Electrical Engineering (2005) 88: 3544 DOI 10.

1007/s00202-004-0259-x

O R I GI N A L P A P E R

lla nen Antti Tarkiainen Olli Pyrho nen Riku Po

Simulation of a current-mode controlled DCDC boost converter in chaotic regime evaluating different simulation methods

Received: 28 April 2004 / Accepted: 15 June 2004 / Published online: 10 July 2004 Springer-Verlag 2004

Abstract The main objective of the paper is to evaluate and demonstrate dierent simulation tools for the simulation of switch-mode power supplies. Also the modelling process from the design engineers point of view is considered. A current-mode controlled DCDC boost converter in chaotic regime is chosen as an application example because it oers an up-to-date and challenging simulation problem. Simulations carried out with the conventional Spice circuit simulator, switched statespace model implemented in the Matlab/Simulink simulation environment and Power System Blockset extension are compared with each other and also partly with analytical predictions and the results obtained with discrete-time two-dimensional mapping. Experiments are performed to conclude the validity of the simulation results. Keywords Boost converter Chaotic behaviour Nonlinear system Numerical simulation Power supply

1 Introduction
It is known that feedback controlled DCDC converters may exhibit various types of nonlinear phenomena, such as bifurcation and chaos. Therefore investigation of these phenomena is important and vital, if reliable power supplies are to be designed. Furthermore some background knowledge in nonlinear dynamics can help the designer to choose the converter parameter values such that the desirable behaviour is achieved and the
R. Po lla nen (&) A. Tarkiainen O. Pyrho nen Lappeenranta University of Technology, Department of Electrical Engineering, P.O. Box 20, 53851 Lappeenranta, Finland E-mail: Riku.Pollanen@lut. Tel.: +358-5-6216717 Fax: +358-5-6216799

chaotic operation is consciously avoided. Unfortunately academic training of power electronics engineers has been traditionally focused on linear methods, e.g. Laplace transform and transfer functions, which alone have limited value in analysing nonlinear phenomena. This drawback can be partly overcome by modern simulation software providing the designer with powerful tools for analysis of power electronic circuits. A considerable amount of work in analysis, modelling and control of nonlinear phenomena in DCDC converters has been reported during the latest three decades. In [1] the operation of an idealised and lossless buck converter in a chaotic region is described and simulated by deriving a dierence equation representation for the inductor current under feedback control. From this representation the stability criterion for avoiding the chaotic behaviour was stated. Chaotic buck converters are comprehensively studied also in [2]. The behaviour of the output voltage controlled converter was modelled both analytically and numerically. Certain parameter ranges leading to chaotic behaviour were illustrated theoretically and veried experimentally. In [3] the chaos in a peak current-mode controlled idealised boost converter was analysed. A two-dimensional discrete-time mapping for inductor current and output voltage was derived without approximations, and the chaotic operation and the presence of subharmonics were indicated by numerical iteration of the mapping. A similar mapping for a current-mode controlled buckboost DCDC converter was presented in [4]. A proposal for controlling a chaotic boost converter in order to meet particular spectral demands of the inductor current was made in [5]. The idea of a chaotic control scheme is to shape the power density spectrum of the input current by adjusting the length of the ointerval instead of the regular clock synchronised switchon. One possibility of realising the introduced control scheme was also proposed. In [6] the reduction of the spectral peaks of the input current by chaos was demonstrated. The average reduction of 3.6 dB compared to periodic operation was reported showing a

36

viable alternative to improve the electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) of power supplies. Another indication of the applicability of chaos in power converters was given in [7] where the mean reduction of over 10 dB in spectral peaks with chaotic modulation was reported. The dynamics of a boost converter under currentmode control was considered in [8]. Transfer function models describing the linearised and averaged behaviour of the boost converter were presented and used to design feedback controllers. Signicantly better results for analysis of the chaotic mode were observed compared to predictions obtained using the formulas for the periodic case. The focus of the previous research has mainly been on developing dierent kinds of mappings for system description and analytical equations for time-average and spectrum prediction of state variables. Observations about suitability, reliability and user-friendliness of different simulation tools in numerical investigation of nonlinear phenomena in DCDC converters, however, have not been intensively reported, at least according to the authors knowledge. In this paper the modelling and simulation aspects of power electronic converters are addressed and dierent simulation approaches are evaluated. A current-mode controlled DCDC boost converter operating in chaotic regime is chosen as an example system. The motivation for the selection is threefold. Firstly, the numerical simulation of chaotic and discontinuous systems, so that the results reect the true behaviour, is an extremely challenging task for any simulation tool [9]. Secondly, current-mode controlled DCDC converters are very commonly used as regulated DC power supplies in consumer electronics. Thirdly, the chaotic operation is shown to be one possibility to improve the EMC of switching power supplies [6, 7]. The Matlab/Simulink software package with Power System Blockset (PSB) version 2.2 [10] is used as the primary simulation environment. Results obtained from the PSB model are compared and evaluated in respect to those obtained using the traditional switched state-space (SWSS) model, the well-known Spice circuit simulator, some analytical equations and the discrete-time mapping of the boost converter. To validate the reliability of the simulation results experimental verication is made.

