converters are characterized by cyclic switching of circuit configurations, which gives rise
to a variety of nonlinear behaviours. Their occurrence in DC–DC power converters makes the system
analysis, control and behaviour prediction difficult. An enhanced modelling method allowing one to obtain
an accurate description of the converter behaviour is presented in this paper. A fuzzy control scheme is
proposed, and a fuzzy logic controller is then developed to both suppress converter nonlinear phenomena
and ensure the averaged input current regulation for a wide range of parameters’ variation. Copyright q
2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Received 13 July 2007; Revised 7 November 2007; Accepted 16 November 2007

KEY WORDS: boost converter; enhanced model; nonlinear phenomena; averaged current regulation;
fuzzy logic controller

1. INTRODUCTION

DC–DC converters can be current controlled or voltage controlled. Based on the linear control
theory, classical controllers are predominantly used in industry due to their easy implementation,
low cost and ability to achieve design objectives under some input specifications. However, the
main drawback of such controllers is their inability to deal with nonlinear phenomena occurring
under circuit parameters’ variation. Among many approaches used to handle this problem,
Ott–Grebogi–Yorke method [1] stabilizes the chaotic system orbit through a small perturbation of
a so-called control parameter. Pyragas method [2, 3] based on the use of delayed feedback control
can also be used. Other approaches can be found in [4]. Most of these approaches stabilize the
system orbit only for a given operating point, and the control law depends on it. Thus, perturbations

∗ Correspondence to: Kamel Guesmi, University of Reims Champagne Ardenne, IUT de Troyes 9, rue de Québec,
B.P. 396, 10026 Troyes Cedex, France.
†
E-mail: kamel.guesmi@univ-reims.fr

Copyright q 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

858 K. GUESMI, A. HAMZAOUI AND J. ZAYTOON

can drive the system away from the operating point, and the controller falls to stabilize the system
in its new orbit. Furthermore, they focus essentially on the system orbit stabilization and ignore
other control performance aspects. To ensure the instability control and attain the desired reference,
the use of compensation ramp is a standard practice [5]. Nevertheless, the control performance
and the length of the stability range depend on the chosen slope of the ramp.
To avoid these problems, fuzzy logic control, among other human-expertise-based approaches,
can be an attractive technique. It can simultaneously ensure desired control performance and system
orbit stabilization despite the operating point or the system parameters’ variation. Indeed, a compar-
ative study between a classical proportional integral derivative (PID) and a fuzzy logic controller
(FLC) for a boost converter [6] has shown that under the (PID) controller, the output capacitor
equivalent series resistance (ESR) can affect the system stability, whereas a fuzzy controller can
efficiently compensate its effect. We have proposed in [7] a fuzzy controller for a boost converter
and showed its ability, compared with classical PID, to deal with load and supply voltage pertur-
bations. Other comparative studies showing FLC effectiveness have been reported in [8–10].
In order to better evaluate the controller performance, a more accurate model of the converter
has to be developed. Such a model should provide a more accurate description of the system
behaviour by taking into account all converter elements and relaxing simplifying assumptions.
Among converter models, the averaged one describes the system behaviour by the state mean value
over one clock cycle. Nevertheless, the switching frequency does not appear in the model, and
this makes it impossible to predict the converter fast-scale instabilities. To overcome this problem,
discrete mapping [11–13] can be used. It expresses the state variables at one sampling instant in
terms of those at an earlier sampling instant; therefore converter nonlinearities are preserved. Deane
and Hamill [14] used this approach to show the nonlinear phenomena exhibited by some DC–DC
converters. In [15], the authors give the converter fast-scale stability conditions based on this
mapping technique. Boost converter behaviour is analysed in [16] with respect to its parameters’
variation.
In a previous study [10], we have refined the converter discrete model by taking into account
the internal resistors of converter elements in order to better describe its behaviour. A fuzzy
control scheme is then proposed to regulate the inductor current peak value and to shift the
nonlinear phenomena exhibited by the converter. In the same context and to improve the DC–
DC boost converter performance, we propose two major contributions in this paper: the first
treats the improvement in the established model by eliminating the approximation error, thanks to
Cayley–Hamilton theorem use. The second contribution is the proposition of a new fuzzy control
scheme which ensure not only the regulation performance but also the elimination of the abnormal
behaviours in wide operating domains.
To overcome the aforementioned modelling problems and to accurately describe the system
behaviour, in the first part of this paper, we propose an enhanced discrete modelling method
relaxing the restrictive assumptions of previous methods. In the second part of this paper, a new
fuzzy logic control scheme that regulates the inductor current-averaged value and eliminates the
DC–DC converter nonlinear phenomena, in different wide operating domains, is proposed. Fuzzy
logic approach is chosen for its ability to deal with converter parameters’ variation, modelling
uncertainties and compensation of neglected elements and nonlinearities in the modelling procedure.
Furthermore, expert’s knowledge, linguistic and non-mathematical descriptions‡ of the system, can

‡
Expert’s information, about the system behaviour, that cannot be expressed mathematically.

