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Sensorless Current Mode ControlAn Observer-Based Technique for DCDC Converters

Pallab Midya, Senior Member, IEEE, Philip T. Krein, Fellow, IEEE, and Matthew F. Greuel
AbstractSensorless current mode (SCM) control is an observer method that provides the operating benefits of current mode control without current sensing. SCM has significant advantages over both conventional peak and average current-mode control techniques in noise susceptibility and dynamic range in both continuous mode and discontinuous mode. The method supports line and bulk load regulation, and reduces control complexity to a single loop. It also supports conventional two-loop control for tight load regulation. Encompassing one-cycle control as a special case, the general SCM method is a public domain control technique. Index TermsCurrent control, dcdc power conversion, observers, nonlinear control.

I. INTRODUCTION A. Background T IS desirable that controls for power converters be robust to noise, have good dynamic performance, and be simple to design. Current mode control [1] is based on sensing an inductor current and using this signal in place of a triangle carrier. It is equivalent to providing current feedback, with the objective of maintaining the inductor current equal to a reference current. The reference current is generated by an additional control loop that compares the output voltage to a reference voltage [2]. Two-loop current-mode control is well known to have good dynamic response to converter input and output disturbances, provided the subharmonic instability beyond 50% duty ratio is avoided. In the conventional peak current-mode technique, switching takes place at the peak of the inductor current, and noise sensitivity is therefore relatively high [3]. A current sensor is required. Also, converter action is related to the dynamic range of the current signal. A converter intended to supply a 100:1 load range, for example, must sense and react to currents over this entire range. Average current mode control [4] improves the noise robustness by filtering the current sensor signal. Charge control [5] integrates the current sensor output and further improves the noise performance.
Fig. 1. Boost converter model for SCM.

B. Sensorless Current Mode Control Description An alternative to the various current-mode methods is to use observer techniques [6], [7]. An observer method constructs a model of the system to be controlled, and uses state information from the model. In sensorless current mode (SCM) control, we reconstruct an inductor current from voltage information. The inductor voltage in a dcdc converter is usually a far larger signal than the output of a current sensor, and its range does not change much as a function of loading. In its simplest form, the SCM control approach reconstructs an inductor current directly by integrating the inductor voltage. A description of this simple form and some applications can be found in [8]. A comprehensive form supports direct line and bulk load regulation in the whole range of dcdc converter applications. The general SCM technique contrasts with one-cycle control [9], [10], and it will be shown here that one-cycle control is a restricted case of SCM. Feedforward controls that extend the one-cycle method were described by Arbetter and Maksimovic [11]. Fig. 1 shows both a sample boost converter and a block diagram with an integrated inductor voltage for use in place of represents the forward drop across the accurrent. Here tive switch when it is on, and switching functions and are high when a switch is on. In a practical converter, the capacis not really intended to act as a state variable, itor voltage . For dc output, and instead is to be set to a fixed value can be used to replace this output a fixed reference value (equal to in a boost converter). Let represent the observer replacing the outputthe integrated inductor voltage with output voltage. The integral (1)

Manuscript received June 16, 2000; revised February 24, 2001. This work was supported by a grant from the Collins Avionics and Communications Division, Rockwell International. Recommended by Associate Editor B. Lehman. P. Midya is with Motorola, Inc., Chicago Corporate Research Lab, Schaumburg, IL 60196 USA. P. T. Krein is with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801-2991 USA (e-mail: krein@energy.ece.uiuc.edu). M. F. Greuel is with R. R. Donnelley & Sons, Mattoon, IL 61938 USA. Publisher Item Identifier S 0885-8993(01)05962-2.

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(a)

(b)

(c)

(d)

Fig. 2. SCM controllers for four major types of dcdc converters: (a) buck converter with SCM controller, (b) buck-boost converter with SCM controller, (c) boost-buck converter with SCM controller, and (d) SEPIC converter with SCM controller.

TABLE I SCM INTEGRALS FOR MAJOR DCDC CONVERTERS

represents a flux error that should be driven to zero. The appropriate PWM controller sets a latch at the beginning of the switching period and turns on the active switch. When the inte, an exgral rises above a value (which could be given by ternal stabilizing ramp, or even just a zero level), the latch is reset and the switch turns off. In this sense, (1) can be treated as a control law for converter operation. Table I lists SCM integral control laws for five common dcdc converters. In the boost-buck (Cuk) and SEPIC cases, either inductor yields the same integral law if the ideal transfer capacitor voltage is used in the observer. The reference value

Fig. 3. Generic SCM process for PWM control.

is substituted whenever the output voltage appears in the inductor voltage expression. Notice that the control laws account for active switch drop in those cases when the switch drop shares a common reference node with the output. Fig. 2 shows a block diagram of the SCM control loops for buck, buck-boost, boost-buck, and SEPIC converters, based on the control laws in Table I. Fig. 3 shows a generic SCM controller that takes the integral and implements a PWM converter control either with or without ramp.

