A dsPIC-Based Constant Power Controller for

Induction Heating Applications

AbstractThis paper presents a dsPIC-based constant power
controller for induction heating applications. The controller
keeps the operation in the inductive mode by providing the
minimum phase difference between the output voltage and
current. The current limiting protection is also applied. The
experiment is set up with a steel crucible of 83 mm in
diameter and 100 mm in height with aluminum inside. The
output power is controlled to be constant at a certain value
from 100 to 800 W and the crucible is heated from the room
temperature until the aluminum is melted at 700

C. The
experimental results confirm the validity of the proposed
controller.

Keywords-induction heating; dsPIC microcontroller; constant
power control
I. INTRODUCTION
Nowadays, induction heating has become more important
method for heating system either in the industrial and the
domestic use. The use of magnetic induction has many
advantages such as high efficiency, quick heating and
cleanness compared with the former classic heating method
[1]. A constant power control is needed in the induction
heating system because it can control the heating time, the skin
depth of workpiece and the power that match to size or type of
a workpiece [3]. The controller must be well designed for the
change in load parameters during the heating operation. The
resonant frequency in the system will be changed and the
switching devices can be damaged from the spike current when
there is a transition from inductive mode to capacitive mode.
The switching loss problem caused by non-zero voltage
switching operation can be alleviated by varying the switching
frequency to track the resonant frequency [4-6]. The
microcontroller based induction heating applications can
reduce complexity, number of analog component and the size
of controller board as well [7]. To use the advantage of digital
control, this paper presents a constant power controller for
induction heating applications by using a dsPIC
microcontroller. The output power is controlled to be constant
with the protection for the maximum load current and the
operation in the inductive mode. The system description and
the proposed control are explained in details. The experimental
results of heating a steel crucible are obtained and compared at
various temperatures and power levels.
II. SYSTEM DESCRIPTION AND PROPOSED CONTROL
The system consists of two important parts that are power
part and control part.
A. Power Part
Power circuit in Fig. 1 consists of AC supply, full-wave
bridge rectifier, L-C filter at dc bus, full-bridge inverter,
matching transformer and series resonance load
Fig. 1. Power circuit
B. Control Part
The overall block diagram of the induction heating system
is shown in Fig. 2. The control part is consist of zero crossing
detection (ZCD), current magnitude sensor, average power
sensor, dsPIC microcontroller and gate driver circuit.

Fig. 2. Overall block diagram of the induction heating
system
C. Principle of control
The energy needed to heat a given weight of material can
be calculated from the heat content characteristics (kW-hours
per tonne) as shown in Fig. 3 [1].













Fig. 3. Heat content of metals [1]

Resonant frequency in a series resonance circuit shows in
Fig. 4 can be determined as follow [2].






Fig. 4. Series resonance circuit [2]
From
Z = R + j
|
.
|

\
|

C
1
L (1)
Resonance occurs when the imaginary part of (1) is zero. The
value of e that satisfies this condition is called resonant
frequency , e
0
.

LC
1
0
= rad/s (2)
The frequency response of the circuits current magnitude is
expressed in (3) and plot of its response is shown in Fig. 5


( )
2
C 1 L
2
R
m
V
I
+
= (3)








Fig. 5. Frequency response of the current magnitude [2]

The concept of control in this paper is to use a relationship
between current magnitude and frequency of a series resonance
circuit show in Fig. 5. At resonant frequency current magnitude
has its maximum value and phase difference is zero. When the
frequency is increased, the current magnitude decreases as well
as the load power. Thus, output power can be controlled by
varying the frequency of the input voltage signal. Flowchart in
Fig. 6 shows the procedure of the controller. The A/D function
of the controller converts the analog feedback signals from the
sensors to digital signals. Phase difference of the load current
and load voltage can be obtained by using INPUT CAPTURE
function. The output signal of the controller is a gate signal
with various frequencies for the full bridge inverter. The
controller will update frequency of gate signal until the output
power is equal to the reference power by using hysteresis
control. Phase difference is kept above the minimum and the
load current magnitude is limited at rated value.

















Fig. 6. Flowchart of the controller
III. EXPERIMENTAL RESULT
The experiment of heating a steel crucible of 83 mm in
diameter and 100 mm in height with aluminum inside as
workpiece from the room temperature until aluminum is melted
at 700

C, has system parameters as shown in Table I. The

output power is controlled to be constant at 400 and 800 W as
show in Fig. 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11, respectively. Note that a gain
of measured probe is 2,000. From Fig. 7 and 8, it can be seen
that the output power is constant as a designed value at the
different temperature of the crucible and the different power
level by controlling the switching frequency of the inverter.
Fig. 9 shows the feedback current magnitude signal and Fig. 10
shows the average output power. In Fig. 11, The waveform of


V
I
Instantaneous
Power
P = 200m*2,000
= 400 W

(a) 300 C
V
I
Instantaneous
Power
P = 200m*2,000
= 400W

(b) 700 C
Fig. 7. Load current, voltage and power at 400 W constant
power control
load voltage and load current is shown where the phase
difference can be determined by the different time of their
rising edge (AT).
TABLE I. SYSTEM PARAMETERS
Vac input 245 V , 50 Hz
Load R 0.3
Load L 14.45 H
Load C 8 F
Turn Raito of Matching Transformer 15.33



I
V
Instantaneous
Power
P = 400m*2,000
= 800 W

(a) 300 C
V
I
Instantaneous
Power
P = 400m*2,000
= 800 W

(b) 700 C
Fig. 8. Load current, voltage and power at 800 W constant
power control

Fig. 9. Input and output signal of current sensor

Output
(Average Power)
Instantaneous
Power


Fig. 10. Output signal of the power sensor

IV. CONCLUSIONS
This paper presents a constant power controller using
dsPIC microcontroller for induction heating applications. The
use of digital control instead of analog control makes the
control system more simplicity and controllability. The
experimental results show that an implemented controller
board can control the output power to constant at a designed
value from 100 to 800 W. The load current magnitude is kept
from exceeding the rated value and the operation is kept in the
inductive mode which guarantees the zero voltage switching.
The performance improvement in the accuracy of the controller
will be the future work.














Fig. 11. Phase difference of load voltage and current

REFERENCES

[1] E.J. Davies, J. and Simpson, P., 1979, Induction Heating Handbook,
McGraw-Hill, UK.
[2] Alexander, C. and Sadiku, M., 2003, Fundamentals of Electric Circuits,
McGraw-Hill, New York, pp. 630-637
[3] Kleangsin, S. , Koompai, C. ,and Sangswang, A. , Constant power
control of and induction heating system , 28th Electrical engineering
conference, 2005
[4] HO, J.M. and Juang, F.C. 1998. , A Practical PWM Inverter Control
Circuitry for Induction Heating and Studying of the Performances under
Load Variations , Industrial Electronics, 1998. Proceedings. ISIE '98.
IEEE International Symposium on: 294-299.
[5] I. Khann, J. Tapson, I. Vries, Automatic Frequency Control of an
Induction Furnace, IEEE Conf., Africon99, Vol. 2 , pp. 913-916,
September 1999.
[6] Thongprasri, P. , Poolpaka, P. ,and Kitttratsatcha, S. , Automatic
Resonant Frequency Control for an Induction Furnace , 32th Electrical
engineering conference, 2009
[7] Nuttawong, S. , Naetiladdanon, S. , Sangswang, A. ,and Koompai, C. A
dsPIC- Based Phase difference Control for Induction Heating
Apllication , PEC-9 , 2010