Copyright q 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Int. J. Circ. Theor. Appl. 2008; 36:857–874
DOI: 10.1002/cta
 CONTROL OF NONLINEAR PHENOMENA IN DC–DC CONVERTERS 859

iL rL L rV D VD

rsw C vc
Vg R u0
sw rc

Q
R S Z
Clk R1
T
Iref
R2
Vref
gi (.) gv(.)

Figure 1. Boost converter under current mode control scheme.

be considered with this approach. Indeed, in our case, control strategy first defined linguistically
calls on expertise to provide an inference matrix.
Besides converter nonlinear phenomena suppression, the proposed fuzzy control scheme makes
it possible to regulate the averaged inductor current and, therefore, to enhance the system dynamical
behaviour. In order to evaluate the performance of the proposed control scheme and to show its
ability to suppress nonlinear phenomena, the obtained results are compared with those obtained
with the most used current mode control scheme (Figure 1).
This paper is organized as follows. A brief presentation of the enhanced modelling technique is
given in Section 2. Section 3 is devoted to the proposed control scheme and to the FLC synthesis.
Based on Takagi–Sugeno system, the FLC is synthesized to regulate the inductor-averaged current
and to suppress the undesired nonlinear phenomena. The last section deals with the validation
of the proposed fuzzy logic approach and shows its efficiency in terms of nonlinear phenomena
suppression.

2. BOOST CONVERTER MODEL

2.1. Problem statement

Most of the nonlinear phenomena studies, available in the literature, treat mainly two cases:
voltage-controlled buck converter and current-controlled boost converter. In the first case, the
converter exhibits a great deal of nonlinear phenomena, whereas in the second case a closed form
of the converter map can be obtained to facilitate the system behaviour analysis [5, 17]. To explore
the converter abnormal behaviours,§ mainly two modelling approaches can be used to obtain the
discrete model of the converter. The first one is based on the resolution of the differential equations
representing the converter and calculating the system state at each clock cycle [16]. The second
approach is based on the use of the transition matrix [11, 18]. Although previous studies used the
discrete mapping to explore the converter abnormal behaviours, they used restrictive assumptions
regarding their functioning mode [16]. Furthermore, the transition matrix is generally replaced by
its Taylor series development giving rise to an approximation error that cannot be always neglected,

§ Complex and unpredictable changes in the converter behaviour.

Copyright q 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Int. J. Circ. Theor. Appl. 2008; 36:857–874
DOI: 10.1002/cta
860 K. GUESMI, A. HAMZAOUI AND J. ZAYTOON

especially in the case of low-frequency commutation. Indeed, in the modelling approach of [16],
the model is obtained under the following assumptions: (i) the inductor value and the switching
period are chosen to ensure that no discontinuous conduction mode (DCM) arises; otherwise the
modelling becomes a complicated task; (ii) the capacitor value is chosen such that the output
voltage does not fall below the input voltage at any time of the cycle; and (iii) the voltage across the
capacitor is considered to be constant in the steady state. The first condition makes the modelling
task easy only for the continuous conduction mode (CCM). In the case where the second condition
is not satisfied, the model cannot describe the system behaviour as mentioned in [16]. The third
assumption is valid only when the capacitor voltage variation can be neglected compared with its
average value.
To avoid these limitations, the other discrete modelling technique can be used [11, 18]. It
expresses the system state in the discrete manner: X k+1 = f (
i , X k ), where
i is the transition
matrix in the ith configuration, approximated by the following truncated Taylor development:

