1434 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER ELECTRONICS, VOL. 29, NO.

3, MARCH 2014
A TRIAC-Dimmable LED Lamp Driver With Wide
Dimming Range
Ruihong Zhang, Student Member, IEEE, and Henry Shu-hung Chung, Senior Member, IEEE
AbstractLED light bulbs are becoming increasingly popular
as they consume much less power than traditional incandescent
lamps. To enable full compatibility with incandescent lamps, apart
fromdelivering the same light output andquality, they are expected
to be operable with standard TRIAC-based light dimmers. How-
ever, the input current of the LED light bulbs at dimming could
fall below the holding current of the TRIAC, resulting in limited
dimming range and lamp ickering. This paper presents a TRIAC-
dimmable LED lamp driver allowing wide dimming range. The
concept is based on controlling the input reactive power, so that
the input current is increased to a level higher than the holding
current of the TRIAC, while the LED array power is regulated.
The driver consists of two power conversion stages, including a
four-quadrant acdc converter for shaping the input current and
a resonant converter for regulating the output power to the LED
array. The two converters share the same switching network. Mod-
eling, analysis, and design of the driver will be presented. An LED
prototype has been built and evaluated. Experimental results re-
veal that the true ring angle of the TRIAC can be adjusted down
to 172

, and the lamp power can be dimmed from 7.2 to 0.3 W

linearly.
Index TermsFull bridge, LED driver, resonant converter,
TRIAC dimmer.
I. INTRODUCTION
W
ITH recent development in solid-state lighting technol-
ogy, LEDreplacement light bulbs are quickly becoming
available for general illumination as they have higher luminous
efcacy and longer life expectancy than traditional incandescent
lamp bulbs [1]. To enable full compatibility, the operational fea-
tures of LED lamps are always expected to exhibit similar to or
better than that of the incandescent lamps. Among them, com-
patibility of the LED lamps with TRIAC-based light dimmers
has attracted much research interest, since many TRIAC-based
light dimmers had been installed in various places, originally
for controlling incandescent lamps. However, the evolvement
of a technology that allows LED lamps to perform wide range
dimming is still less impressive. The main difculty arises from
the low LED lamp input current, and the high and diversied
Manuscript received October 6, 2012; revised February 5, 2013 and March 29,
2013; accepted May 14, 2013. Date of current version September 18, 2013. This
work was supported by e.Energy Lighting Limited through Project 9231038.
Recommended for publication by Associate Editor C. A. Canesin.
The authors are with the Centre for Smart Energy Conversion and Uti-
lization, City University of Hong Kong, Kowloon, Hong Kong (e-mail:
eerhzhang@gmail.com; eeshc@cityu.edu.hk).
Color versions of one or more of the gures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identier 10.1109/TPEL.2013.2263935
Fig. 1. Typical circuit of the TRIAC-based light dimmer.
magnitude of the TRIAC holding current. Practically, the hold-
ing current of TRIAC ranges from 20 to 80 mA while the input
current of LED lamps can be less than 60 mA, hindering the
compatibility of LED lamps with different TRIAC-based light
dimmers. For the same lamp brightness, the input current of LED
lamps is only one-tenth of the incandescent lamps, and its mag-
nitude is too small to hold the TRIAC in the conduction state
after the TRIAC is latched. Thus, existing TRIAC-dimmable
LED lamp drivers cannot provide a very wide dimming range.
For example, a 15-WLEDlamp driver using a yback converter
with primary-side regulation to control the LED current is pro-
posed in [2] and [3]. The adjustable dimming range reported is
from 35

to 150

. In [4], an active damper circuit together with

the primary-side regulation method is proposed. It provides suf-
cient turn-on input current with smaller power consumption, as
compared with the passive damper circuit, in order to latch the
conduction state of the TRIAC. However, the effect of the hold-
ing current of the TRIAC on the dimming range has not been
addressed. The maximum dimming range reported is around
130

. Thus, challenges will appear if the dimmed power level is

further reduced.
Fig. 1 shows the typical circuit of the TRIAC-based light
dimmer. The resistors R
1
and R
2
and capacitor C form an RC
network. R
1
is used to adjust the phase and the voltage across C.
When the voltage across the capacitor C reaches the breakdown
voltage of DIAC, a gate signal will be applied to the TRIAC.
The control knob of R
1
can thus control the ring angle (turn-on
time) of the TRIAC and lamp power. Fig. 2 shows the typical
waveforms of the line voltage v
in
and the input current i
in
of
the lamp controlled by a TRIAC. The angles and ( ) are
the ring angle and extinction angle of the TRIAC, respectively.
The TRIAC is turned OFF naturally at ( ) when i
in
is less
than the holding current I
h
.
Fig. 3 shows the minimumlamp power P
min
against the ring
angle with holding current ranging from 20 to 80 mA under
the condition that the conduction time of the TRIAC is not less
than 30

and the load is purely resistive. Generally, the higher

0885-8993 2013 IEEE
ZHANG AND CHUNG: TRIAC-DIMMABLE LED LAMP DRIVER WITH WIDE DIMMING RANGE 1435
Fig. 2. Typical waveforms with resistive load [Case IIi
in
is in phase with
v
in
( = 0