2 Simulation of DCDC converters

Switch-mode power supplies are demanding to simulate because they exhibit dynamics of very dierent time scales. This kind of system is frequently called a sti system. Power electronic circuits are also typical examples of variable structure systems where the topology is changed due to the operation of the switching element. As a result, systems become nonlinear and time varying. To simulate the converter accurately short time stepping is required, and a suitable numerical solver for sti systems is needed. Consequently, the computational

burden and the simulation time tend to increase when better accuracy is pursued. Simulation of the converter operation in chaotic regime is even more dicult. For example, when calculating bifurcation diagrams, relatively long simulation time is required because of the transient after a small change of the bifurcation parameter may last a relatively long time. Circuit simulators like PSpice can be used to analyse the switch-mode power supplies using a circuit diagram presentation and non-ideal switch models. Very often, however, these simulators lack feasible properties to model the control system. In addition the user cannot change the integration method. The former problem is to some extent overcome by including some special blocks called analog behavioural models (ABM) in circuit simulators. Unfortunately, when these blocks are used together with analog and digital circuit elements, numerous convergence and solver problems are often faced. The Matlab/Simulink simulation environment oers exible block diagram type simulation model building with excellent possibilities to realistically model the control system. Until the last few years Simulink has been lacking the possibility of competent circuit diagram based simulation. Therefore the user has had to formulate the mathematical representation for power electronic circuit. Usually a continuous- or discrete-time state-space model has been used. Because the state-space models of switched mode power supplies are time varying in respect to the state of the switch, quick and straightforward model building and simulation are difcult. To solve this problem a time-averaged or sampled state-space model can be used but at the expense of the loss of information. Anyway, some mathematical preparation is unavoidable when an equation solver type simulation program is used. A software package called Power System Blockset (PSB) oers a competitive alternative for circuit diagram based simulation and evaluation of power electronic applications. PSB libraries provide a variety of models for electrical machines, power electronic devices, control blocks etc. allowing fast simulation model development. Since PSB is compatible with the Matlab/Simulink, the control systemimplemented with standard Simulink blockscan be easily integrated in the same diagram. In addition variable-step integration algorithms used in the Matlab/Simulink environment allow very accurate simulation of nonlinear, sti and discontinuous dynamic systems [11]. All Matlab functions and toolboxes are also available for post-processing of simulation results.

3 Current-mode controlled DCDC boost converter

The circuit diagram of the investigated current-mode controlled DCDC boost converter is shown in Fig. 1. It is assumed that the converter operates in continuous current-mode (CCM), so that the inductor current never falls to zero. Switch S is controlled by the feedback loop,

37 Fig. 1 Circuit diagram of the current-mode controlled boost DCDC converter

which consists of the comparator and the D-type ipop with clear. The power switch is closed at every positive edge of the clock signal. The inductor current increases practically linearly until it reaches the reference value Iref. Then the output of the ip-op is cleared and the switch opens. During the o-state the current iL decreases until the next clock pulse sets the ip-op again. Typical waveforms of inductor current and capacitor voltage in chaotic regime are shown in Fig. 2. Output voltage regulation is obtained by an additional feedback loop, which adjusts the current reference Iref depending on the voltage deviation from the set point. The outer control loop, however, is not considered in
Fig. 2 Typical waveforms of inductor current and capacitor voltage in current-mode controlled DCDC boost converter in chaotic regime

this paper, because it has no eect on the chaotic character of the system.