ak (
) = I + Ak
+ A2k
2 /2. This modelling technique allows one to obtain a compact form of the
solution and a qualitative description of the system behaviour. However, the accuracy of the Taylor
series development is directly related to the dwell time
and to the state matrix Ai . Hence,
the approximation error is not always negligible. To confirm this assessment, we present, in the
following, an example from the literature [18] and we define the following modified relative error:
ij ei j ai j ei j
E k (
) = 100|(
k (
)−
k (
))/
k (
)|i, j = 1, 2; k = 1, 2, 3. The position of an element in the
ij
matrix E k is given by (i, j), and
ek (
) and
ak (
) are, respectively, exact and approximated
transition matrices for a dwell time
in the configuration k. The transition matrix
ek (
) can be
obtained by using a high approximation order.
Focusing on the second configuration of the converter, which is a critical step between CCM
and DCM with a full transition matrix, let us consider the boost converter controlled in voltage,
used in [18]. When the reference voltage is equal to 25 V, the converter operates in DCM and
dwells in the second configuration 52% of the switching period. The use of Taylor series of second
order gives an error attaining 12% of the exact value of transition matrix anti-diagonal elements. In
this case, we can also mention that an acceptable approximation is obtained for an approximation
order at least equal to three. For a reference of 20 V, the dwell time in the second configuration is
equal to 70% of the switching period. The obtained result shows that the approximation error, in
this case, can attain 23% of the exact value and an acceptable approximation can be obtained by
using, at least, a fourth-order Taylor series. Thus, we can conclude that the truncated Taylor series
can ensure an acceptable approximation only in the case of very short dwell time
. The latter can
be achieved by increasing the reference voltage to at least twice the supply voltage value or by
increasing the switching frequency.

2.2. Enhanced modelling approach

In this section we propose an enhanced discrete model that can overcome the aforementioned
modelling limitations. Let us consider the boost converter shown in Figure 1 where Vg is the
supply voltage, i L the inductor current, r L , rsw , rVD and rC denote, respectively, the resistances of
inductor L, switch sw, diode VD and capacitor C. R is the load, vC the voltage across capacitor
and u o the output voltage. The obtained model should express the system state at each clock
period T .
According to the control scheme of Figure 1, we have, in steady state, an inductor current close
to the reference Iref at each switching instant. Under the assumption that the output voltage ripple

Copyright q 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Int. J. Circ. Theor. Appl. 2008; 36:857–874
DOI: 10.1002/cta
 CONTROL OF NONLINEAR PHENOMENA IN DC–DC CONVERTERS 861

iL(t) rL L iL(t) rL L rVD

C C
Vg rsw u0(t) Vg u0(t)
rc R rc R

(a) (b)

Figure 2. Boost converter configurations in CCM.

can be neglected compared with its averaged value, the error between the latter and a reference
voltage is set as input to an outer loop compensator gv to give the reference current Iref (Figure 1).
The inductor current is then compared with Iref , in an inner loop gi , to open or to close the switch
sw.
Since the inner loop is faster than the outer loop, we can consider the reference current Iref as
constant in each clock period and consider only the inner loop to study the converter behaviour.
In CCM, according to the switch sw position, we have two configurations as shown in
Figure 2. In each configuration, the system can be described by a set of continuous differential
equations.
In the first configuration, the switch sw is closed by a clock pulse (Figure 2(a)) and the inductor
current i L increases continuously until it reaches the reference Iref . The inductor current dynamic
is described by

d
L i L (t) = Vg −(r L +rsw )i L (t)
dt
At the nth clock cycle, this current reaches Iref from an initial condition i L (n) with a dwell time
in the first configuration given by


L Vg −(r L +rSW )i L (n)
t1 (n) = T dn = ln (1)
(r L +rSW ) Vg −(r L +rSW )Iref

where dn is the nth clock duty cycle.

Once the current reaches the reference, the controller will open the switch sw, enabling the
inductor discharge until the next clock pulse. This corresponds to the second configuration of the
converter (Figure 2(b)).
Including all elements of the converter, the proposed discrete model expresses the system state
x = [vc i L ]t at the (n +1)th clock cycle by the recurrent expression:

 (n+dn )T
x((n +1)T ) =
2 (t2 )
1 (t1 )x(nT )+
2 (t2 )
1 ((n +dn )T −)B1 Vg d
nT
 (n+1)T
+
2 ((n +1)T −)B2 Vg d (2a)
(n+dn )T

where B1 = B 2 = [0 1/L]t , and the dwell time in the first and second configurations, respectively,
are given by t1 = dn T and t2 = dn T = (1−dn )T .
m (tm ) = e Am tm , m = 1, 2, is the transition matrix

