LLC Series Resonant Converter with PID Controller

for Battery Charging Application

M. Imran Shahzad, Shahid Iqbal, and Soib Taib
School of Electrical & Electronic Engineering,
Engineering Campus, Universiti Sains Malaysia,
14300 Nibong Tebal, Pulau Penang, Malaysia.
ishzd@yahoo.com

AbstractIn this paper, the output voltage regulation of a halfbridge LLC series resonant DC-DC converter using a PID
controller in feedback loop for the battery charging application is
presented. The PID controller is used to adjust the frequency of
gate pulses generated by the voltage controlled oscillator (VCO)
for deriving the MOSFETs to regulate the output voltage. The
converter is implemented using MATLAB Simulink environment
for the input range of 380 V to 420 V and output range of 28 V to
72 V DC voltage. Simulation results showed that the controller can
quickly adjust the output voltage level for step variations in both
line and the load. The controller can also set the output voltage
level for both step and linear variations in the reference signal.
KeywordsResonant
controller; FHA.

I.

converter;

battery

charger;

DC Link
AC/DC

DC/DC

Battery
Battery Charger
Fig. 1. Typical power architecture of a battery charger.

For LLC resonant converter many design methods have been

proposed in the literature like exact analysis [7] and first
harmonic approximation (FHA) analysis [8], [9]. The exact
analysis ensures accuracy but is not handy due to model
complexity. However, the FHA is much simpler giving
acceptably accurate results at or above resonance and has been
widely used in literature for the analysis of constant output
voltage applications [10]. Below resonance, FHA is still valid
with less accurate results making it not a good choice for optimal
design but it is useful for qualitative analysis.

PID

INTRODUCTION

Due to increased concern about global warming,

environmental issues and the threat of fossil fuel depletion, the
interest in plug-in hybrid electrical vehicles (PHEVs) and pure
electric vehicles is growing continuously. High conversion
efficiency, high power density, smooth and quick charging
capabilities are the desired features expected from the on-board
charger in electrical vehicles. With the improvement in battery
technology and capacity high current, high voltage and
sophisticated charging algorithms are needed, making charging
of the batteries complicated [1].

In this paper a half-bridge LLC series resonant converter is

designed for output voltage range of 28 V to 72 V for a lead-acid
battery with charging profile given in [1]. The circuit is
simulated using MATLAB Simulink and the output voltage of
the converter is regulated using PID controller in feedback path.
The PID controller regulates the output voltage by adjusting
frequency of the gate pulses of the MOSFETs. In the following
section LLC resonant converter configuration and operation is
discussed. In Section III converter is analyzed using FHA and
circuit operation is explained in section IV. The design
procedure is given in section V and simulation results are
presented in section VI.

The commonly used battery charging architecture is shown

in Fig. 1, consisting of power factor correction (PFC) stage with
AC to DC converter following the isolated DC-DC stage [2].
The PFC stage could be a conventional continuous conduction
mode (CCM) boost topology [1]. The main focus of this paper
is the DC-DC converter stage which have the main role of
regulating the output current and voltage, and the characteristics
of the charger depend on this stage [3], [4]. Among various
available choices, LLC resonant converter is the most attractive
choice because of its salient features like wide operation range,
high efficiency, low electromagnetic interference, high power
density and ability to achieve soft switching for less conduction
losses at both primary and secondary sides [5]. However this
topology have many controlling parameters making its design
and analysis complicated [6].

II.

LLC RESONANT CONVERTER

LLC resonant converter has gained a lot of attention and has

been widely discussed in literature for having simple structure
and several desirable features like high power density, reduced
switching losses at high frequencies, high efficiency, zero
voltage switching (ZVS), zero current switching (ZCS), low
electromagnetic interference (EMI) and elimination of reverse
recovery of the output rectification diodes [11]-[15]. These
converters have much reduced losses due to their sinusoidal

This work was supported by Research University Grant (RUI)

1001/PELECT/814207 from Universiti Sains Malaysia.

978-1-4799-4848-2/14/$31.00 2014 IEEE

DC-DC Converter

PFC

84

Switching Network

S1
Rectifier
Resonant Tank

DC
Vin

LCC Resonant Tank

LLC Resonant Tank

NP
Cr
S2

Fig. 2. LCC and LLC resonant tank.

Transformer

Lr

D1

Filter

NS
CO

Lm

RL

NS
D2

behavior and can reduce the size of reactive components by high

frequency operation and are much suited for high power
applications.

Fig. 3. Half-bridge LLC series resonant converter.

converts the AC input to a regulated DC output voltage with the

help of output capacitor filter which smooth the rectifier voltage
and current. The rectifier can be implemented as a full-wave
center-tapped or in a bridge configuration. It can also be
implemented with MOSFETs for synchronous rectification
which is especially beneficial in high-current and low-voltage
applications [19].