3.1 Switched state-space model Depending on the state of the switch S, there are two circuit congurations, which are described by the following linear time-invariant state-space equations S closed: L diL t RL RSon iL t Vin dt 1

38

dvC t vC t C dt R S open: L C diL t RL iL t vC t Vin Vf dt dvC t v C t i L t dt R

3 4

RSon 0 RL L A1 1 0 RC ! 1 L b0 b b 0

! A0

L R L

1 C

1 L 1 RC

! 7 8

This model is referred to as the switched state-space (SWSS) model and it is used as a comparative model. The corresponding Matlab/Simulink block diagram is shown in Fig. 3. 3.2 Power System Blockset model PSB allows intuitive and fast model building with blocks that are similar to the standard symbols of electrical circuits. This can be seen from Fig. 4, where the PSB diagram of the current-mode controlled DC DC boost converter is illustrated. In the PSB model the physical structure of the circuit is retained in contrast to the block diagram of the SWSS-model. Thus it can be expected that PSB approach would result in saving signicant amount of time spent in model building. The constant input voltage is provided by a DC Voltage Source block. The inductor is modelled by a

where Vf is the diode forward voltage and RSon is the forward conducting resistance of the switch. If the switch position is expressed with the switching function q(t) & 1; S closed qt 5 0; S open Eqs. (1)(4) can be rewritten as d x t qtA1 1 qtA0 xt bVin dt 1 qtb0 Vf where the state vector xt iL t vC t other matrices are
T

6 and the

Fig. 3 Matlab/Simulink block diagram of the switched state-space model

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Fig. 4 Power System Blockset diagram of current-mode controlled DCDC boost converter. The outputs of the diode and MOSFET blocks, labelled with m, are Simulink measurement vectors returning the current and voltage of the respective device

Series RLC Branch, in which the capacitor is omitted by setting the capacitance value to innity (Inf). In the same way the resistive load and the smoothing capacitor are modelled by a Parallel RLC Branch, where the inductor is left out by setting its value to zero. Diode and Mosfet blocks are directly available under the Power Electronics library. The electrical parameters of the switches, like diode forward voltage and MOSFET forward conducting resistance, are given using a dialog box. The second outputs of the Diode and Mosfet blocks, labelled with m, are Simulink measurement vectors returning the current and voltage of the respective device. Current and Voltage Measurement blocks interface the PSB blocks with the standard Simulink blocks. In order to start the simulation from any initial conditions, the initial states can be modied through the powergui block. The peak current controller subsystem is identical to that of the SWSS-model. 3.3 Chaotic operation The steady-state operation with period T of the currentmode controlled boost converter is impossible whenever the duty ratio D 1 Vin =Vout[0:5 and the peak current reference Iref is held constant. The periodic solution under these conditions is found unstable [12] and the state trajectories exhibit either subharmonic operation or chaotic variation [3]. Conventionally this instability is avoided and the range of stable periodic operation is

extended beyond D[0:5 by subtraction of an articial ramp from the current reference Iref. Although power electronic circuits are very naturally modelled as piecewise smooth systems using switched state-space models, discrete-time models are also found to be very useful in analytical investigation of nonlinear phenomena. The most widely used discrete-time model for DCDC converters is called a stroboscopic map, where the state variables are periodically sampled at time instants t=nT. The map F is then the relationship, which links the state variable samples xn1 Fxn 9

Deane [3] has derived in closed form and without approximations a two-dimensional mapping for an idealised current-mode controlled boost converter h 0 kLI 0 Vin vC ;n e2ktn ref iL;n1 ektn sin xt0n xL 10 in I 0ref cos xt0n VR h  0 I 0ref sin xt0n vC ;n1 Vin ektn kvC;n e2ktn kVin C x 11 2ktn 0 cos xtn Vin vC ;n e where  tn L Iref iL;n Vin k 1=2RC 12 13

40

q 1=LC k 2

14 15 16

t0n T 1 tn =T mod 1 I 0ref Iref Vin =R

The meanings of the new variables introduced in Eqs. (10)(16) are claried in Fig. 2. A slight drawback of the mapping is that losses of the inductor, freewheeling diode or power switch are not taken into account. This mapping, however, is very simple to simulate with any mathematical software. Therefore it is used as the comparative model when simulated bifurcation diagrams are veried.

tor current measurement is arranged with a 0.02 W shunt resistor and a dierential amplier, realised with TSH72C. Voltage signal proportional to inductor current is fed to a comparator MAX985, which sets the clear of the D-type ip-op 74ACT74. The other input of the comparator is the voltage proportional to the current reference Iref and it is derived from the regulated +5 V using a cermet trimmer. The non-inverted output of the ip-op drives the MOSFET. The rest of the component values are given in Fig. 5.