)].
Fig. 3. Minimum lamp power against the ring angle.
the holding current, the higher the minimum lamp power. For
example, at =10

, P
min
=10 Wwhen I
h
=20 mA, and P
min
= 40 W when I
h
= 80 mA. Detailed derivations of the curves
will be given in Section II. Thus, the curves can explain why
low-power LED lamps have limited dimming range. Moreover,
at large ring angle, lamps could icker easily at the frequency
of 100 or 120 Hz, namely invisible icker. Although the invis-
ible icker cannot be easily seen by human eyes, it will cause
possible health problems, like brain damaging, headaches, eye
strain, and so on [5].
The previous problem can be lessened by adding a resistor,
namely bleeding circuit [6], [7], in the lamp driver in order to
consume minimum power. However, this will introduce extra
power loss in the whole driver. In [8], a TRIAC-dimmable LED
driver that does not require any bleeding circuit is proposed. The
concept is based on reducing the conduction time of the TRIAC
when the ring angle is large. It allows the dimmer to turn off
if the input current is lower than the holding current. Thus, the
input current is pulsating. In [9], the circuit is extended from the
ballast for compact uorescent lamps. It consists of a capacitor
network for increasing the input current and thus maintaining
the TRIAC conduction. However, the LED current is pulsating
and the reported maximum dimming is about 10%.
A TRIAC-dimmable LED lamp driver allowing wide dim-
ming range is presented. It consists of two power conversion
stages. The rst stage controls the active and reactive power
drawn from the line, so that the input current is programmed
to satisfy the minimum holding current requirement. The lamp
can thus exhibit a wide dimming range. The second stage is an
isolated resonant converter for regulating the LEDarray current.
The lamp power is controlled to be in linear relationship with
the ring angle. The two converters share the same switching
network, which is in variable frequency and variable duty cy-
cle control [10], [11]. The function of the variable frequency
control is used to remove the line frequency ripple in the LED
current and regulate the output LED lamp power. The function
of the variable duty cycle control is used to shape the input
current. An LED driver prototype has been built and evaluated.
The lamp power can be adjusted from full power of 7.2 to 0.3 W
with the true ring angle down to 172

. Section II describes the

operating principles of the proposed driver. Section III gives a
set of design procedure. Section IV will show the experimental
verication. The conclusions follow in the last section.
II. OPERATING PRINCIPLES OF THE PROPOSED LED DRIVER
Fig. 4 shows the circuit schematic of the proposed driver,
which consists of two power conversion stages. The rst stage
is a four-quadrant acdc converter and the second stage is an
LLC resonant converter. The two converters share the switches
S
1
S
4
. Fig. 5 shows the equivalent circuit model of the power
stage. The ac side of the switching network is represented by
a voltage source v
AB
, which is composed of a low-frequency
component v
AB,L
and a high-frequency component v
AB,H
. The
secondary side of the transformer T
r
is referred to the primary
side and is modeled by an equivalent resistor R
eq
.
A. First StageFour-Quadrant ACDC Converter
The four-quadrant acdc converter which adopts the full-
bridge topology can be capable of operating in all four quad-
rants of the i
in
v
in
plane and regenerate the energy back to
the grid [12], [13]. It can also be considered as a bidirectional
converter that can perform bidirectional power ow [14]. The
four-quadrant acdc converter is composed of an input lter
formed by the inductor L
in
and the capacitor C
in
, inductors
L
s1
and L
s2
, switches S
1
S
4
, and dc-link capacitor C
dc
. It is
connected to the output stage through the nodes A and B.
The input current i
in
is programmed to be lagging, in-phase,
or leading the input voltage v
in
, so that the active and reactive
power drawn from v
in
are controlled and i
in
is kept higher than
the holding current of the TRIAC on dimming.
As the voltage waveformacross the capacitor C
in
is nearly the
same as the dimmer output voltage v

in
, the input lter formed
by the inductor L
in
and the capacitor C
in
is excluded in Fig. 5,
for the sake of simplicity in the analysis.
Let the lamp power P
LED
vary linearly with the ring angle
. P
LED
is expressed as
P
LED
() =
_
P
r
, < 0
P
r
_
1