High power density is an important trend for todays power

supply market. Topologies with high switching frequency
capability and high efficiency are needed to meet this trend. But
at high frequency, switching losses also exist specially the
secondary diode reverse recovery loss and primary switches turn
off loss. There are too many parameters for the LLC resonant
converter such as resonant inductor Lr, resonant capacitor Cr and
magnetic inductance Lm and, different parameters correspond to
different working waveforms as well as different switching
losses making the design complex [13].

B. Operation of LLC Series Resonant Converter

The resonant tank offers minimum impedance to the
sinusoidal current at resonant frequency, regardless of the
frequency of the input square-wave voltage. To control the
portion of energy delivered to the load, the impedance of the
resonant tank varies with the switching frequency. For LLC
series resonant converter there are two resonant frequencies, the
first involves Lr and Cr and the second involves Lm also and are
given by

LLC series resonant converter can regulate the output

voltage over a wide range of line and load variations. Compared
to LCC, LLC resonant converter can achieve soft switching over
the entire operating range. The resonant tanks of LCC and LLC
converters, which are dual of each other, are shown in Fig. 2. In
LLC configuration, the size of the converter can be reduced by
integrating the two inductors into the transformer which reduces
the components count [6].

(1)
(2)

A. Configuration of LLC Series Resonant Converter

A half-bridge LLC series resonant converter shown in Fig. 3, is
gaining popularity as a high efficiency DC-DC converter [12][15]. The main parts of this configuration are discussed below.

Equation (1) is always true regardless of load but (2) is true

only at no load. Mostly LLC resonant converter is designed to
operate in the vicinity of resonant frequency fr1. For the above
two resonance frequencies fr2 < fr1 and, the separation between
fr1 and fr2 depends upon the inductance ratio k = Lm / Lr and
increases with increase in k. The switching frequency fsw controls
the power flow from input to the load which increases with the
decrease in fsw and vice versa. The range of switching frequency
is fmin fsw fmax where, fmin is the frequency at required
maximum gain with fmin > fr2 to maintain soft switching and, fmax
is the frequency at required minimum gain with fmin fr1. The
LLC series resonant converter has the following three region of
operations [20]:

Switching Network: The frequency controlled switching

network acts as square-wave generator and is configured in a
complementary mode having a fixed duty cycle (~50%) for
both power switches S1 and S2 which are usually the MOSFETs.
The duty cycle have some dead-time between consecutive
transitions to prevent the possibility of cross conduction and
allow time for ZVS to be achieved. The switching network
converts the DC input Vin into a square-wave, with a fixed duty
cycle having amplitude equal to Vin and a DC offset of Vin2,
which is then fed to the resonant tank.
Resonant Tank and Transformer: The resonant tank circulates
the electric current and delivers energy to the load through the
transformer. The resonant tank introduces a phase shift between
the voltage and current due to which soft-switching is achievable
[19]. The combination of switching network and resonant tank
make a resonant inverter which feeds in the sinusoidal or
piecewise sinusoidal current and voltage to the transformer. The
transformer decides the gain based on the turns ratio of the
primary and secondary windings and provides electrical
isolation.

Below resonance fmin fsw fr1 where 2n(V0+ Vf) > Vin
At resonance fsw = fr1 where 2n(V0+ Vf) = Vin
Above resonance fr1 fsw fmax where 2n(V0+ Vf) < Vin
Where n is the transformers turn ratio, V0 is the output voltage,
Vin is the input voltage and Vf is the secondary diode voltage.
Operation at Resonance: In this mode the switching frequency
fsw is equal to the series resonant frequency fr1. At fr1, the
operation is at load independent point. When switch S1 is turned
off, the resonant current Ir falls equal to the magnetizing current
Im resulting no further power transfer the secondary side. Due to
dead time between switches S1 and S2, circuit achieves ZVS and

Rectifier and Filter: The two diodes D1 and D2 on the secondary

side of the transformer constitute a full-wave rectifier which

85

a soft commutation of the rectifier diodes. The resonance period

is equal to the switching period and the resonant current is sine
wave. The operation at series resonance is only a single point
operation, to cover both line and load variations, the switching
frequency will have to be adjusted away from the resonance
frequency [19].
Operation below Resonance: Below resonance operation
handles the undervoltage condition due to abrupt load increase
and provides the converter with specified holdup capability. For
fsw < fr1 the resonant current Ir falls equal to the magnetizing
current Im before the end of switching pulse width, causing the
power transfer to the load to be ceased. This is because the
resonance duration being smaller than the pulse width.
Operation below fr1 achieves primary ZVS and ZCS of the
rectifier diodes on the secondary side. The rectifier diodes are in
discontinuous current mode and require more circulating current
in the resonant circuit to deliver the same amount of energy to
the load causing conduction losses in both the primary and the
secondary sides. The primary ZVS may be lost if the switching
frequency becomes low than fr2 resulting in high switching
losses and several associated issues [19].