5 Results
Results presented in this section have been obtained from the following ve sources: 1. 2. 3. 4. Simulation using the SWSS-model Simulation using the PSB-model Simulation using the Spice model Numerical calculations, carried out with the discretetime two-dimensional mapping 5. Experimental results from the practical current-mode controlled boost converter At rst, the inductor current and output voltage time domain waveforms obtained from the SWSS-model, PSB-model, Spice and experiment when Iref=2.5 A are compared in Fig. 6. Although it is impossible to simulate and measure identical time-domain waveforms in chaotic regime, the qualitative examination of current and voltage ripple as well as the average output voltage gives a proper start for the model validation.

4 Experimental details
In order to verify the results obtained from the simulation models, an experimental current-mode controlled DCDC boost converter was built. The circuit diagram of the converter is shown in Fig. 5. The power circuit consists of logic level controllable power MOSFET and an ultra fast diode designed for the use in switching power supplies. Capacitor C is an aluminium electrolytic type rated for 100 VDC. The series resistance of the inductor L is 0.3 W. The DC input voltage of 10 V is provided by the linear type laboratory power supply. The same input voltage is passed through a linear regulator LM340 (not drawn in the circuit diagram) to produce the stable +5 V for the control circuit. InducFig. 5 Circuit diagram of the experimental current-mode controlled boost converter

41 Fig. 6 Inductor current and output voltage waveforms when Iref=2.5 A

A better way to study the reliability of the simulation models in chaos is to compare the bifurcation diagrams obtained from dierent models. This is done in Fig. 7, where the current bifurcation diagrams simulated with the SWSS-model, PSB-model and discrete-time twodimensional mapping are illustrated. It can be seen that the bifurcation points and the regions of 1-, 2-, and 3period solutions are estimated congruently. The dierences in diagrams of SWSS- and PSB-models compared to that of the discrete-time mapping are mainly due to the fact that in the SWSS- and PSB-simulations the current reference Iref was actually slowly ramped from 0.3 to 3.5 A instead of changing it stepwise and sampling the current after the transient. It was also tried to verify experimentally the simulated bifurcation diagrams, but

due to the manually adjustable current reference Iref, the experiment was found unfeasible. In Fig. 8 the average output voltage Vout as a function of current reference Iref is shown. For an idealised converter this characteristic can be analytically expressed for periodic and chaotic operation as Iref, per 1 a2 Vin aVin T 1 a2L R a>1 17

Iref

1 a2 Vin aVin T ; 2L R

18

respectively, where a Vout Vin =Vin [12]. In periodic operation the match between the measured and pre-

Fig. 7 Current bifurcation diagrams simulated with SWSS-, PSD-models and discrete-time two-dimensional mapping. Iref is swept from 0.3 to 3.5 A

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Fig. 8 Average output voltage as a function of the current reference Iref

dicted output voltages from expression (17) is very good. The major discrepancy occurs after the output voltage Vout passes the value of approximately 19 V, which is near the theoretical border of the chaotic operation region of the investigated current controller Vout=20 V. Notice that for higher values of Vout the periodic solution (17) gives results relatively far from those obtained from the simulation and experiment. The results from the chaotic operation expression (18) are, however, in good agreement up to values of Vout=25 V. After that point, the error between the theoretical and the simulated and measured values increases almost linearly and proportional to the peak current reference, implying that the losses of the true converter become more eective. In the simulation models these losses are taken into account and thus give accurate results through the whole current reference range investigated. For example, the error between the simulated and measured output

voltage, where the transition from the periodic operation to chaos occurs, is only about 3%. It is also seen that the SWSS- and PSB-models give practically identical results. Next the spectrum analysis of inductor current in periodic and chaotic operation is performed. Figure 9 shows the power spectral densities (PSD) of the inductor current calculated from simulation results carried out with the SWSS- and PSB-models. In the right-hand side column of Fig. 9 the corresponding experimental spectra are given. All PSDs were calculated with Matlabs psd function using the DFT length of 10,000 samples and a Hanning window function. The sampling frequency was 1 MHz giving a frequency resolution of 100 Hz. Unfortunately the experimental spectrum of periodic operation is not as representative as we hoped, but the spectrum is also spread between the harmonic peaks due to noise and disturbances in the current measurement and the limited dynamic range and amplitude resolution of the digital oscilloscope. However, the peaks in the periodic operation are clearly visible and their amplitudes agree very well with the simulated ones. In chaotic operation all spectra are in good agreement. In addition to the power spectral densities shown, amplitude distribution diagrams for the inductor current iL are a very informative way to compare quantitatively the dierent simulation methods. A commonly used approach to acquire the amplitude distribution of a signal is simply to plot the histogram of the amplitude values of the sampled signal. The amplitude distributions obtained this way for the simulated and measured inductor current in periodic and chaotic operation are shown in Fig. 10. With the sampling rate of 1 ls, 10,000 samples were recorded. The number of amplitude bins used in the histograms was 60. In order to achieve comparable results in dierent operation points the signal amplitudes were divided by the peak current reference Iref. The similarities between the measured and simulated distributions are evident. In periodic operation the current amplitude is uniformly distributed be-