Copyright q 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Int. J. Circ. Theor. Appl. 2008; 36:857–874
DOI: 10.1002/cta
862 K. GUESMI, A. HAMZAOUI AND J. ZAYTOON

in the configuration m with

⎡ ⎤ ⎡ 1 R ⎤
1
−
⎢ − C(R +r c) 0 ⎥ ⎢ C(R +rC ) C(R +rC ) ⎥
A1 = ⎢
⎣
⎥,
⎦ A2 = ⎢
⎣
⎥
r L +rSW R r L +rVD + RrC /(R +rC ) ⎦
0 − − −
L L(R +rC ) L

Model (2a) describes the converter behaviour without validity assumptions and avoids the state
matrix inversion problem. Furthermore, it gives the converter map in an explicit form. Accuracy
of this model depends mainly on transition matrix and its integral term calculation method. We
therefore propose to use Cayley–Hamilton theorem [19], instead of Taylor series approximation,
to obtain the exact value of the transition matrix and hence to construct an accurate model. The
transition matrix can, thus, be given as follows:

m (tm ) = e Am tm =
m1 Am tm +
m0 I (2b)

where I is the identity matrix, and
m0 and
m1 are given according to the eigenvalues m1 and
m2 of Am , for m = 1, 2, in the two following cases:
If m1  = m2 , then
m1 = (em1 tm −em2 tm )/tm (m1 −m2 ) and
m0 = em1 tm −m1
m1 tm .
If m1 = m2 , then
m1 = em1 tm and
m0 = em1 tm (1−m1 tm ).
According to eigenvalues m1 and m2 , the integral term of the transition matrix is computed as
follows:
If (m1 , m2 ) ∈ 2 , then

 b
Iab =
m (t f −) d
a
 b  b
=
m1 (t f −) d [Am −m1 I ]+ em1 (t f −) d I
a a

= Im1 [Am −m1 I ]+ Im0 I

If (m1 , m2 ) ∈ C2 , then

 b  b  b
Iab =
m (t f −) d =
m1 (t f −) d Am +
m0 d I
a a a

= Im1 Am + Im0 I

where a and b are the boundaries of the integration interval

[nT, (n +dn )T ] if m = 1
[a, b] =
[(n +dn )T, (n +1)T ] if m = 2

Copyright q 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Int. J. Circ. Theor. Appl. 2008; 36:857–874
DOI: 10.1002/cta
 CONTROL OF NONLINEAR PHENOMENA IN DC–DC CONVERTERS 863

and

(n +dn )T if m = 1
tf =
(n +1)T if m = 2

The flowchart of computing the integral term as well as the expressions of Im0 and Im1 is given
in Appendix A.
Using model (2a) with the transition matrix and its integral terms’ exact expressions, we obtain
an accurate description of the converter behaviour. In the following section, a new control scheme
is proposed and an FLC is synthesized to ensure converter-averaged current regulation for a wide
range of parameters’ variation and to suppress nonlinear phenomena.

3. FUZZY LOGIC CONTROLLER

The proposed control scheme is shown in Figure 3. The controller gives the duty cycle value
0
dn = t1 /T <1 that forces the inductor-averaged current to be close to the reference value Iref .
From converter steady-state analysis, the inductor current-averaged value is given by i L T (n) =
i L (n)+ DT Vg /(2L) where D denotes the duty cycle value in steady state [20], and the error term
is thus given by e(n) = Iref −i L T (n). To avoid short-circuiting the supply voltage, a saturation
block follows the FLC.
An FLC may have structures with three, two or one input. The three-inputs structure entails a
complex controller design and, hence, increases its cost [21]. The structure with one input leads
to a restricted choice of controller nonlinearity. A good trade-off may be obtained by using a
two-inputs structure. Indeed, a fuzzy controller can be formed of two fuzzy blocks’ with two inputs
for each one and as controller output the weighted sum of the two blocks’ outputs [22]. We note
that, in most cases, these blocks share the same inputs and can be merged into one block. Based
on this idea and inspired from the analysis study presented in [23], we adopt the FLC structure
shown in Figure 4 to reduce computing time as well as controller complexity.

iL (t ) rL L rVD
+ +
rsw C vC (t )
Vg R u0 (t )
sw rc
- -
i ( n)
〈iL〉 T
e( n )
PWM
DT V
Iref
2L
dn
0 ≤ dn < 1 FLC

Figure 3. Proposed averaged current regulation scheme with FLC.

