CONTROL DESIGN AND ANALYSIS OF

A NEW SINGLE-STAGE GENERAL PURPOSE POWER CONVERTER

Zan Huang, Taotao Jin, Keyue Smedley, Tom Ribarich* and John Ribarich*
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
University of California, Irvine, California, 92697
Project Report 2001-02 for MICRO Project 01-081
Industrial Sponsor: International Rectifier

ABSTRACT
A switch-controlled single-stage general purpose
power converter, pendulum resonant converter,
which combines the resonant regulator and power
factor correction (PFC) circuitry, is presented in this
report. A new control method for the power
converter is introduced.
Detailed mathematic
analysis and simulation are given. The control goal
is to realize sinusoidal input current draw and output
voltage regulation. The feasibility of realizing softswitching for switches is also studied as an important
issue. Software packages such as Matlab and Orcad
are used to perform the simulation.
TOPOLOGY AND CONTROL METHOD OF
THE PENDULUM RESONANT CONVERTER
In a traditional half-bridge resonant converter output
stage configuration (Fig.1.1), the top switch of the
half-bridge, M1, and the top of the DC bus capacitor,
Cbus, are connected together at a single node. The
power factor controller, comprised of Lpfc, Mpfc and
Dpfc, must first charge Cbus and then Cbus supplies
the half-bridge DC to DC resonant converter the
entire time.
In the new configuration (Fig.1.2), the DC bus
capacitor, Cbus, is placed on the other side of a
second half-bridge (M3 and M4). The DC bus
capacitor is separated from the input by the ac-side
half-bridge (M1 and M2), the resonant tank (L, C,
and Rload), and the dc-side half-bridge (M3 and M4).
Important to note is that the resonant tank may be
replaced by a piezoelectric transformer equivalent.
By connecting the circuit in this fashion, bidirectional power flow is achieved. And with proper
control of the switches (M1, M2, M3, and M4),
sinusoidal current is drawn from the line for high
power factor; the DC bus capacitor, Cbus, is charged;
* Collaborators from International rectifiers

and a constant power in the load, Rload, is

maintained.

PFC Circuit

DC to DC Resona
Converter
M
1 Lres

LpfcDpfc
Rectified
Line
Cbus M
Input Mpfc
2
Cres
Voltage

Rloa

Fig.1.1 Existing Two-stage PFC + DC to DC

Converter Topology (from [1])

Rload

Rectified
Line Input
Voltage

M
1 L
M
2

M
3 Cbus
M
4

Fig.1.2 Single-stage PFC + Resonant Mode Output

Stage General Purpose Power Converter (from [1])
For unity power factor, the input current shall have
the same waveform as and in phase with the input
voltage. At the output of the full-bridge rectifier, the
voltage and current are both full-wave rectified and
in phase. The corresponding input power is obtained
by multiplying the input voltage and current together
and is given as:
Pinput = Pload (1 cos 2 )
(1.1)
For a constant power load, the power supplied by the

capacitor is obtained by subtracting the load power

from the input power and is given as:
Pcapacitor = Pload Pinput
(1.2)

Pcapacitor = Pload Pload (1 cos 2 )

= Pload cos 2

(1.3)

The capacitor Cbus voltage is then given as a

function of the load power as:
2

Vc = Vc avg
And

Ic =

Pload
sin 2
c

(1.4)

Pc Pload cos 2
(1.5)
=
Vc
Vc
( Pc = Pcapacitor , = t )

The graph is given as:

electric equivalent;
11) General purpose converter for AC/DC, DC/DC
and other applications;
12) New circuit topology;
13) New control method;
14) Bi-directional power flow control;
15) Reduced component count;
16) Increased manufacturability and reliability; [1]
PHASE SHIFT CONTROL FOR
THE PENDULUM RESONANT CONVETER
The design of phase shift control is to operate
switches on different sides of the bridge with a shift
of degree. As Fig.2.1 shown below, M1 and M3
operate with phase shift and Vout is the voltage
applied to the resonant tank.

SM1
SM 3

Vout
Fig.1.3.1 Cbus Voltage follows Equation (1.4)

Fig.2.1 the Proposal Solution Phase Shift

Fig.1.3.2 Cbus Current follows Equation (1.5)

The pendulum resonant converter has the following
features:
1) Single inductor solution;
2) Lower DC bus capacitor value;
3) Lower voltage DC bus capacitor;
4) Lower voltage switches;
5) Increased efficiency (single-stage);
6) In-rush current limiting;
7) High power factor (PF);
8) Low total harmonic distortion (THD);
9) Reduced converter size and cost;
10) Resonant output stage can be replace with piezo-

Fig.2.2. Model of Matlab Simulation for Phase Shift

Control

By shifting the phase, Vout is changed accordingly.