_
, 0 <
(1)
where P
r
is the rated lamp power.
1436 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER ELECTRONICS, VOL. 29, NO. 3, MARCH 2014
Fig. 4. Circuit schematic of the proposed TRIAC-dimmable LED driver.
Fig. 5. Equivalent circuit model of the power stage.
The voltages v
in
, v

in
, and the current i
in
are expressed as
v
in
(t) = V
m
sin t (2)
v

in
(t) =
_
0, t <
V
m
sin t, t < +
(3)
i
in
(t) =
_
0, t <
I
m
sin(t ), t < +
(4)
where V
m
and I
m
are the amplitude of the input voltage v
in
and
input current i
in
, respectively, is the angular line frequency,
and is the phase difference between v
in
and i
in
.
There are three possible operational cases. They are Case I
i
in
leads v
in
(i.e., < 0

), Case IIi
in
is in phase with v
in
(i.e., = 0

) , and Case IIIi

in
lags v
in
(i.e., > 0

). The
three cases are illustrated in Figs. 6, 2, and 7, respectively. Case
I is operated when is small. can be negative, zero, or pos-
itive with different TRIAC holding currents. Their waveforms
are shown in Fig. 6(a)(c). Case III is operated when is large.
Since is operating-point dependent, there will have three pos-
sible scenarios in Case III, including < , = , and > .
Their waveforms are shown in Fig. 7(a)(c), respectively.
The average input active power P
avg
in all three cases is
expressed as
P
avg
(, , ) =
1
2
__
+

V
m
I
m
sin sin( )d
+
_
2+
+
V
m
I
m
sin sin( )d
_
=
V
m
I
m
2
[( +) cos
+ sin( + ) cos( )]. (5)
Consider the critical condition that the input current at the
extinction angle equals I
h
:
I
h
= I
m
sin . (6)
To ensure stable operation, i
in
should not be less than I
h
over
the TRIAC conduction time. Thus, when TRIAC is turned ON
at t = , based on (4)
I
m
sin( ) I
h
. (7)
By substituting (6) into (7)
. (8)
The curves shown in Fig. 3 are obtained by using (5) and (6),
and putting = 0, = for /36 5/12, and putting
= 0, = + / 6 for 5/12 < .
Then, assume that the system efciency is 100%, P
avg
=
P
LED
. By putting (1) and (6) into (5)
P
r
_
1

_
=
V
m
I
h
2 sin
[( +) cos
+ sin( + ) cos( )]. (9)
ZHANG AND CHUNG: TRIAC-DIMMABLE LED LAMP DRIVER WITH WIDE DIMMING RANGE 1437
Fig. 6. Case Ii
in
leads v
in
( < 0

). (a) < 0

. (b) = 0

. (c) > 0

.
The rms value of the input voltage v
in
, V
rms
, is
V
rms
=
V
m

2
. (10)
The rms value of the input current i
in
, I
rms
, is as shown (11)
at the bottom of the page.
The apparent input power S is
S(, , ) = V
rms
I
rms
=
V
m
I
m
2
_
1

[( +) + sin( + ) cos( )].

(12)
Fig. 7. Case IIIi
in
lags v
in
( > 0

). (a) < . (b) = . (c) > .

By using (5) and (12), the input power factor PF is
PF(, , ) =
P
avg
S
=
( +) cos + sin( + ) cos( )
_
[( +) + sin( + ) cos( )]
.
(13)
Equation (13) gives the input power factor with different val-
ues of , , and that can satisfy the required power level given
in (9). Thus, PF can be maximized by changing . Fig. 8 illus-
trates the maximum achievable power factor with different val-
ues of and I
h
ranging from 20 to 80 mA, and the required val-
ues of for giving the maximum power factor. The parameters
I
rms
(, , ) =

1
2
__
+

[I
m
sin( )]
2
d +
_
2+
+
[I
m
sin( )]
2
d
_
= I
m
_
1
2
[( +) + sin( + ) cos( )] (11)
1438 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER ELECTRONICS, VOL. 29, NO. 3, MARCH 2014
Fig. 8. Maximum achievable power factor against ring angle with the re-
quired phase shift.
TABLE I
SPECIFICATIONS OF THE PROTOTYPE
Fig. 9. Actual power factor against ring angle with the simplied phase shift
control.
used in the analysis are given in Table I, in which the rated
power is 7.2 W. However, according to Fig. 8, the phase shift
has to be varied with and I
h
. This is impractical as the
holding current of a TRIAC is difcult to be determined. Thus,
a xed relationship between and is designed by linearizing
the curve when the holding current is 80 mA in Fig. 8.
It is given in Fig. 9. This is the worst case of all the situations
in Fig. 8. In other words, the LED driver will operate normally
Fig. 10. Waveform of v
AB
.
with TRIAC having holding current below 80 mA. When <
0, is constant and equals the phase shift till = 0. When 0
<
1
, is negative and reduces linearly with . When
1
<
<
2
, is positive and increases linearly with . When
2
< < 172

, is positive and reduces linearly with .