Gain G

Fig. 4. AC equivalent circuit of the LLC resonant converter.

Operation above Resonance: The above resonance operation is

used to handle overvoltage condition due to abrupt decrease in
load. In this mode fsw > fr1 and there is a smaller circulating
current in the resonant circuit. This reduces conduction loss
because the resonant circuits current is in continuous-current
mode, resulting in less RMS current for the same amount of load.
In this mode the resonance period is greater than the switching
period. The reverse recovery losses exist because the rectifier
diodes are not softly commutated. The operation above fr1 can
still achieve primary ZVS and causes significant frequency
increase under light-load conditions [19].

Normalized frequency fn

Fig. 5. Operating regions of LLC series resonant converter.

An approximate relationship between gain and normalized

frequency is given in [21] as:
(4)
Equation (4) gives the approximated value of fsw at required
output voltage which can be used as initial frequency of VCO,
and it will be further adjusted by PID controller. Using (3) the
DC characteristics of LLC resonant converter can be derived,
and are divided into ZCS and ZVS regions, as illustrated in Fig.
5 [22]. Below fr2 is the ZCS region and is not preferred for power
MOSFET application due to the loss of ZVS operation [21].

III. AC EQUIVALENT CIRCUIT OF THE LLC RESONANT

CONVERTER AND ITS VOLTAGE GAIN
The LLC resonant converters nonlinear circuit is replaced
by a linear and time-invariant circuit, based on the firstharmonic approximation (FHA) approach as shown in Fig. 4 [1].
This approximation model simplifies the analysis of the main
complex circuit and illustrates variations of the output voltage
by changing the load and frequency.

IV.

CIRCUIT OPERATION

In one switching cycle the operation of the LLC resonant

converter in Fig. 3 can be divided into four modes [23] as shown
in Fig. 7. Only first two modes in the half switch cycle are
explained. For the next half cycle, operation is similar and is
omitted here. The equivalent circuit for these two modes is
shown in Fig. 6.

The voltage gain of the converter is given as follows [10]:

(3)

Mode 1: This mode starts when the voltage across S1

becomes zero before it turns on. When S1 is turned on, the
resonant current Ir starts flowing through it and increases
sinusoidal-type due to resonance between Lr and Cr The
magnetizing inductance Lm is clamped to the output voltage
nV0 and is charged linearly. The magnetizing current Im
increases linearly and Lm does not participate in resonance.
The rectifier diode D1 is turned on under ZCS condition and
delivers energy to the load. This mode ends when Ir falls
equal to Im and energy transfer to the load is ceased resulting
diode current ID1 equal to zero.

with the parameters:

Quality factor:
where

fr1

fr2

with P0 as output power.

Normalized frequency:

86

Vgs1

S1

Vin

+
_

NP
Lr

Cr

D1

Ir

S2

NS

Vds1

ID1
Co

Im
Lm

Vgs2

RL

NS

Vcr
D2

0
IL

(a) Mode 1
S1

Vin

+
_

NP
Lr

Cr
S2

D1

Ir

NS
Co

Im
Lm

Im
RL

NS

ID1

D2

ID2

(b) Mode 2
Fig. 6. Equivalent circuits for first two modes of operation.

Mode 2: This mode starts when Ir = Im and continues until

both currents remain equal. During this mode, output is
separated from the input and no power is transferred to the
load from the input side. Lm becomes in series with Lr & Cr
participating in resonance operation and, the current
circulates in the primary side. This mode ends after S1 is
turned off and voltage across it starts rising.
For the next half switching cycle operation is similar as above.
V.

Mode 1
Mode 2
Mode 3
Fig. 7. Simulation waveforms for modes of operation.

Mode 4

Step 3. Choose the resonance frequency fr1 and find

equivalent AC resistance Rac, input impedance Z0 and
the load resistance values as;
Rac = n2R0
where,

DESIGN PROCEDURE

Using values of Z0 and k calculate the tank parameters

as:

The converter specifications for the design are given as follows:

Input DC Voltage range 380 V ~ 420 V.
Output Voltage range 28 V ~ 72 V
LC Resonant frequency fr1 = 200 kHz
LLC Resonant frequency fr2 = 85.28 kHz
Switching frequency range 94.6 kHz ~ 226.6 kHz

Step 4. Find the minimum and maximum

frequencies from the gain plot.

switching

The gain plot is shown in Fig. 8. Using above steps with n = 9,

Q = 0.15, and k = 4.5 the tank parameters are calculated as:
Cr = 34.2 F, Lr = 1.855 F, and Lm = 8.356 H.

