IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS, VOL. 34, NO.

3, MAY/JUNE 1998

597

White-Noise Modulation of High-Frequency

High-Intensity Discharge Lamp Ballasts
Laszlo Laskai, Senior Member, IEEE, Prasad N. Enjeti, Senior Member, IEEE, and Ira J. Pitel, Senior Member, IEEE

Abstract In this paper, a new method is proposed to avoid

acoustic-resonance-related instabilities in metal halide lamps
when operated with a high-frequency electronic ballast. Angle
modulation of the inverter switching pattern has been used as a
vehicle to randomize lamp driving frequency and to limit lamp
power spectrum below the instability threshold. The optimal
modulating pattern is obtained by studying the angle-modulated
spectra by periodic and random signals. Analysis is supported
by simulations and verified experimentally with the ballasting
of 250-W lamps.
Index Terms Acoustic resonance, ballast, high-intensity discharge lamp, metal halide lamp, white-noise modulation.

I. INTRODUCTION

O FLICKER, improved lumen maintenance, control over

lamp power and light color, longer lifetime, and smaller
and lighter ballasts are some of the advantages for driving
metal halide and other high-intensity discharge (HID) lamps
from a high-frequency source [1], [2], [13]. Nevertheless,
due to the occurrence of acoustic resonances, high-frequency
ballasting of HID lamps has been a major challenge.
The acoustic-resonance-related instabilities are rather well
described theoretically [2][8]. The periodic input power and
the subsequent energy exchange by elastic collisions between charged particles and neutral gas are the source of
pressure perturbations. As the input frequency is increased,
and an eigenfrequency is approached, a pressure-wave mode
becomes propagational, which, in turn, perturbs the discharge
path. Lamp properties that determine the eigenfrequencies
are known to vary with manufacturing tolerances (different
geometry or filling) and by lamp age.
Apart from lamp-related factors, which can be optimized
to reduce resonances [2], [14], innovative ballasting methods
are needed to make high-frequency operation possible with
existing lamps. Tuned high-frequency operation requires the
knowledge of resonance-free zones and, to operate in these
Paper MSDAD 971, presented at the 1994 Industry Applications Society
Annual Meeting, Denver CO, October 27, and approved for publication in
the IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS by the Production and
Application of Light Committee of the IEEE Industry Applications Society.
Manuscript released for publication May 19, 1997.
L. Laskai was with the Department of Electrical Engineering, Texas A&M
University, College Station, TX 77843-3148 USA. He is now with Corporate
Research and Development, General Electric Company, Schenectady, NY
12301 USA (e-mail: laskai@crd.ge.com).
P. N. Enjeti is with the Department of Electrical Engineering, Texas
A&M University, College Station, TX 77843-3148 USA (e-mail: enjeti@ee.tamu.edu).
I. J. Pitel is with Magna-Power Electronics, Inc., Boonton, NJ 07005 USA
(e-mail: i.pitel@ieee.org).
Publisher Item Identifier S 0093-9994(98)03878-X.

zones, resonant frequencies must be known and repeatable

between different lamps and manufacturers. Considering all
factors involved, it is not practical to operate HID lamps
without some form of ameliorative measure.
Lamp power spectrum spreading is one way to prevent
acoustic resonances, since generation of acoustic waves occurs
only if the sound-wave source is sufficiently high in the sensitive frequency region. A nonsinusoidal lamp voltage [9][11],
for instance, a square-wave voltage or an angle-modulated
lamp voltage [10], [12][15], has such a distributed power
spectrum. Square-wave operation distributes lamp spectra in a
theoretically infinite number of harmonics. Still, disadvantages
to this approach are limited power spectral term reduction
in lower order harmonics and aggravated electromagnetic
interference problems.
Angle modulation, an alternative, is well contained [18],
[19]. Wide-band frequency modulation [13][15] and phaseshift keying [12], with predetermined modulating patterns,
have been utilized to prevent lamp instabilities of a given
type. However, these modulations are not adequate to prevent
instabilities for all lamps of a given power rating made by
various manufacturers.
In response to these concerns, this paper proposes a new
method of stabilizing high-frequency operation of metal halide
lamps. The proposed method limits lamp power spectrum
below an instability threshold by randomizing the inverter
frequency. Randomization of the switching pattern, by way
of angle modulation or by randomization of the pulse position
or the pulsewidth, has been used to reduce acoustic noise in
motors and EMI in switching power supplies [21][24].
Angle-modulation process with random noise produces a
power density spectrum that is proportional to the first-order
probability density of the modulating noise. When lamp voltage (or current) frequency is modulated by random noise, lamp
power spectral density is continuous with low amplitude and
resonant
narrow bandwidth. This allows the use of high
inverters, preferred in electronic ballasting.
The proposed method retains all the advantages of conventional pulsewidth modulation (PWM), that is, real-time control,
linear operation, good transient response, and it contributes to
reduced EMI in the ballast.
In Section II of this paper, spectral behavior of anglemodulated waves with periodical modulation is investigated.
In Section III, the proposed random modulations are discussed
and compared to periodical modulations. Experimental results
of the prototype ballast [15] and practical implementation
issues in Section IV conclude the paper.

00939994/98$10.00 1998 IEEE

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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS, VOL. 34, NO. 3, MAY/JUNE 1998

(a)

(b)

(c)
Fig. 1. Normalized amplitude spectra of (a) an unmodulated wave ( = 0) and two angle-modulated waves (b)

II. ANGLE MODULATION WITH PERIODIC SIGNALS

We shall first consider the spectral characteristics of anglemodulated waves by periodic signals. Several periodic modulating patterns shall be examined, with the objective of
finding the optimal periodic modulating pattern. The desired
pattern is determined by the spectral behavior of the modulated
wave, that is, spectral density distribution, maximum spectral
components, and required bandwidth.
The spectral behavior of the modulated wave by standard
modulating patterns, such as sine wave, square wave, triangular, and saw tooth, have been investigated in prior research
[12][15].
The commonly used description of a sinusoidal anglemodulated wave is
where

(1)

or
contains the
where the instantaneous phase
modulating signal
is a constant, represents time, and
is the angular frequency of the carrier, in this case, lamp
voltage (or lamp current) [16][19].
Phase and frequency modulations are two closely related
angle-modulation methods. In the case of phase modulation,
the modulating signal is directly proportional to the instantaneous phase
or
, and for frequency modulation, the
modulating signal is directly proportional to the first derivative
of
or
.
To study spectral behavior of the modulated wave
in
steady state, we shall define its amplitude spectral density
and its average power spectral density
, assuming
that, in mathematical terms,
is a real function, defined over

 > 10 and (c)  = 50.

, and its integrable as

in
[17]. Hence, the amplitude spectral density
a Fourier transform of the modulated wave

[16],
is defined as
:
(2)

is the modulated wave angular frequency.

where
Further, in the interval
, the average power spectral
density
, across unit resistance load, is
(3)
where
.

denotes the modulus of the amplitude spectrum

A. Angle Modulation by Sine Wave

The power spectrum density
of an angle-modulated
wave modulated by a sinusoidal modulating signal
, for sufficiently small frequency deviations and
slow sweeps about the carrier frequency, is

(4)
where
for
for
or

LASKAI et al.: WHITE-NOISE MODULATION OF HIGH-FREQUENCY HID LAMP BALLASTS

(a)

599

(b)

(c)

Fig. 3. Limiting spectra for (a) sine wave, (b) square wave, and (c) symmetrical sweep or saw tooth.

Fig. 2. Normalized maximum term versus modulating index.

For phase and frequency modulations

modulation index is defined as

and

, the
(5)
(6)

where
and
represent constants. Typical spectra for
several modulation indices are shown in Fig. 1. Observe the
relationship between amplitude of the power spectrum to the
modulation index.
The average power of the modulated wave
(7)
is independent with angle modulation; however, carrier and
sidebands, spaced at
, can vary. According to (4),
,
the magnitude of the spectral terms is determined by
denoting Bessel functions of the first kind. Fig. 2 illustrates
the impact of the modulation index increase on the maximum
spectral term
.
The maximum spectral term, which can excite an acoustic
. For the
resonance, can be minimized by making
theoretical limit case [17], or
, the power spectra is

(8)

decrease in bandwidth. This is an obvious conclusion from

(9) for phase modulations. In a similar manner, the same
principle applies to a frequency-modulated spectrum, since
the modulating index, (6), is inversely proportional to the
modulating frequency.
Fig. 4 shows the experimental current waveforms for periodic modulations. Sine-wave modulated lamp current and
its amplitude spectrum are shown in Fig. 4(a) and (b). It has
been experimentally determined that a tenfold reduction in the
maximum current spectral term is necessary to stabilize all
trial lamps. To obtain this reduction, the required bandwidth
kHz
for sine-wave modulating signal was
(
and
Hz).
The choice of center frequency had no bearing on the
results; it was varied in the range of 2040 kHz, a range
limited by our setup. For the depicted spectrum, the center
frequency was tuned to keep the power spectrum just above
the audio range. Note that the pressure driving frequency is
twice the supply frequency, since the average rate of energy
absorbed by electrons is proportional to the square of the input
voltage [4]. For sine-wave modulations, this means that, by
distributing energy in the 1742-kHz frequency range, we are
preventing pressure perturbances in the 3484-kHz range.
One disadvantage of such a wide bandwidth, noticeable
in Fig. 4(b), is undesirable amplitude modulation. Resonant
networks, which are frequently used in high-frequency ballast
for impedance matching, attenuate spectral components unevenly. This can cause high-current crest factors in the lamp
and shorten lamp life.
B. Angle Modulation by a Square Wave

as illustrated in Fig. 3(a). In summary, wideband sine-wave

modulations lead to uneven spectral distributions.
According to (4), angle-modulated spectra require an infinite
bandwidth. In practice, according to Carsons estimate, 98%
of the total power is contained in a bandwidth determined by
the maximum frequency deviation and maximum frequency
of the modulating signal [16]. For wide-band modulations, the
required bandwidth is