1
and

2
are chosen by considering the PF curve in Fig. 8 under
the maximum holding current (i.e., I
h
= 80 mA) at which
= 0

and is maximum for i

in
lags v
in
, respectively.
1
=
60

and
2
= 105

are chosen in Fig. 9. Although the resulting

power factor with the simplied phase-shift control is slightly
different from the maximum achievable power factor, it is still
acceptable in practice.
The voltage between nodes A and B, v
AB
, is
v
AB
=
_
+v
dc
, when S
1
and S
4
are ON , and S
2
and S
3
are OFF
v
dc
, when S
2
and S
3
are ON , and S
1
and S
4
are OFF .
(14)
Fig. 10 shows the waveform of v
AB
. Based on Fig. 5, the
voltage across the equivalent inductor L
s
= L
s1
+L
s2
, v
Ls
, is
v
Ls
=
_
0, t <
L
s
I
m
cos(t ), t < +.
(15)
v
AB,H
in Fig. 5 is neglected in the following analysis as the
high-frequency impedance of L
s
is large. Thus, consider the
low-frequency component of v
AB
, v
AB,L
v
AB,L
= v
dc
d(t) v
dc
[1 d(t)]
= v
dc
[2d(t) 1] (16)
where d(t) is the duty cycle of S
1
and S
4
. The duty cycle of S
2
and S
3
thus equals 1 d(t).
By applying KVL
v
AB,L
= v

in
v
Ls
=
_
0, t <
V
m
sin t L
s
I
m
cos(t ), t < +.
(17)
ZHANG AND CHUNG: TRIAC-DIMMABLE LED LAMP DRIVER WITH WIDE DIMMING RANGE 1439
Fig. 11. Variation of d(t) over a line cycle at different ring angle. (a) =
0

. (b) = 45

. (c) = 90

. (d) = 145

.
By putting (17) into (16)
d(t)
=
_

_
1
2
, t <
1
2
+
_
V
2
m
2V
m
I
m
L
s
sin +
2
L
2
s
I
2
m
2v
dc
sin(t ),
t < +
(18)
where = tan
1 L
s
I
m
cos
V
m
L
s
I
m
sin
.
Based on (18), the minimum and maximum duty cycles, d
min
and d
max
, are
d
max
=
_

_
1
2
+
_
V
2
m
2V
m
I
m
L
s
sin +
2
L
2
s
I
2
m
2v
dc
,


2
+
max
__
1 d
_
+

__
, d
_

_
_
,
>

2
+
(19)
d
min
= 1 d
max
. (20)
Figs. 11(a)(d) show the variations of d(t) over a line cycle
at = 0

, 45

, 90

, and 145

, respectively.
B. Second StageLLC Resonant Converter
The LLC resonant converter is composed of the switches
S
1
S
4
, inductor L
r
, capacitor C
r
, transformer T
r
, output l-
ter, and LED array. The resonant path is formed by L
r
, magne-
tizing inductance L
m
of the transformer T
r
, and C
r
. The LLC
resonant converter has many advantages over conventional res-
onant converters, as it can regulate the output over wide input
and load ranges with zero-voltage switching and a relatively
small variation of the switching frequency [15], [16]. As de-
scribed in (18), the duty cycles of the switches vary with the
line frequency. v
AB,L
in Fig. 5 will have small effect on the
output, as the impedance of C
r
is very high. Thus, only the
high-frequency component of v
AB
, v
AB,H
is considered in the
following discussion. Let K
v
be the ratio between the rms val-
ues of the voltage across R
eq
, v
R
, (|v
R
|), and v
AB,H
(|v
AB,H
|).
Referring to Fig. 5
K
v
_

r
_
=
|v
R
|
|v
AB,H
|
=
|R
eq
//j
s
L
m
|

R
eq
//j
s
L
m
+j
s
L
r
+
1
j
s
C
r

=
m
_

r
_
2

_
mQ

r
_
1
_

r
_
2
__
2
+
_
(m+ 1)
_

r
_
2
1
_
2
(21)
where Q =
Z
r
R
e q
is the quality factor, Z
r
=
_
L
r
C
r
is the
characteristic impedance, m =
L
m
L
r
,
s
= 2f
s
, and f
s
is the
switching frequency, and
r
=
1