Fig. 9 Power spectral densities of the inductor current in periodic and chaotic operation

43 Fig. 10 Amplitude density diagrams of inductor current in periodic operation (upper row) and in chaotic region (lower row)

tween the minimum and the peak current value, because the current has practically a triangular wave shape. In chaos the distributions have the shape of a right triangle indicating that the current amplitude spends more time near the peak current reference than the minimum value. This is actually a quite expected result considering the current waveforms in Fig. 6, where several transitions to on-state right after the switch-o can be observed. Finally the ratio of the time elapsed for simulation tsim and the real time (target time-instant) treal is evaluated for the Spice-, SWSS- and PSB-models and the discrete-time mapping. The ratio is computed for seven values of treal with default simulation settings for Spice and with two dierent solvers for Simulink. The solvers and their parameters were selected as recommended in [10] and they are given in Table 1. In the case of the discrete-time mapping no solver is needed. The inductor current reference used in simulations was 2.5 A resulting in the chaotic operation. The PC used had a 1 GHz CPU, 512 MB RAM and NT4.0 operating system. Spice simulations were created using OrCAD PSpice version 9.1. The results presented in Fig. 11 show the great advantage of the proposed Simulink simulations in comparison to the Spice circuit simulator. It is also seen that
Table 1 Simulation parameters used in simulation time comparison Parameter Solver Relative tolerance Absolute tolerance Maximum step size Minimum step size Initial step size Maximum order (for ode15 s) Value ode23tb, ode15 s 1e-3 1e-2 auto auto auto 5

the PSB-model is about a decade slower than the SWSSmodel. In addition, the simulation time with PSB-model seems to increase slowly as a function of the real time, whereas the time ratios of the Spice-, SWSS- and discretetime models stay practically constant. Although the discrete-time mapping is clearly the fastest model, one has to remember that it does not give any information about the states between the sampling instants, and complex differential equations have to be solved beforehand.

6 Conclusions
Simulation of the current-mode controlled boost converter under chaotic operation was investigated and dierent simulation approaches were evaluated. The suitability and the modelling process of the simulation tools, Spice, Simulink and Power System Blockset for simulation of switch-mode power supplies from the design engineers point of view were considered. Simulation results were compared with each other and partly with those obtained from the discrete-time two-dimensional mapping of the current-mode controlled boost converter. Experiments were also performed to conclude the validity of the simulation results. The model building and simulation with the PSB were found easy and fast to conduct, because the physical structure of the circuit is retained. Also the results obtained from the PSB simulations were in good agreement with those obtained from the conventional Spice circuit simulator, SWSS-model, discrete-time mapping and experiments. The trade-o for easy model building and precise results is the simulation duration of few hundreds times the real time. However, remarkable reduction in simulation times compared to Spice was observed with all Simulink simulations.

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Fig. 11 Comparison of simulation times

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6. Hamill DC, Deane JHB, Aston PJ (1997) Some applications of chaos in power converters. In: Digest of IEE Colloquium on Update on New Power Electronic Techniques, London, UK, pp 5/15/5 7. Kuisma M (2004) Minimizing conducted RF-emissions in switch mode power supplies using spread-spectrum techniques. Dissertation, Lappeenranta University of Technology 8. Rodr quez Marrero JLR, Santos Bueno R, Verghese GC (1999) Analysis and control of chaotic DCDC switching power converters. In: IEEE ISCAS99, Orlando, FL, pp 287292 9. Banerjee S, Verghese GC (2001) Nonlinear phenomena in power electronics. IEEE Press, New York 10. MathWorks (2000) Power System Blockset users guide, version 2. MathWorks, MA 11. Dessaint LA, Al-Haddad K, Le-Huy H, Sybille G, Brunelle P (1999) A power system simulation tool based on Simulink. IEEE Trans Ind Electron 46:12521254 12. Kassakian JG, Schlecht MF, Verghese GC (1991) Principles of power electronics. Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA