Proceedings of the 2008 IEEE Conference on Innovative Technologies in Intelligent Systems and Industrial Applications Multimedia University, Cyberjaya,

Malaysia, 12-13 July 2008

An Investigation on Control Strategies for Fast Transient Response of SMPS

Jegandren.J, Gobbi.R and Hussain S.Athab
is required to eliminate this noise. The only disadvantage of the isolated dc-dc converter is the switching transformer produces high frequency ripple. A non-isolated dc-dc converter is low cost and simple, but prone to high amount of noises besides no short circuit protection, and is applicable only for low power applications up to 100W. There are several types of isolated dc-dc converter; they are flyback converter, push-pull converter, half-bridge converter and full bridge converter. In this paper only halfbridge converter is considered as it has many advantages which are suitable for many practical applications. Each switch in the half-bridge converter switching circuit has half the voltage stress of push-pull converter, due to capacitive voltage divider arrangement. The transformer core is operated in the first and third quadrant of the B-H loop [1]. So the half-bridge primary transformer winding has half the turns for the same input voltage and power compared to transformer used in flyback converter. Moreover, the leakage energy of inductance is returned to the input capacitor instead of being dissipated in resistive snubbers, this further increases the efficiency of the half-bridge converter. Another significant advantage is that the secondary transformer winding of half-bridge converter produces a full-wave output rather than a half-wave output. Thus, the square-wave frequency in the half-bridge converter is twice that of the non-isolated dc-dc converter and flyback converter, so the associated filter circuits can be much smaller. There are two feedback control methods that are widely used in SMPS; one is the voltage mode control (VMC) that senses only the output voltage, Vout and another is current mode control (CMC) that senses both the Vout and the filter inductor current as the feedback signals. The solution to meet the increasing demand for future practical applications is with a fast transient response of SMPS. In a SMPS, generally transient response is limited by two circuits that are the feedback control circuit and the filter circuit. The feedback control circuit can be easily designed to perform very fast and effective with the help of high-speed microcontrollers. However, transient response due to the effect of filter circuit cannot be improved easily. Fig. 1 shows the block diagram of a typical SMPS.

Abstract This paper presents a thorough literature reviews of control methods to improve transient response in switch mode power supply (SMPS). A fast transient response to a step load change is very essential in a power supply. The transient response can be improved by means of feedback control method. There are two feedback control methods widely used for SMPS that are, voltage mode control (VMC) and peak current mode control (PCMC). A simulation study on these feedback control methods has been done using Matlab/Simulink. It is found that the PCMC helps the SMPS for a faster transient response compared to the VMC. Based on all the reviews a new method is being investigated known as Voltage Injection Switching Inductor (VISI) method. This feedback control method provides a better transient response to PCMC. The comparison of these simulation results validates the proposed idea.

I. INTRODUCTION

s the technology grows, the speed, complexity and performance of modern systems increase, that result to a harsher loading requirement on power supplies. High frequency switch-mode pulse width modulated (PWM) acdc and dc-dc power converters have become the power supplies of choice in most systems because of their superior efficiency and small size. A switch mode power supply (SMPS) is a power supply that provides function through low loss components such as capacitors, inductors, transformers and the use of switches that are in one of two states, either on or off. The main advantage of SMPS is that the converters switches dissipate very little power and power conversion can be accomplished with minimal power loss, which equates to high efficiency. Dc-dc converters which are used in SMPS can be of isolated or non-isolated. In an isolated dc-dc converter the input and output are separated mechanically by means of a transformer. Whereas, a non-isolated dc-dc converter, do not have transformer to isolate the input and the output circuits. Isolated dc-dc converter is mainly for safety consideration and to reject common mode voltage. Common-mode voltage in terms of ac power is the noise signal between the neutral and the ground conductor that affects output voltage measurement of the SMPS. Isolation to the output circuitry
This work was supported in part by Pentamaster Instrument Sdn.Bhd, Malaysia. Jegandren.J is with Faculty of Engineering, Multimedia University, Malaysia (e-mail: jackkool007@yahoo.co.uk). Gobbi.R is with Faculty of Engineering, Multimedia University, Malaysia (e-mail: gobbi@mmu.edu.my). Hussain S.Athab is with Faculty of Engineering, Multimedia University, Malaysia (e-mail: hussain@mmu.edu.my).

978-1-4244-2416-0/08/$20.002008 IEEE 110

DC-DC Converter AC voltage Bridge Rectifier Switching Circuit Transformer Output Rectifier Filter Circuit Output

Feedback Control Circuit

Fig. 1. Block diagram of a typical SMPS

method is employed. Here, the same output voltage signal is monitored by the feedback control circuit which produces PWM signals with duty ratio of either 1 for increase of load or 0 for decrease of load. However this approach is not applicable to half-bridge and full-bridge converters, because setting the PWM signals duty cycle to 1 during transient operation creates short circuit across the primary terminals of the isolated transformer [4]. D. Double Non-Isolated DC-DC Converter Approach This approach uses two buck converters. One is the main converter and another is the auxiliary converter with lower filter inductance. The output power of the SMPS is the total output power given by both of these converters. Each converter has its own feedback control circuit which monitors the output voltage signal. The main converter works in the similar manner as the linear control method explained in section 2.3 during steady state operation. During transient operation, the auxiliary converter switches are switched in the similar manner as non-linear control method explained in section 2.3. Using this approach a fast transient response could be achieved. However SMPS which uses this approach has high switching loss hence lower efficiency. Beside it has large physical size and costly compared to SMPS with single buck converter [5]. E. Two Stage DC-DC Power Converter Approach This approach uses two dc-dc converters. The first converter is a buck converter and the second is a half-bridge converter. These two converters are connected in series such that the output of the buck converter is the input for the halfbridge converter. The duty ratio of the PWM signals for the half-bridge converter is always set to 0.5. The output voltage of the half-bridge converter and the filter inductor current of the buck converter are measured and send to the feedback control circuit. In the feedback control circuit, these current and voltage values are processed based on a current control method before PWM signal is send to the switch of the buck converter. The details explanation of the current control method will be given later in this paper. This approach however produces additional losses due to the additional switches [6]. III. FEEDBACK CONTROL METHODS There are two feedback control methods; one is the voltage mode control and another current mode control. The main purpose of these control methods is to adjust the duty cycle of the PWM to regulate the output voltage. Voltage mode control method is also called as a single loop control method because only the output voltage, Vout is sensed and used in the feedback control circuit. Current mode control method uses two feedback signals that are the output voltage and the filter inductor current. Both of these control methods are described in detail in this section. A. Voltage Mode Control (VMC) The most extended dc-dc converter uses voltage mode

II.

LITERATURE REVIEW ON APPROACHES TO IMPROVE TRANSIENT RESPONSE

Generally there are five approaches which have been investigated to improve the transient response of SMPS. Each approach manipulates either the feedback control circuit or the filter circuit to achieve fast transient response. A. Voltage Injection Control (VIC) Approach The main idea of voltage injection control (VIC) is to send a signal to the feedback control circuit to increase or decrease the pulse width of the converter switch before the load is applied or removed. The pulse width is varied by injecting an appropriate value of voltage, called injection voltage, Vinj into the error voltage, Verror. The Vinj is calculated offline for each possible load switching and is stored in a look-up table. Therefore, significant improvement in transient response can only be obtained if an appropriate value of Vinj is injected. This approach can only be used for a SMPS to improve transient response where detail knowledge of the load characteristics is available [2]. B. Stepping Inductor Approach This approach varies the effective inductance of the filter circuit with an aim to vary the time constant of SMPS. This is done by connecting a low value inductor through a switch in parallel to filter inductor. During steady state load condition, the low value inductor will be isolated from the filter inductor. This maintains high time constant of the filter circuit to produce smooth output current. During transient load condition, the low value inductor is connected in parallel to the filter inductor to reduce the effective filter inductance. This reduces the time constant of the filter circuit and allows fast recovering of output current. However this approach causes high current ripple during transient condition, which causes high root mean square current in the converter switches and filter components and increases power losses [3]. C. Linear-Non-Linear Approach In this approach, an improvement in the feedback control circuit to achieve a fast transient response. There are two control methods which are applied to a buck converter to get fast transient response. One is a linear control method where the output voltage signal is monitored by the feedback control circuit which produces PWM signals to the converter switch. This method is used during steady state operation of the SMPS. During transient operation, where there are load changes, the second method called non-linear control