Copyright q 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Int. J. Circ. Theor. Appl. 2008; 36:857–874
DOI: 10.1002/cta
864 K. GUESMI, A. HAMZAOUI AND J. ZAYTOON

Ge FLC
e( n ) E dn
δd G1 +
+ ∆e FLS
∆E
+ +
− + Z −1
Z −1 G∆e G2

Figure 4. Fuzzy logic controller structure.

A Takagi–Sugeno-type FLS is chosen to obtain an analytic expression of the output to be used

in the controller synthesis step or in its stability analysis. The error e and its variation e are scaled
using gains G e and G e to generate the FLS normalized inputs E and E(n) = E(n)− E(n −1),
respectively. The output of the FLS block is the duty cycle change d.
We define five fuzzy sets to fuzzify each of the FLS inputs: negative large (NL), negative (N),
zero (Z), positive (P) and positive large (PL), uniformly distributed over the normalized universe
of discourse. This choice presents, in our case, a trade-off between computation time and control
requirement in terms of performance.
The control strategy is to force the averaged current value to be close to the reference value.
Hence, the FLS output d must be large in transient state and must decrease progressively when
the system approaches its steady state. The variation of duty cycle (d) should be null when the
reference is reached and negative in the case of overshoot. This linguistic strategy can be expressed
by a collection of fuzzy rules, where the jth component is given by
j j
IF E is E 0 AND E is E 1 THEN d = C j (E, E)
j j
where E 0 and E 1 are, respectively, the membership sets of the scaled error E and its variation
E; C j is an output singleton.
Using the product as inference engine and centre average for defuzzification, the FLS output
can be formulated as follows:
N j j
j=1 C j (E, E)e (E)e (E)
d = N j j
(3)
j=1 e (E)e (E)

j
where N is the number of used rules and x (x) is the membership degree of input element x to
j
the set E x (x ∈ {E, E}).
The integral action is added (Figure 4) to obtain a zero steady-state error. Using the gains G 1
and G 2 , the output of the proposed controller is obtained by a weighted sum of the fuzzy system
output d and its integral value as follows:
n
dn = G 1 d(n)+ G 2 d(k) (4)
k=0

The gains G 1 and G 2 provide more flexibility to the controller and allow determining the partici-
pation rate of each action in the controller output.
The remaining two steps in the FLC design are the determination of controller input/output gains
and the formulation of the control linguistic strategy in the form of inference matrix. The choice

Copyright q 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Int. J. Circ. Theor. Appl. 2008; 36:857–874
DOI: 10.1002/cta
 CONTROL OF NONLINEAR PHENOMENA IN DC–DC CONVERTERS 865

Table I. Inference matrix.

NL N Z P PL
PL 0 0.25 0.5 0.75 1
P −0.25 0 0.25 0.5 0.75
Z −0.5 −0.25 0 0.25 0.5
N −0.75 −0.5 −0.25 0 0.25
NL −1 −0.75 −0.5 −0.25 0

Figure 5. Linear control surface d = f (E, E).

of input gains is motivated by the input variables’ normalization in order to obtain independence
between the control strategy and the operating point:

G e
1/ max(|e|), G e
1/ max(|e|) ⇒ E, E ∈ [−1, 1] ∀D ∈ [0, 1[ (5)

A way to obtain the FLC output gains is to make analogy with the classical PID controller. Indeed,
to determine G 1 and G 2 , let us consider the inference matrix of Table I with nine output singletons
linearly distributed allowing a linear behaviour of the fuzzy system (FLS) as shown in Figure 5.
Using the FLS linear control surface, we can rewrite the control law (4) in the following form:
n e(n)
dn = (G 1 G e + G 2 G e T )e(n)+(G 2 G e ) e(k)T +(G 1 G e T ) (6)
k=0 T

Let us consider a well-designed classical PID controller given by its proportional (K P ), integral (K I )
and derivative (K D ) gains; the FLC corresponding parameters from Equation (6), are, respectively,
K P = G 1 G e + G 2 G e T , K I = G 2 G e and K D = G 1 G e T . Hence, the choice of gains G 1 and G 2
can be obtained by analogy with those of the PID controller. Furthermore, the FLC gains can be
tuned by analogy with the PID tuning methods. Once the FLC parameters (G e , G e , G 1 , G 2 ) are
obtained, the controller can achieve, at least, the same performance of the classical PID controller.
After several simulations and from previous study [10], we have remarked that enhancing the
FLC performance can be achieved by introducing nonlinearity in the inference matrix to deal with
the converter nonlinearity. This is done, in our case, by using a nonlinear distribution of the output

Copyright q 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Int. J. Circ. Theor. Appl. 2008; 36:857–874
DOI: 10.1002/cta
866 K. GUESMI, A. HAMZAOUI AND J. ZAYTOON

Table II. Inference matrix.