L
r
C
r
is the angular resonant
frequency.
Fig. 12 shows the relationships between K
v
and
s
/
r
with
different combinations of the values of Qand m. K
v
is sensitive
to Q and is less sensitive to m for m > 1.
The waveform of v
AB
shown in Fig. 10 is even symmetrical.
For the sake of simplicity in the analysis, only the fundamen-
tal frequency component is considered in the following analy-
sis. Based on Fourier analysis, the fundamental component of
v
AB,H
, v
F
AB,H
is
v
F
AB,H
(t) = V
F
AB,H
(v
dc
, d) cos(
s
t)
=
4v
dc

sin[d(t)] cos(
s
t) (22)
where V
F
AB,H
(v
dc,
d) =
2
T
s
_ T s
2

T s
2
v
AB
(t) cos
s
tdt =
4v
d c

sin
[d(t)].
Thus, the lamp power can be expressed as
P
LED
() =
K
2
v
_

r
_

v
F
AB,H
(t)

2
R
eq
()
=
8v
2
dc
K
2
v
_

r
_
sin
2
[d(t)]

2
R
eq
()
(23)
where |v
F
AB,H
| =
V
F
A B , H

2
is the rms value of v
F
AB,H
.
The equivalent load resistance R
eq
at different LED current
can be expressed in terms of the LED array voltage as
R
eq
() =
2n
2
v
LED
i
LED
()
. (24)
Detailed proof of (24) is given in the Appendix.
By putting (24) into (23)
v
dc
=
nv
LED
2K
v
_

r
_
sin[d(t)]
. (25)
According to Fig. 12, in order to ensure that the resonant cir-
cuit operates in the inductive mode,

s

r
> 1. K
v
will then be less
than unity. Since the minimum value of the term sin[d(t)] in
1440 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER ELECTRONICS, VOL. 29, NO. 3, MARCH 2014
Fig. 12. Relationships between K
v
and
s
/
r
. (a) m = 0.5. (b) m = 1. (c) m = 2. (d) m = 2.5. (e) m = 3.
the denominator of (25) is sin[ d
max
] or sin[ d
min
], the min-
imum value of v
dc
required, v
dc,min
, is determined by putting
K
v
_

r
_
= 1 into (25). Thus
v
dc,min
=
nv
LED
2 sin[d
max
]
=
nv
LED
2 sin[d
min
]
. (26)
By putting (26) into (19) with v
dc
= v
dc,min
, the following
implicit function for d
max
can be obtained:
d
max
=
_

_
1
2
+
sin[d
max
]
_
V
2
m
2V
m
I
m
L
s
sin +
2
L
2
s
I
2
m
nv
LED
,


2
+
max
__
1 d
_
+

__
, d
_

_
_
,
>

2
+
(27)
where d
_
+

_
and d
_

_
are obtained by (18).
For a given ring angle , all parameters, except d
max
, in
(27) are known. d
max
is determined by an iterative method.
v
dc,min
is then obtained by putting the determined d
max
into
(26). Hence, the relationships between v
dc,min
and shown in
Fig. 13 are obtained by repeating the previous analysis method
with different values of .
By substituting (18) into (25) with v
dc
=v
dc,min
, Fig. 14 shows
the variation of K
v
over one line cycle at different ring angle of
the TRIAC, in which the minimum value of K
v
, K
v,min
occurs
when sin[d(t)] = 1. Thus
K
v,min
=
nv
LED
2v
dc,min
. (28)
Fig. 15 shows the variation of K
v,min
against .
C. Control Method
The controller shown in Fig. 4 regulates the lamp power at
different ring angles by sensing the voltage v

in
, input cur-
rent i
in
, dc-link voltage v
dc
, and LED array current i
LED
, and
controlling both the duty cycle and switching frequency of the
switches. The purpose of adjusting the duty cycle is to perform
the input current shaping while the purpose of adjusting the
ZHANG AND CHUNG: TRIAC-DIMMABLE LED LAMP DRIVER WITH WIDE DIMMING RANGE 1441
Fig. 13. v
dc, min
against .
switching frequency is to regulate the lamp power so that the
line-frequency harmonics are removed. The control method is
described as follows.
The ring angle is rst detected by the sensed v