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control (VMC), where there is a single feedback loop with the output voltage used as the feedback signal. Fig. 2 shows the block diagram of feedback control circuit employing the VMC. Output voltage, Vout from the dc-dc converter is sensed and compared to a reference voltage Vref. The difference between the Vref and the Vout is known as Verror. Verror is then compared with a fixed frequency triangular waveform, and the output is a pulse-width modulated (PWM) signal that is used to control the switch. When Verror is positive, the PWM duty ratio is decreased so that the ON time of the switch is for a longer period. Whereas when the Verror is negative, the PWM duty ratio is increased and the switch is ON for a shorter period. When Verror is zero, the previous PWM duty ratio is maintained.
To Switching Circuit Logic Circuit Clock Signal PCMC Triangular Wave PWM

large-amplitude triangular waveform used in the feedback control circuit provides a good noise margin for a stable modulation process. Hence, VMC can be considered for noisy applications [7]. Slow transient response is one of the drawbacks of the VMC. This is because, for sudden changes in load, the filter components provide a time delay before the output voltage response to the load change. Another drawback is the VMC is prone to unbalanced switching of both switches in the half-bridge converter during load change. The unbalanced switching would lead to saturation in the transformer. Besides, in VMC there is no cycle-by-cycle load over current protection since the output current is not monitored by the feedback control circuit. B. Current Mode Controller (CMC) As a brief introduction, when a constant current flows in a fixed load resistor, it generates a constant voltage. But if the load resistor changes in order to maintain the same constant voltage, the current level has to change. That is exactly what current mode control of switching converters is all about. The idea behind the current mode control is to create a voltage - controlled ideal current source. This current source is to ensure a constant voltage at the output of the dc-dc power converter regardless of load current changes. Current mode controller (CMC) is implemented through two control loops. A current control loop (inner loop), which monitors the filter inductor current information, creates the voltage-controlled current source. The second loop is a voltage loop (outer loop), which monitors the converter's output voltage and constantly controls the current source to regulate the output voltage at a given set point [8]. The PWM used in current-mode control can be operated either at fixed frequency or at variable frequency. Fixed frequency current controllers are such as peak current mode controller (PCMC), valley current mode controller (VCMC) and average current mode controller (ACMC). Variable frequency current controller is such as hysteric current mode controller (HCMC). Generally the controllers would be named based on the type of filter inductor current information being sensed or how the information is used to control the switches. PCMC is a powerful feedback controller when it comes to fixed frequency current mode controllers. It senses the peak filter inductor current information when the switch is on, then uses it to turn off the switch. Controlling the turnoff event of the switch is commonly referred to as "trailing edge modulation". The advantage of PCMC to other fixed frequency current controllers are it has a faster response to load and line changes, simpler loop compensation requirements as well as inherent peak current limit protection [9]. However PCMC suffers from sub-harmonic oscillation at duty cycle which is more than 50%. Furthermore, dc-dc converter which utilizes PCMC would have a minimum ontime limitation due to time delays required to properly sense the peak filter inductor current when the switch is on. When

Verror Vref

Vout

Fig. 2. Block diagram of Feedback Control Circuit employing VMC

Since, the half-bridge converter employs two switches, the single PWM pulse is converted to two 180 out-of-phase pulses of the same width. This is done with a clock signal and logic circuitry as shown in Fig. 2. Fig. 3 shows a clearer picture on the positioning of pulses during the operation of VMC. Fig. 3a) shows the interaction of Verror and the triangular waveform. As seen at t1 to t3 the PWM pulse is low all the while, this is the time it takes for the Verror to reach from a desired voltage to the triangular wave amplitude. The PWM pulse width variates only when the Verror regulates between the triangular wave amplitude. Logic circuit that is incorporated in the VMC feedback control circuit contains NOR logic and NOT logic. The logic circuit gets its input from a fixed frequency clock signal and PWM pulse. In the logic circuit the fixed frequency clock signal is separated into 2 clock signals with 180 out of phase signals using NOT logic as shown in Fig. 3c). Each of these clock signals are supplied to logic NOR gate, together with PWM pulse. The output of each of the NOR gate is supplied as an input to the switching circuitry of the dc-dc converter. Fig. 3d) shows the pulses from the logic circuit.
Verror Triangular Wave t1 PWM pulse Clock1 Clock 2 Pulse to switch 1 Pulse to switch 2 d) c) t2 t3 t4 b) a) t5 t6 t7 t8 t9