NL N Z P PL
PL 0.25 0.36 0.49 0.81 1
P 0 0.04 0.16 0.36 0.64
Z −0.16 −0.04 0 0.04 0.16
N −0.64 −0.36 −0.16 −0.04 0
NL −1 −0.81 −0.49 −0.36 −0.25

Figure 6. Nonlinear control surface d = f (E, E).

singletons over the universe of discourse. A candidate inference matrix is given in Table II leading
to the nonlinear control surface shown in Figure 6.

4. SIMULATION AND RESULTS

The aim of this section is to illustrate converter behaviour improvement using proposed FLC control
scheme (Figure 3). For this, let us consider the boost converter with the following parameters:
rVD = 0.24 , rSW = 0.3 , r L = 1.2 , rC = 0.1 , C = 120 F and switching frequency f SW =
1/T = 500 Hz. The choice of low switching frequency is motivated by the fact that the converter, in
this frequency range, is wealthy in nonlinear phenomena and thus helps us to show the efficiency
of the proposed FLC in the elimination of nonlinear phenomena. Another benefit of using a low
switching frequency is to facilitate the implementation of the FLC in real time using a simple
micro-controller such the PIC16C62X¶ or a special fuzzy processor.
The proposed controller is synthesized using the averaged current error e and its variation e as
inputs. According to Equation (5), these inputs are scaled, respectively, by G e = 0.2 and G e = 0.05
in all cases, except for the varying reference current case where we use G e = 1/ max(Iref ) = 0.07.
As mentioned in Section 3, we set G 1 = 0.1, G 2 = 150 and use the control surface given in Figure 6.
As an illustration example, let us consider the operating point (Vg = 20 V, R = 30 , Iref = 4 A). To
assess the enhancement in steady-state response, the performance of the fuzzy logic control will be

¶ In this PIC family, the operating speed is of 40 MHz which is sufficient to capture the converter behaviour.

Copyright q 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Int. J. Circ. Theor. Appl. 2008; 36:857–874
DOI: 10.1002/cta
 CONTROL OF NONLINEAR PHENOMENA IN DC–DC CONVERTERS 867

Figure 7. System steady-state response: (a) behaviour using control law (1); (b) behaviour
using FLS; and (c) behaviour using FLC.

compared with the results obtained by the current mode control scheme (Figure 1 and Equation (1))
largely used in the literature [11, 14–16, 20, 24, 25]. Simulation results given in Figure 7(a) show
that the current mode control scheme cannot ensure that regularity in the system response and
plant response is unpredictable (chaotic) for the considered operating point. Furthermore, the
ripple cannot be neglected and thus the control law (1) cannot ensure the regulation of the output
voltage-averaged value via the regulation of the inductor current.
On the other hand, the FLS behaves as a classical PD according to Equation (6) and ensures
the system response regularity (Figure 7(b)). This regular response is referred to as period-one
(P1) behaviour due to the fact that the system response period is equal to that of the clock. This
regularity simplifies the system behaviour analysis and prediction. Nevertheless, as in the classical
case, steady-state error is the major drawback of this control structure. Therefore, the integral term
should be added to eliminate the observed offset between the inductor-averaged current and the
reference as shown in Figure 7(c).
Using the proposed control scheme (Figure 3), the regulation of the output voltage-averaged
value is achieved via the regulation of the inductor current-averaged value. Indeed, based on the
regularity shown in Figure 7(c), we can express the following relationship: u 0 T = Vg Ri L T
between the averaged values over one clock cycle T of u 0 and i L . Thus, the regulation of the