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II. ANALYSIS A. Operational Stability Stability can be evaluated with a recursive approach for any given converter, and it can be shown that without a ramp, in, just as in constability occurs for duty ratios beyond ventional current mode control. An especially good choice of is to select it to match the off-state slope, which ramp slope moves the pole to the origin in domain. A key point is that the choice of ramp slope is independent of load under SCM, so audio susceptibility can be nulled more easily than under conventional current mode control. Discontinuous mode introduces a third configuration in which the slope of the inductor voltage is zero. The stability issue can be addressed by defining an equivalent slope that defines the average slope over the total off interval. For all , the average possible slope values of the inductor voltage, cannot exceed the actual value . Therefore, slope value , if the control ramp is chosen such that . An SCM controller it is also true that that is stable in continuous mode will remain stable if it enters discontinuous mode. B. Flux Balancing Since SCM uses an integration of an inductor voltage, the inductor voltage serves as a flux observer as well as a current observer. Flux control is very effective for various transformercoupled forward converters. A full-bridge example is given in [13]. C. Performance SCM functions like a conventional current-mode control with substantially improved noise performance. Three aspects contribute to this improvement. 1) The inductor voltages are large-signal switching waveforms. The signals are about 40 dB higher than for a 1% per unit resistive sensor. 2) The signal magnitude is independent of dc current magnitude and load. With SCM, a 100:1 or higher load range is straightforward. 3) The integration process itself is robust to noise. The SCM method inherently provides noise advantages similar to those of average current-mode control without extra phase lag for filtering. Taking into account all three aspects, SCM can offer signal-tonoise improvements on the order of 80 dB or more compared to average current-mode control, and much higher compared to peak current mode control. D. One-Cycle Control as a Special Case In one-cycle control [9], an inductor operates into a fixed voltage-source load. This has been discussed for buck converters and for the output stage of boost-buck converters. The focus of the one-cycle method is source regulation. The average voltage over a cycle is controlled and set to a specified value such that source effects are eliminated. This is similar to a dead beat technique. Except for the integrator reset, the one-cycle

block is the same as SCM for the buck case. However, one-cycle control does not apply to boost converters or other topologies, since in these cases the inductor is not driving a fixed load. The integrator reset is problematic. It avoids instability caused by duty ratios beyond 50% by eliminating dependence on past cycles, at the expense of eliminating the advantages of past behavior in error correction. In contrast, current mode and SCM controls can carry over any output error and are capable of handling large load disturbances effectively. In one reference [12], a version of one-cycle control without reset is described. It is identical to SCM in the buck case, but does not apply to general dcdc converters. E. Regulation and Current Sharing The various SCM integral control laws provide near-ideal line regulation for all types of dcdc converters. Load regulation is limited only by dc parasitics in devices that appear between the controlled switch and the load. A conventional PI loop can be implemented around the SCM control law, and this PI loop only performs fine adjustments to compensate for small parasitics. To add the outer loop, an error compensation term , given by (2) in the SCM controller in each case. This apis added to proach is identical in concept to the usual two-loop design practice for conventional current-mode controllers. However, since the outer loop only compensates for output parasitics, fast dynamic response is relatively easy to achieve. The combination of inherently good load regulation and near-ideal line regulation supports high performance designs. Under SCM control, it is also feasible to use a single-loop current-based controller. This is not a possibility for constant-voltage applications in conventional current-mode designs, and offers promise as a simple control approach for low-cost power converters. The current information under SCM control is really ac information. As in one-cycle control, this affects the ability to react to overcurrent conditions and to support current sharing. However, with SCM, if a large current flows in the active switch, the integral process will detect the extra voltage drop. We have used the inductor parasitic dc drop approach to obtain current sharing at about the 10% level [8]. III. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS In the buck converter, operation over a load current dynamic range of about 400:1deep into discontinuous modewas achieved with no special difficulties. With an outer voltage PI loop, combined line and load regulation below 0.02% was measured over this load range in a 5 V to 2 V converter with a switching period of 10 s. Table II lists some measured results from this converter. Fig. 4 shows the transient response to a 4 V to 6 V line step imposed on the nominal 5 V to 2 V buck converter. The output effect is just barely discernible during the transient. A boost converter was designed to use SCM and provide nominal output of 210 V from a 72 V battery bus. This converter operates without an outer loop, and has been tested over a load

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(a) Fig. 4. Line transient response, 5 V to 2 V converter with SCM control; Top: input, 1 V/div. Bottom: output, 20 mV/div; Time: 50 s/div.