Fig. 3. Pulses in VMC

There are two main advantages of the VMC. One is VMC requires simple hardware implementation due to the single feedback loop that is easier to design and analyze. Second, a

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low duty-cycle operations are demanded, the trailing-edge PCMC has a disadvantage. Filter inductor current information in trailing-edge PCMC is sensed across the high-side switch. During turn-on of the high-side switch, the switch node will exhibit a lot of ringing due to parasitic on that node. Therefore, PCMC usually employ blanking time before sensing the filter inductor current. Normal values for blanking time are around 200 ns to 300 ns. Due to the blanking time requirement, trailing-edge PCMC will not be able to regulate to very low high-side switch on-time requirements that is less than 200ns because the on time is shorter than the 200ns blanking time. Fig. 4 shows the blanking period and the high side switch on time.

IL

Vsense
Blanking High side Switch on-time

Fig. 4. Blanking Period and High side switch on time.

VCMC senses the valley filter inductor current information when the switch is off, then uses it to turn on the switch. Controlling the turn-on event of the switch is commonly referred to as "leading edge modulation". VCMC does solve the problem of minimum on time that happens in PCMC. However it also has some disadvantages and may be the reason why very few commercial regulators employ this control method. For VCMC sub-harmonic instability will occur when the duty cycle is less than 50%. Eliminating this oscillation would require a compensating ramp which has a slope greater than one-half of the inductor current up-slope. Moreover, VCMC has a slower transient response to sudden input voltage changes when compared to PCMC [10]. ACMC senses average filter inductor current as the feedback information. The advantage of ACMC is it does not have the problem of sub-harmonic oscillation as in PCMC and VCMC, so there is no need for slope compensation. The disadvantage of ACMC is it gives a slower transient response to change of load. HCMC senses both the peak and valley filter inductor current information to turn the switch on and off. This feedback control produces high ripple because it runs on a changing frequency. In this work a fast transient response to a change of load is the main aim, so PCMC is used as the feedback control circuit for the dc-dc converter. 1) Peak Current Mode Control (PCMC) In this section, a peak current mode control (PCMC) is explained. Fig. 5 shows the block diagram of PCMC. Here, the feedback control loop is set, so that Verror is not

compared to a triangular waveform as in VMC, but to a ramp signal which represents the peak filter inductor current. As seen from Fig. 5 there are two feedbacks from the dc-dc converter, one is the current from the filter inductor and the other is the output voltage, Vout. Basically the Vout is compared with a Vref and the output is Verror. In VMC the Verror is actually compared with a triangular wave but in PCMC the Verror is compared to a peak filter inductor current. When the peak filter inductor current is equal to the Verror, then the comparator outputs a pulse 1 else the comparator would give an output pulse 0. The pulse from the comparator is supplied to a logic circuit. The logic circuit consists of RS flip-flop, AND logic and NOT logic. The RS flip-flop outputs a PWM pulse based on the clock signal and comparator output pulse. Fig. 6 shows a clearer picture on the positioning of pulses in PCMC. A clock signal with a fixed frequency generates a narrow pulse to the set pin of the RS flip-flop. At each and every clock pulse the RS flip-flop is set to 1, causing its PWM pulse, to go high. The duration of the high time of the PWM pulse is the duration of on time of one of switch in the switching circuit. During this time the peak filter inductor current rises due to charging phenomena. When the peak inductor current IL equals to Verror, the comparator resets the RS flip-flop and the PWM pulse goes low. At this particular time the filter inductor appears to be in the discharging phenomena. The discharging phenomena occur until the RS flip-flop is set again by the fixed frequency clock signal for the next cycle.
To Switching Circuit Logic Circuit Clock Signal PCMC Reset pulse

Verror Vref

Vout

IL

Fig. 5. Block diagram of Feedback Control Circuit employing PCMC.

Set t1 Filter inductor current waveform Reset PWM pulse Clock1 Clock 2 Pulse to switch 1 Pulse to switch 2 t2 t3 t4 t5 t6 t7 t8 t9

Verror

Fig. 6. Pulses in PCMC.

IV. SIMULATION RESULTS In this study, a 300W, 25V SMPS simulation model is developed using Matlab/Simulink simulation tool. The SMPS is built using the half-bridge converter. Both the voltage mode and current mode control methods are tested separately. As suggested, in the previous sections only peak current mode control method is studied. The main aim of

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this simulation study is to investigate the transient response of both the control methods. For this, the load is changed from half load to full load, which is from 6A to 12A and the results are depicted as in Fig. 7. Table 1 shows the numerical results based on Fig. 7 for both control methods.
Table 1 Numerical result for VMC and PCMC

Maximum voltage undershoot Settling time Maximum spike

VMC 3.7V 400 s 2.2V

PCMC 0.6V
200 s

null
PCMC Vout VMC Vout

28 27 26
Vout (V)

25 24
24.4 V

23 22
21.3 V

21 0.0098 0.01 0.0102 0.0104 Time (sec.) 0.0106 0.0108

(higher inductance), that serve the purpose as to reduce the effective inductance during step increase of load. The voltage that is applied to the lower inductance is somehow the output voltage. This method causes high ripple and step increase of load causes the duty cycle to go beyond 50%, hence this leads to sub-harmonic oscillations. e.) Based on all the reviews that a new method is being investigated known as Voltage Injection Switching Inductor (VISI) method. Basically this method injects a high dc voltage from the input to the lower inductance filter inductor during step increase of load .So when a high dc voltage passes through a smaller effective inductance, the rate of change of current that is supplied to the load would be faster. Another added advantage of VISI is during step up of the load the duty cycle of the switch is eventually reduced smaller than the steady state switching cycle. Hence there is no problem of sub-harmonic oscillations because the duty cycle does not go more than 50 %. Initial simulation study shows that this method improves the transient response in SMPS by 88.33 %. Fig. 8 shows the result, in which the maximum voltage undershoot is 0.07V with a settling time of 70s and null maximum spike. Any how, a prototype of the SMPS with the VISI as the feedback control method is being developed and the authors of this paper are working towards this research direction.
VISI Vout

Fig. 7. Transient response for step change load from 6A to 12A for VMC and PCMC.

25.04 25.02

V.

DISCUSSION ON NEW CONTROL METHOD

Vout (V)

25 24.98 24.96 24.94 24.92 24.9 24.88 5.95 6 Time (sec.) 6.05 6.1 x 10
3

Based on literature studies and simulation investigations, following are the important points noted to derive a new control method for fast transient response of SMPS. a.) Based on simulation results, PCMC gives a faster transient response to step change of load compared to VMC. Among the several types of CMC explained in this paper, peak filter inductor current leads to a better transient response of SMPS. b.) Transient response in SMPS is actually limited by the feedback control circuit and the filter inductor in the dc-dc power converter. The feedback control circuit can be designed to be very fast and effective. But the improvement in the transient response is only achievable if the effect of filter inductor is taken into consideration when designing control system. However transient response is determined by the value of the filter inductor. c.) It is noted that lower filter inductance value helps a lot during transient operation of SMPS. However, it is not in favor during steady state operation where high amount of load current ripple is produced. d.) Many reviews have connected a lower inductance filter inductor in parallel to the main filter inductor

24.93 V

Fig. 8. Transient response for step change load from 6A to 12A for VISI.

VI. CONCLUSION In this paper, thorough literature reviews of control methods to improve transient response in SMPS were presented. Each review was accompanied with constructive comments which helped to derive the challenges as far as control method design for transient response improvement is concerned. Base on the derived challenges, a new control strategy was proposed in this paper. Simulation results comparing the proposed method and two commonly used control methods, the VMC and PCMC show conversely improvement in the transient response. However more

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development on the proposed control method is required and the authors are working towards this direction. REFERENCES
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