Copyright q 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Int. J. Circ. Theor. Appl. 2008; 36:857–874
DOI: 10.1002/cta
868 K. GUESMI, A. HAMZAOUI AND J. ZAYTOON

output voltage-averaged value u 0 T can be easily achieved by the regulation of the inductor
current-averaged value i L T . Furthermore, to protect the switch ‘sw’, the maximum value of
inductor current can be obtained easily by adding (DT Vg /2L) to each T-sampled value of the
current i L (n).
The above-mentioned simulation results showed that the FLC immunes the system from unpre-
dictable behaviours. Next, we will show the ability of the proposed FLC to immune the system
from parameters’ variation and uphold simple P1 behaviour. The idea behind this resides in the
fact that the FLC parameters depend on the system state [21], which makes it able to preserve
the P1 behaviour over large domains of parameters’ variation under the condition that the FLS
inputs do not exceed their universe of discourse; otherwise we must recalculate the FLS input
gains to remain in the universe of discourse. To confirm this assertion, we present a comparative
study between the system behaviour under FLC and its original behaviour under current mode
control scheme by means of bifurcation diagrams. Original behaviour of the converter will be
studied in the four operating domains given in Table III. In the first domain, supply voltage is
varied in [7, 50]V to study the effect of this parameter on the system behaviour. Varying the load
from 8 to 50  in the second domain helps us to decide for its allowable values according to the
desired response. In the third and fourth domains, the variation of inductor and reference current
values allows us to observe the effect of these parameters and to choose the converter range of
use according to the desired behaviour.
Using these domains, we have remarked that the fuzzy controller ensures P1 behaviour and
eliminates the nonlinear phenomena that appeared in the original behaviour. Hence, we have
extended the operating domains to those given in Table IV. Figures 8–11 show the system original
behaviours and those using FLC. Quantifications of the obtained results are given in Tables V and
VI where ‘Pn’ indicates that the system response period is nT. The observed nonlinear phenomena
are highlighted by means of the phase portraits given in Figure 12.
As shown in Figures 8–11, the current mode control scheme (Figure 1) falls to ensure the desired
P1 in a large operating domain. Indeed, if we consider as example the case of load varying, this

Table III. System initial operating domains.

Vg (V) R () L (mH) Iref (A)
Vg (V) [7, 50] 20 27 4
R () 30 [8, 50] 27 4
L (mH) 20 20 [1, 30] 4
Iref (A) 30 20 27 [1.4, 7]

Table IV. Extended operating domains.

Vg (V) R () L (mH) Iref (A)
Vg (V) [3, 50] 20 27 4
R () 30 [8, 150] 27 4
L (mH) 20 20 [1, 200] 4
Iref (A) 30 20 27 [1.4, 14]

Copyright q 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Int. J. Circ. Theor. Appl. 2008; 36:857–874
DOI: 10.1002/cta
 CONTROL OF NONLINEAR PHENOMENA IN DC–DC CONVERTERS 869

Figure 8. Bifurcation diagram varying supply voltage with: (a) control law (1) and (b) FLC.

Figure 9. Bifurcation diagram varying load with: (a) control law (1) and (b) FLC.

Figure 10. Bifurcation diagram varying inductance with: (a) control law (1) and (b) FLC.

behaviour is ensured only for light loads. Increasing the value of this parameter leads to a sequence
of period doubling until attaining chaos region as confirmed by the portrait phases as shown in
Figure 12.

Copyright q 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Int. J. Circ. Theor. Appl. 2008; 36:857–874
DOI: 10.1002/cta
870 K. GUESMI, A. HAMZAOUI AND J. ZAYTOON

Figure 11. Bifurcation diagram varying reference current with: (a) control law (1) and (b) FLC.

Table V. System original behaviours.

P1 P2 P4 P8 Chaos
Vg (V) [35.1, 50] [24, 35.1] [23.3, 24] [22.7, 23.3] [7, 22.7]
R () [8, 12.8] [12.8, 30] [30, 35.2] [35.2, 37.5] [37.5, 50]
L (mH) [1, 4.6] [4.6, 10.8] [10.8, 14.1] [14.1, 15.8] [15.8, 30]
Iref (A) [1.4, 3.4] [3.4, 4.96] [4.96, 5.1] [5.1, 5.29] [5.29, 7]

Table VI. System behaviour using FLC.

P1 P2 P4 P8 Chaos
Vg (V) [3, 50] — — — —
R () [8, 150] — — — —
L (mH) [3, 200] — — — —
Iref (A) [1.4, 14] — — — —

Contrary to the current mode control scheme, Figures 8–11 show that, in addition to P1 oper-
ating domains extension, the proposed fuzzy control scheme suppresses efficiently the nonlinear
phenomena and ensures better performance. Indeed, Figure 8(b) shows the nonlinear phenomena
elimination and the widening of P1 region as compared with original behaviour (Figure 8(a)). Upon
load variation, the enhancements introduced by the proposed approach are shown in Figure 9. P1
behaviour is obtained in the whole range of load variation (Table VI), whereas this behaviour is
present only for load values less than 12  in the converter original behaviour. The bifurcation
diagrams given in Figures 10 and 11 show that P1 behaviour is ensured by FLC when varying
inductance and reference current, respectively.
Information about the system temporal behaviour under FLC is depicted in Figure 13 for three
operating points (Vg = 3, 6.2, 8 V). The proposed FLC scheme (Figure 3) ensures, for Vg = 3 V,
inductor current-averaged value regulation and reference reaching despite the small value of supply
voltage. The increase in the latter improves the regulation performance. Indeed, Figure 13 shows
that the system overshoot and response time decrease when the supply voltage rises.

Copyright q 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Int. J. Circ. Theor. Appl. 2008; 36:857–874
DOI: 10.1002/cta
 CONTROL OF NONLINEAR PHENOMENA IN DC–DC CONVERTERS 871

Figure 12. Phase portraits of the system under control law (1): (a) period 1 (R = 10 ); (b) period 2
(R = 20 ); (c) period 4 (R = 32 ); and (d) chaos (R = 45 ).

Figure 13. System response using FLC for Vg = 3, 6.2, 8 V.

Copyright q 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Int. J. Circ. Theor. Appl. 2008; 36:857–874
DOI: 10.1002/cta
872 K. GUESMI, A. HAMZAOUI AND J. ZAYTOON

5. CONCLUSION

In this paper, we have proposed an enhanced DC–DC power converter discrete model based on
Cayley–Hamilton theorem. This theorem allowed one to obtain the exact value of each element of
the model and describe the converter behaviour without considering simplifying and/or validity
assumptions.
The second contribution is a new fuzzy control scheme for averaged current regulation. The
use of a Takagi–Sugeno fuzzy logic system in a fuzzy PID allowed the averaged input current
regulation and the converter abnormal behaviours’ elimination in wide operating domains.
The ability of the proposed approach to suppress undesirable nonlinear phenomena and to
enlarge period-one behaviour domain has been illustrated by comparing the obtained results with
the converter original behaviour under current mode control through simulation.

APPENDIX A: TRANSITION MATRIX INTEGRAL FLOWCHART

Copyright q 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Int. J. Circ. Theor. Appl. 2008; 36:857–874
DOI: 10.1002/cta
 CONTROL OF NONLINEAR PHENOMENA IN DC–DC CONVERTERS 873

In the transition matrix integral flowchart, expressions (A1)–(A6) for (Im1 , Im0 ) are given by
(m2 (b −a)+exp(m2 (t f −b))−exp(m2 )(t f −a))
Im1 = −
2m2 (A1)
Im0 = b −a
(m1 (b −a)+exp(m1 (t f −b))−exp(m1 (t f −a)))
Im1 = −
2m1
(A2)
(exp(m1 (t f −b))−exp(m1 (t f −a)))
Im0 = −
m1
m2 (exp(m1 (t f −b))−exp(m1 (t f −a)))+m1 (exp(m2 (t f −a))−exp(m2 (t f −b)))
Im1 =
m1 m2 (m2 −m1 )
(A3)
(exp(m1 (t f −b))−exp(m1 (t f −a)))
Im0 = −
m1
b2 −a 2
Im1 = t f (b −a)−
2 (A4)
Im0 = b −a

m1 ((b −t f ) exp(m1 (t f −b))+(t f −a) exp(m1 (t f −a)))+exp(m1 (t f −b))−exp(m1 (t f −a))

Im1 =
2m1

 (A5)
exp(m1 (t f −b))−exp(m1 (t f −a))
Im0 = −
m1

exp(m R (t f −b))[m I cos(m I (t f −b))−m R sin(m I (t f −b))]

Im1 =
m I (2m R +2m I )
exp(m R (t f −a))[m I cos(m I (t f −a))−m R sin(m I (t f −a))]
−
m I (2m R +2m I )
(A6)
(2m R −2m I )(exp(m R (t f −b)) sin(m I (t f −b))−exp(m R (t f −a)) sin(m I (t f −a)))
Im0 =
m I (2m R +2m I )
2m I m R (exp(m R (t f −b)) cos(m I (t f −b))−exp(m R (t f −a)) cos(m I (t f −a)))
−
m I (2m R +2m I )
where m R and m I denote, respectively, the real and imaginary parts of eigenvalue m .

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Copyright q 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Int. J. Circ. Theor. Appl. 2008; 36:857–874
DOI: 10.1002/cta