in
. It will be
used to derive the reference dc-link voltage V
dc,ref
, based on the
curve v
dc,min
depicted in Fig. 13. The actual dc-link voltage
v
dc
will be compared with the reference dc-link voltage V
dc,ref
,
and their error v
dc
will be passed to a PI controller, namely
PI-1, to derive the reference input current i
in,ref
, which will be
in the form of
i
in,ref
=
_
0, t <
I
m,ref
sin(t ), t < +
(29)
where I
m,ref
is the amplitude of the reference input current
i
in,ref
.
The actual input current i
in
will be compared with the ref-
erence input current i
in,ref
, and their error i
in
will be passed
to a PI controller, namely PI-2, to derive the modulating signal
v
m
for the PWM modulator. The gate signals for S
1
S
4
are
derived by comparing v
m
with the carrier signal v
tri
. In (29),
is determined by considering the ring angle, as depicted in
Fig. 9. The amplitude I
m,ref
is determined by the output of PI-1.
Thus, the duty cycles of the switches are controlled through this
control mechanism.
The switching frequency is controlled as follows. After deter-
mining the ring angle, a reference LED array current, i
LED,ref
,
is derived as follows:
i
LED,ref
=
P
LED
()
v
LED
. (30)
The actual LEDarray current i
LED
will be compared with the
reference LED array current i
LED,ref
and their error i
LED
will
be passed to a PI controller, namely PI-3, to vary the frequency
of the carrier signal v
tri
. It should be noted that the previous
controls are all performed on a microcontroller.
III. DESIGN PROCEDURE
The values of L
s1
= L
s2
= L
s
/2, L
in
, C
in
, n, L
r
, C
r
, L
m
,
C
dc
, L
o
, and C
o
are determined by considering the following
parameters:
1) P
r
: Rated lamp power;
2) V
m
: Amplitude of the voltages v
in
and v

in
expressed in
(2) and (3);
3) f
s,min
: Minimum switching frequency of the switches;
4) i
s
: The ripple current through the inductors L
s1
and L
s2
when the switching frequency is the minimum;
5) I
h,max
: Maximum designed holding current of the
TRIAC;
6)
0
: Introduced phase shift when = 5

shown in Fig. 9;
7) v
dc,r
: v
dc
at the rated lamp power;
8) v
dc,r
: peak-to-peak ripple voltage on v
dc
at the rated
lamp power;
9) i
Lo
: The ripple current through the inductor L
o
when
the switching frequency is the minimum.
Step 1: The amplitude of i
in
, I
m
, is determined by using (6).
That is
I
m
=
I
h,max
sin(
0

0
)
. (31)
L
s
is then determined by considering that the switching fre-
quency is the lowest. The duty cycle of S
1
and S
4
, d, should
be maximum. Based on (16) and (17), v

in
should be maximum
when d is maximum, so v
Ls
is neglected for the sake of sim-
plicity in calculation. By substituting (16) into (17)
d
max
=
v

in
+v
dc
2v
dc
(32)
L
s
i
s
d
max
(1/f
s,min
)
= v
dc
v

in
. (33)
By substituting (32) into (33)
L
s
=
d
max
(v
dc
v

in
)
f
s,min
i
s
=
(v
2
dc,r
v
2
m
)
2v
dc
f
s,min
i
s
(34)
where i
s
is taken to be 40% of I
m
when the switching fre-
quency is the lowest.
Therefore
L
s1
= L
s2
=
L
s
2
. (35)
Step 2: L
in
and C
in
are determined by considering that
the high-frequency ripple current through L
s1
and L
s2
ows
through C
in
at f
s,min
. Assume that the impedance of L
in
is
larger than three times the impedance of C
in
at f
s,min
. Thus
2f
s,min
L
in
> 3
1
2f
s,min
C
in
L
in
C
in
>
3
4
2
f
2
s,min
. (36)
1442 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER ELECTRONICS, VOL. 29, NO. 3, MARCH 2014
Fig. 14. Variation of K
v
over one line cycle at different ring angle. (a) = 0

. (b) = 45

. (c) = 90

. (d) = 145

.
Fig. 15. Variation of K
v , min
against .
Step 3: The value of n is determined by (26)
n =
2v
dc,r
v
LED
sin(d
max
) =
2v
dc,r
v
LED
sin(d
min
). (37)
Step 4: With = 0

, based on (24), R
eq
(0) equals
R
eq
(0) =
2n
2
v
2
LED
P
r
. (38)
If the quality factor Qat the rated power is Q
r
, the character-
istic impedance Z
r
is equal to
Z
r
= Q
r
R
eq
(0). (39)
Fig. 16. Trajectories of K
v , min
against
s
r
for different lamp power and
m = 2.5.
Thus, based on Fig. 12, Fig. 16 shows the trajectories of
K
v,min
against

s

r
for different lamp power and m = 2.5. It can
be observed from the trajectories that:
1) if Q
r
is small, for example, Q
r
= 2, there is considerable
variation of the switching frequency from the rated power
to the dimmed power;
2) if Q
r
is large, for example, Q
r
= 20, the lamp power is
too sensitive to the variation to the switching frequency.
ZHANG AND CHUNG: TRIAC-DIMMABLE LED LAMP DRIVER WITH WIDE DIMMING RANGE 1443
Thus, it can be observed that Q
r
= 5 gives the compromise
between the previous two considerations. Thus, based on (38)
and (39)
Z
r
=
_
L
r
C
r
= 5R
eq
(0)
L
r
=
100n
4
v
4
LED
P
2
r
C
r
. (40)
Based on (21), the resonant frequency is designed at f
s,min
.
Thus
f
s,min
=
1
2

