A New Approach of Control System Design for LLC Resonant Converter

Main task of power semiconductor converter is transfer of electrical energy from its input to the output and to the load. This energy flow is provided by control of the switching process of one or more semiconductor devices. Based on converter application it is necessary to choose correct control algorithm for selected switching frequency of converter. Algorithm itself has to be utilized with suitable hardware platform, whereby through the set of instructions the turn on and turn of control pulses are generated. Control system also has to secure other important functions for secondary processes. Nowadays a huge number of converter topologies exists, whereby each type should be suited for different conditions of use. For example uninterruptible power supply must generate constant output voltage with constant frequency and constant amplitude for wide range of output power. Converters for electric drive applications have to control their speed through generation of three phase voltage system with configurable amplitude and speed. From mentioned above it is clear to say that for each topology of power converter, the different type of control modulation (PWM Pulse Width Modulation, PSM Phase Shift Modulation, FM Frequency Modulation) and different structure of regulator has to be used. Therefore selection of suitable control system depends on number of various factors, which are output power of converter, type of switching devices, type of load, possibility of hardware implementation and ways of switching. In the field of DC/DC converters for switching power supplies, the main focus is on implementation of digital control, which means use of microcontrollers or DSP with implemented control algorithms and functions for communication with user as well. Analog control systems are well known and its design procedure is mastered, so it is easy to convert analog (continuous) controller into discrete and consequently implementing in microcontroller and DSP. But this approach ignore sample and hold effect of A/D converter and computing time of microprocessor. For proper discrete controller design, the method named direct digital design can be used. This method uses transfer function of converter in discrete form, including effect of sampling and computation delay. For controller design purposes, transfer function of converter is necessary. This transfer function is based on model of power stage of controller. For PWM converters such as buck, boost, etc. the averaging method is widely used, but for new resonant topologies such as LLC converter, with this averaging method, the control to output transfer function cannot be used. In this chapter, new simulation based method for obtaining the transfer function of converter is discussed. This method uses MATLAB and OrCad PSPICE environments for