And the voltage in the resonant tank, which is the
fundamental component of Vout , is also changed.
Assume the DC bus value is large enough, the DC
bus voltage can be considered constant. And by
fixing the pulse width of each switch to be 50% of
the switching period, the Pendulum Resonant
Converters steady states can be calculated. Assume
the DC bus voltage is unit, the input voltage changes
from 0 to 2, and switches M1 and M3 operate with
phase shift from 0 to 180 degree, simulations then
can be done in Matlab using the model as shown in
Fig.2.2:
The relationship between input voltage and the
phase shift satisfies the cosine function.
V g = 2 cos
(2.1)

Input Voltage

2.5

ig =

1
Ts

1
Ts

Ts

iLoad sin( t + ) dt

iLoad sin(2

0
Ts

t
+ ) dt
Ts

(2.2)

1
= 2 iload cos

From equations (2.1) and (2.2), it is observed if the

DC bus voltage equals to half of the peak input
voltage, the input current will be sinusoidal and in
phase with the input voltage by using phase shift
approach to keep a constant output voltage. Thus
single stage PFC is achieved.

PSPICE SIMULATIONS FOR

THE RESONANT CONVERTER
Using Orcad, Pspice, simulation is done employing
the block diagram shown in Fig.3.1 below:

2
1.5

Series1

1
0.5
0
0

20

40

60

80

100

Phase Shift (degree)

Fig.2.3 Input Voltage vs. Phase Shift for Keeping

Constant Voltage in the Resonant Tank
From the simulation result, the phase shift between
M1s turning on edge and the fundamental
component of the voltage of the resonant tank equals
to the phase shift between M1 and M3 as shown
below in Fig.2.4.

iload

Ts/2
Ts

Fig.2.4 Phase Shift between M1 and Resonant

Current
Assume the power factor of the resonant tank is unit,
the equation of input current i g is derived,

Fig.3.1 Block Diagram of Pspice Simulation

The waveforms of the simulation are shown in
Fig.3.2. From top to bottom, the waveforms are input
voltage, input current, phase shift signal and the
output voltage. It is observed that as input voltage is
sinusoidal, the input current is also sinusoidal with
the same phase. The output voltage is nearly
constant with the phase shift control follow the
Matlab simulation results as a triangle waveform.
Soft-switching is realized for the line side switches
by employing a 0-(-90) degree phase shift. However,
the dc side switches are operated with hard switching,
which is tolerable since the dc bus voltage is much
lower than the ac side voltage.

Fig.3.2 Waveform Results of Pspice Simulation

In the above simulation, the dc bus voltage is
assumed to be constant. In reality, a capacitor will be
used to maintain the dc bus voltage, therefore, the
voltage will fluctuate according to equation (1.4). A
PWM control is then employed to compensate for the
fluctuation. The block diagram is shown in Fig.3.3.
Output

Rectified
Vsin

Phase
Fixed
Switches

PWM
Control

Summary

PI control

Resonant
Tank

Gain

0-(-90)
Degree
Phase shift

Fig.3.4 Simulation Result of Pspice Simulation (2)

DC bus

A phase-shift control method is developed to control

the pendulum resonant converter to achieve input
current shaping and output voltage regulation. Soft
switching is realized for the as-side switches only,
which is acceptable since the dc bus voltage is much
lower.

Ref

Fig.3.3 Block Diagram for the new Pspice Simulation

By allowing certain level of voltage fluctuation on
the capacitor, relatively small capacitor can be used.
In light of this, a gain is used for the feedback signal.
The M1 pulse width is changed according to the
feedback signal and to keep the output voltage
constant, also the average of DC bus voltage to be
stable. Simulation results are shown below as Fig.3.4.
It is shown in Fig.3.4 that by using PWM
compensation, the average DC bus voltage is
controlled to be approximately 75VDC, which can be
derived from mathematic equations to be the average
of the DC bus voltage for all the situations for this
resonant converter. The line current and the output
voltage are also kept as desired.

REFERENCES
[1] Internal correspondence with New Single-Stage
General Purpose Power Converter, Tom Ribarich
from International Rectifier Company (IR).
[2] Robert W. Ericson and Dragan Maksimovic ,
Fundamentals of Power Electronics (second
edition), Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2001.
[3] R. L. Steigerwald, A comparison of half-bridge
resonant conveter topologies, IEEE Trans on power
electronics. VOL.3. NO.2, April, 1988
[4] Internal correspondence with New Series
Resonant Converters, Taotao Jin and Keyue
Smedley, from UCIPEL (UC Irvine Power
Electronics Lab)
[5] Muhammad H. Rashid, Power ElectronicsCircuits, Devices, And Applications (second
edition), Prentice Hall, 1993
[6] Marian K. Kazimierczuk and Dariusz Czarkowski,
Resonant Power Converter, John Wiley & Sons,
May 1995