L
r
C
r
. (41)
Thus, by solving (40) and (41) for L
r
and C
r
, it can be shown
that
L
r
=
5n
2
v
2
LED
P
r
f
s,min
(42)
C
r
=
P
r
20n
2
v
2
LED
f
s,min
. (43)
The value of L
m
is chosen by taking m = 2.5. Thus, based
on (21)
L
m
= mL
r
=
12.5n
2
v
2
LED
P
r
f
s,min
. (44)
Step 5: For the sake of simplicity in the design, the value of
C
dc
is designed by assuming that the input current is in phase
with the supply voltage at the rated power condition
P
r
=
1
2
_
2
0
V
m
I
m
sin
2
tdt
=
V
m
I
m
2
. (45)
C
dc
absorbs the difference between the input power and the
average lamp power. Thus, the maximumvariation of the energy
E
C
stored in the capacitor is
E
C
=
P
r

. (46)
Assume that v
dc
varies between v
dc,r
and v
dc,r
+ v
dc,r
, and
v
dc,r
<< v
dc,r
1
2
C
dc
(v
dc,r
+ v
dc,r
)
2

1
2
C
dc
v
2
dc,r
=
P
r

C
dc

=
P
r
v
dc,r
v
dc,r
. (47)
Step 6: The value of L
o
is designed by considering the ripple
current i
Lo
through it. Based on (A.9) given in the Appendix,
the RMS value of voltage v

R
, | v

R
|in Fig. 4, is
| v

R
| =

2v
LED
. (48)
So, the voltage v

R
is
v

R
= 2v
LED
|sin
s
t| (49)
TABLE II
COMPONENT VALUES USED IN THE EXPERIMENTAL PROTOTYPE
L
o
i
L
o
t
= v

R
v
LED
L
o

=
(2

3
2
3
)v
LED
2f
s,min
i
L
o
. (50)
The value of C
o
is estimated by cutoff frequency f
o
of the
lter formed by L
o
and C
o
being
f
o
=
1
2

L
o
C
o
C
o
=
1
4
2
f
2
o
L
o
. (51)
IV. IMPLEMENTATION OF THE TRIAC-DIMMABLE
LED DRIVER
An experimental 110 V/60 Hz prototype has been built and
tested. The rated power is 7.2 W. It is based on the requirements
given in Table I. Based on the design method given in Section III,
the component values are given in Table II. The microcontroller
used is MC9S08QE128. The lamp can be dimmed from 7.2 to
0.3 W with a TRIAC dimmer. Fig. 17 shows the waveforms of
the input voltage v
in
, input current i
in
, and LED array current
i
LED
. The average current and peak-to-peak ripple current of the
LED are measured. Fig. 17(a) shows the waveforms when the
lamp is connected to the ac mains without TRIAC. It can be seen
that the input current is in phase with the voltage. Fig. 17(b)(f)
shows the corresponding waveforms when the ring angle is
25

, 45

, 90

, 145

, and 172

, respectively. The LED array

current ripples in all cases are found to be less than 25%. The
phase of the input current varies with the ring angle, so as
to introduce the required reactive power and thus maintain the
conduction state of the TRIAC.
Fig. 18 shows the theoretical and measured switching fre-
quencies of the switches versus the lamp power. Both of them
are in close agreement. The measured output power P
LED
and
efciency against the ring angle are given in Fig. 19. The
output power and the ring angle are in linear relationship, con-
rming the proposed driving method. The highest efciency is
found to be 80%when the ring angle is 0

, i.e., the rated condi-

tion. The efciency performance of the prototype is comparable
1444 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER ELECTRONICS, VOL. 29, NO. 3, MARCH 2014
Fig. 17. Experimental results of the prototype (v
in
: 250 V/div, i
in
: 500 mA/div, i
LED
: 200 mA/div, Timebase: 4 ms/div). (a) Without TRIAC and P
LED
=
7.2 W. (b) = 25

and P
LED
= 7.2 W. (c) = 45

and P
LED
= 5.4 W. (d) = 90

and P
LED
= 3.6 W. (e) = 145

and P
LED
= 1.4 W. (f) = 172

and P
LED
= 0.3 W.
Fig. 18. Switching frequency f
S
versus the lamp power P
LED
.
Fig. 19. Measured lamp power P
LED
and efciency versus ring angle .
ZHANG AND CHUNG: TRIAC-DIMMABLE LED LAMP DRIVER WITH WIDE DIMMING RANGE 1445
Fig. 20. Photographs of the prototype driver. (a) Top view. (b) Side view.
to the yback-type structure given in [7]. The lowest efciency
is found to be 52% when the ring angle is 172