TABLE II DATA FOR SCM BUCK CONVERTER, L = 7 H, C = 660 F, T = 10 s

(b) Fig. 5. Inductor current and observer output comparisons for 72 V to 210 V boost converter at two load levels. (a) Continuous mode. Top: inductor current, 1 A/div; Bottom: v , 1 V/div; Time: 5 s/div. (b) Discontinuous mode; Top: inductor current, 0.5 A/div; Bottom: v , 0.5 V/div. Time: 5 s/div.

range of more than 250:1 without difficulty. At nominal load of 60 W, the output voltage in this converter changes by no more than 3.5% over a 40 V input swing. Fig. 5 shows inductor current and observer comparisons for this boost converter operating in continuous and discontinuous modes. The observer output is intended to be a scaled copy of the negative of the current, and the figure confirms this relationship. IV. CONCLUSION Sensorless current mode control uses an observer approach to reconstruct an inductor current state and to control a dcdc converter based on a current-mode technique. The noise performance and load range of SCM are dramatically enhanced compared to conventional current-mode techniques. There is a large difference in signal level between SCM and current mode controls. The SCM approach applies to all major types of dcdc converters, and the appropriate control laws for buck, boost, buck-boost, boost-buck, and SEPIC converters were listed. The

general SCM approach is a public domain technique for control of dcdc converters. Portions of this paper are based on the Ph.D. dissertation of Midya [13]. REFERENCES
[1] C. W. Deisch, Simple switching control method changes power converter into a current source, in Proc. IEEE Power Electron. Spec. Conf., 1979, pp. 300306. [2] R. D. Middlebrook, Topics in multiple-loop regulators and current-mode programming, in Proc. IEEE Power Electron. Spec. Conf., 1985, p. 716. [3] P. Midya and P. T. Krein, Closed-loop noise properties of PWM power converters, in Proc. IEEE Power Electron. Spec. Conf., 1995. [4] W. Tang, F. C. Lee, and R. B. Ridley, Small-signal modeling of average current-mode control, IEEE Trans. Power Electron., vol. 8, pp. 112119, Mar. 1993. [5] W. Tang, F. C. Lee, R. B. Ridley, and I. Cohen, Charge control: modeling, analysis and design, IEEE Trans. Power Electron., vol. 8, pp. 396403, July 1993. [6] T. G. Habetler and D. M. Divan, Control strategies for direct torque control using discrete pulse modulation, IEEE Trans. Ind. Applicat., vol. 27, pp. 893901, Sept./Oct. 1991.

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[7] K. H. Kim, S. K. Chung, I. C. Baik, and M. J. Youn, Parameter estimation and control for permanent magnet synchronous motor drive using model reference adaptive technique, in Proc. 1995 IEEE Int. Conf. Ind. Electron., 1995, pp. 387392. [8] P. T. Krein, P. Midya, and U. Ekambaram, A distributed low-voltage power converter, Tech. Rep. UILU-ENG-932563, Univ. of Illinois, Urbana, 1993. [9] K. M. Smedley and S. Cuk, One cycle control of switching converters, IEEE Trans. Power Electron., vol. 10, pp. 625633, Nov. 1995. , Dynamics of one cycle controlled Cuk converters, IEEE Trans. [10] Power Electron., vol. 10, pp. 634639, Nov. 1995. [11] B. Arbetter and D. Maksimovic, Feedforward pulse width modulators for switching power converters, IEEE Trans. Power Electron., vol. 12, pp. 361368, Mar. 1997. [12] K. M. Smedley, One-cycle controlled switching circuit, U.S. patent 5 278 490, Jan. 1994. [13] P. Midya, Nonlinear control and operation of dc to dc switching power converters, Ph.D. thesis, Univ. of Illinois, Urbana, 1995.

Pallab Midya (S88M95SM99) received the B.Tech. degree (with honors) in electronics and electrical communication engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, in 1988, the M.S. degree in electrical engineering from Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY, in 1990, and the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, in 1995. Since 1995, he has been with Motorola Labs, Schaumburg, IL. His research interests include control and analysis of switched power converters, digital audio amplifiers, and efficient methods of generation and amplification of modulated RF signals. He has numerous publications and patents in these areas.

Philip T. Krein (S76M82SM93F00) received the B.S. degree in electrical engineering and the A.B. degree in economics from Lafayette College, Easton, PA, and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from the University of Illinois, Urbana. He was an engineer with Tektronix, Inc., Beaverton, OR, with responsibilities in analog design and product development, then returned to the University of Illinois, where he is now Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering. He is also Director of the Grainger Center for Electric Machinery and Electromechanics, University of Illinois, and a Visiting Reader at the University of Surrey, Guildford, U.K. His research interests include all aspects of power electronic systems, with emphasis on nonlinear and large-signal analysis and control methods. He is the author of an undergraduate textbook Elements of Power Electronics (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998). He holds ten U.S. and European patents. Dr. Krein received a Fulbright Scholar Award, in 1997, the 1990 IEEE Industry Applications Society First Prize Paper Award, and was a University Scholar at the University of Illinois. He was President of the IEEE Power Electronics Society in 1999 and 2000, and General Chair of the 1997 IEEE Power Electronics Specialists Conference. He is a registered Professional Engineer in the states of Illinois and Oregon.

Matthew F. Greuel received the B.S. degree in electrical engineering from the University of Illinois, Urbana, in 1995. He is an Engineering Supervisor for R.R. Donnelley & Sons, Mattoon, IL. His interests are machine control, variable frequency motor drives, and dcdc converter control.