The design procedure for the converter is summarized in the

following steps [19].
Step 1. Calculate the transformers turns ratio, minimum and
maximum gain values [20] using the following
equations:

where for diodes Vf = 0.6 V and for synchronous

rectifier switches Vf = 0.2 V.
Step 2. Select the suitable values of inductance ratio k and
quality factor Q from the gain versus normalized
frequency fn plot of equation (3) satisfying Gmin and
Gmax.

Fig. 8. Voltage gain using design steps.

87

VI.

SIMULATION RESULTS

Line Variation
Vref
Vo
Vin/11

38

Fig. 9 shows the MATLAB Simulink model of the LLC

resonant DC-DC converter implemented using PID controller
with parameters calculated in design procedure. PID controller
is used to generate pulses for driving MOSFETs. The frequency
of the pulses is adjusted by the voltage controlled oscillator
(VCO) which is driven by the PID controller. The initial value
given to the VCO is the resonance frequency fr1 which is then
adjusted by the controller for the desired output voltage. The
controller adjusts the frequency output of the VCO based on the
error signal which is the difference between reference signal and
the output voltage. The VCO generates the triangular waves of
required frequency which is then used to generate the gate pulses
for MOSFETs with required fixed duty cycle.

36

Voltage

34
32
30
28
26
24

0.013

0.014

0.015

0.016

0.017

0.018

0.019

0.02

Simulation Time
Line Variation
52

Vref
Vo
Vin/11

50
48

Voltage

46
44
42
40
38
36
34
0.024

0.0245

0.025

0.0255
Simulation Time

0.026

0.0265

0.027

0.0275

Line Variation
75
70
Vref
Vo
Vin/11

65

Voltage

60
55
50
45
40
35
0.0335

0.034

0.0345

0.035
Simulation Time

0.0355

0.036

0.0365

0.037

Fig. 11. Line variation at output voltages 28 V, 48 V and 72 V.

Output Voltage Regulation with Step and Linear Variations

70
65

Fig. 9. MATLAB Simulation circuit.

Voltage

60

Load Variation

55
50

28
45

26

0.008

Voltage

20

3.6

3.8

4.2

4.4

4.6
Simulation Time

4.8

5.2

5.4

5.6
-3

x 10

Load Variation
48
46
44

Voltage

42
40

0.011

0.012
Simulation Time

0.013

0.014

0.015

0.016

Fig. 11 shows the effect of step variations in input voltage

and the controllers response for the adjustment of effect. The
input voltage was increase to maximum value of 420V and then
dropped down to 380V and then adjusted back to the nominal
value of 400V. Figure shows the line variation at 28V, 48V and
72V and it can be seen the controller has adjusted the effect more
quickly at higher output voltage than the lower one. The output
Voltage was scaled by 1/11 in the figure.

38
36
34
32

Vref
Vo
Io

30
28
0.01

0.0105

0.011

0.0115

0.012

0.0125

Simulation Time

Load Variation
75
70
65
Voltage

0.01

Fig. 10 shows the performance of controller for 20%

variation in load at 28V, 48V and 72V. It can be seen from the
figure that the controller adjusted the load variations for both
increase and decrease in load. The effect of load variation
increases with the increase in output voltage level. The output
current is scaled by 1/9 in the figure.

Vref
Vo
Io

18

Fig. 12 shows the output voltage regulation with step and

linear changes in the reference signal at different voltage levels.
From the figure it can be seen that the output voltage follows the
reference signal in both step and linear variations. The controller
has adjusted the output voltage according to the variations in
reference signal. For higher voltage level adjustment is quicker

60
55
50
Vref
Vo
Io

45
40

0.009

Fig. 12. Voltage regulation with linear and step variations in reference signal at
different output voltage levels.

22

16

Vref
Vo

40

24

0.0185

0.019

0.0195

0.02
Simulation Time

0.0205

0.021

0.0215

Fig. 10. Load variation at output voltages 28 V, 48 V and 72 V.

88

than that of lower voltage level. In linear variation, the output

voltage has almost followed the reference signal.

[9]
[10]

VII. CONCLUSION
The design of half-bridge LLC series resonant converter is
presented together with the simulation results using MATALB
Simulink for battery charging application. Simulation results
showed the controller performance for adjustment of output
voltage for both line and load variations. It is shown that the
controller has adjusted the effects of step variations in line and
load and also tracked the reference signal for both step and linear
variations in the reference value. The converter meets the
requirements of DC-DC stage in the lead-acid battery charging
application.

[11]

[12]

[13]

[14]

ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to thank the University for providing
all necessary facilities and equipment to make this research
possible.

[15]

[16]

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