. Fig. 13 shows
the experimental results of v
dc
versus the ring angle. Its prole
is similar to the theoretical prediction.
Fig. 20 shows the prototype driver for a 7-W LED lamp.
In terms of physical size, the present design can be optimized
further. For example, the circuitry can be further reduced as the
four switches and their corresponding drivers can be integrated
with current semiconductor packaging technologies.
V. CONCLUSION
A TRIAC-dimmable LED lamp driver that can provide wide
dimming range for extremely low-power operation without dis-
sipative bleeding circuit has been presented. By introducing the
reactive power control, the input current can be increased while
the active power is regulated. The concept has been demon-
strated on a 7.2 W prototype, which can be dimmed down to
0.3 W. Experiments reveal that the current ripple of the LED
is small. The output power of LED can be controlled in linear
relationship with the ring angle of the TRIAC. The theoret-
ical predictions and experimental measurements are in close
agreement.
APPENDIX
PROOF OF (24)
The high-frequency component of v
AB
, v
AB,H
, is only con-
sidered here as the low-frequency component is blocked by the
capacitor C
r
. In Fig. 5, the magnetizing inductance of the trans-
former L
m
is much larger than the equivalent resistance R
eq
at
high-frequency switching. Thus, L
m
is neglected in the analysis.
The phasor for representing v
F
AB,H
in (22) v
F
AB,H
is
v
F
AB,H
=
4v
dc

2
sin[d(t)]0

. (A.1)
The current i
p
owing through L
r
and C
r
is

i
p
=
i
LED
()

2n
(A.2)
where is the phase difference between v
F
AB,H
and i
p
.
So, the output power transferred to the secondary side of
transformer is
P = v
AB,H

i
p
cos()
=
2v
dc
i
LED
()
n
sin[d(t)] cos . (A.3)
Thus,
cos =
nP
2v
dc
i
LED
() sin[d(t)]
. (A.4)
The voltages across L
r
, v
Lr
, and C
r
, v
Cr
, are
v
L
r
=

i
p

s
L
r
90

=
i
LED
()
s
L
r
n
(90

) (A.5)
v
C
r
=

i
p

s
C
r
90

=
i
LED
()
n
s
C
r
(90

). (A.6)
Based on KVL, the voltage across R
eq
, v
R
, is
v
R
= v
F
AB,H
v
L
r
v
C
r
. (A.7)
R
eq
is approximated by assuming that the imaginary part of
v
R
in (A.7) is negligible. Thus, by considering the real part of
(A.7) and substituting (A.1), (A.5), and (A.6) into (A.7)
R
eq
= Re[
v
R

i
p
] =
2n
2
v
LED
i
LED
()
(A.8)
| v
R
| = |

i
p
|R
eq
=

2nv
LED
. (A.9)
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Ruihong Zhang (S12) received the B.Eng. degree
in computer science and the M.Eng. degree in elec-
trical engineering, both from the Harbin Institute of
Technology, Harbin, China, in 2005 and 2008, re-
spectively. She is currently working toward the Ph.D.
degree in electrical engineering from the City Uni-
versity of Hong Kong, Kowloon, Hong Kong.
Her current research interests include the light-
ing system, power-factor-correction, resonant con-
verters, ac/dc, dc/dc converters, and energy-recycling
techniques.
Henry Shu-hung Chung (M95SM03) received
the B.Eng. degree, in 1991, and the Ph.D. degree in
electrical engineering, in 1994, both fromHong Kong
Polytechnic University, Kowloon, Hong Kong.
Since 1995, he has been with the City University
of Hong Kong, Kowloon. He is currently a Profes-
sor in the Department of Electronic Engineering, and
the Director of the Centre for Smart Energy Conver-
sion and Utilization Research. He has authored six
research book chapters, and more than 300 technical
papers including 140 refereed journal papers in his
research areas, and holds 26 patents. His research interests include time- and
frequency-domain analysis of power electronic circuits, switched-capacitor-
based converters, random-switching techniques, control methods, digital audio
ampliers, soft-switching converters, and electronic ballast design.
Dr. Chung is currently the Chairman of Technical Committee on High-
Performance and Emerging Technologies of the IEEE Power Electronics Soci-
ety, and an Associate Editor of the IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER ELECTRON-
ICS, IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON CIRCUITS AND SYSTEMS, PART I: FUNDAMENTAL
THEORY AND APPLICATIONS, and the IEEE JOURNAL OF EMERGING AND SE-
LECTED TOPICS IN POWER ELECTRONICS.