As previously discussed, we wish to estimate the spectral

behavior for high-modulation indices. Due to similarities in
phase- and frequency-modulated spectra, as highlighted in
the previous section, we shall consider only the frequencymodulated spectrum. Fig. 5 shows a typical amplitude spec. As
,
trum obtained by simulations for
the FM wave spectral density becomes

(9)
(10)

(11)

for phase and frequency modulations, respectively.

If the maximum frequency deviation is held constant, a
decrease in modulating frequency
carries a proportional

is the square-wave signal period. The limwhere

iting form spectrum is illustrated in Fig. 3(b). Theoretically, all
energy is in two delta pulses at the boundaries of the required

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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS, VOL. 34, NO. 3, MAY/JUNE 1998

(a)

(b)

(c)

(d)

(e)

(f)

Fig. 4. Experimental lamp current waveforms: (a) and (b) for sine-wave modulating signal; (c) and (d) for square-wave modulating signal; and (e) and
(f) for symmetrical sweep. (For all time-domain waveforms horizontal scale: 2 ms/div and vertical scale: 1 A/div; for all frequency-domain waveforms
horizontal scale: 5 kHz/div and vertical scale: 0.1 A/div.)

LASKAI et al.: WHITE-NOISE MODULATION OF HIGH-FREQUENCY HID LAMP BALLASTS

601

Fig. 7. Spectrum of band-limited white noise and correlated FM wave

spectrum.

III. PROPOSED BAND-LIMITED WHITE-NOISE MODULATIONS

Fig. 5. Typical square-wave-modulated amplitude spectrum (FM = 20).

Angle-modulated spectrum, produced through intermodulation by carrier and periodic modulating signal, as described
in (4) for sine-wave modulations (Fig. 1), has a discrete
spectral density. When random noise is the modulating signal,
which has a continuous spectrum, in addition to carrierrelated discrete term, the principal part of the angle-modulated
spectrum is continuous.
Strictly speaking, amplitude and power spectral densities
and
, as defined in (2) and (3), do not exist for
random processes, since integral in (2) does not converge as
. However, this can be circumvented in mathematical
terms by utilizing the WienerKhintchine relationship between
of a random process
,
autocorrelation function
defined as

Fig. 6. Amplitude spectrum for symmetrical sweep (FM = 20).

(13)

bandwidth. Somewhat better distribution can be achieved with

a more complex or random sequence [12], [16], [20].
Experimental waveforms are shown in Fig. 4(c) and (d).
For a tenfold maximum current spectral term reduction, the
required bandwidth is
kHz (
Hz). This
shows little benefit over sine-wave angle modulations.
C. Modulation by Saw Tooth or Symmetrical Sweep
Frequency modulations by a saw tooth or a symmetrical
sweep produce a similar spectrum. A typical amplitude spectrum for symmetrical sweep, shown in Fig. 6, suggests an
even power distribution and a well-utilized bandwidth. As
, the spectral density for both modulating signals,
shown in Fig. 3(c), becomes

where
denotes the expected value operator and power
spectral density function
. According to this relationship,
(14)
Power spectral density function
is defined as the Fourier
transform of the autocorrelation function
.
While the mathematical tools for analysis of the angle
modulations by random processes change from before, as
noise is described in terms of statistical properties, essential
properties, such as one estimated by Carsons rule, remain the
same.
According to the principle of adiabatic frequency sweeps
[17], for large modulation indices, the power density of the
angle-modulated wave is proportional to the first-order probability density of the frequency-modulating process. Hence, for
phase modulation by a random noise
, the modulated
wave spectral density is

(12)
(15)
represents the maximum frequency deviation,
where
is the modulating signal frequency. Accordand
ing to (12), the modulation index increase is proportional to the
maximum amplitude decrease; unlike for sine-wave-modulated
spectra, this relationship is linear.
Experimental results, illustrated in Fig. 4(e) and (f), show
a 50% reduction in bandwidth over that of sine-wave modulation.

where

and
represents the density distributions of the derivate
of the modulating noise.

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(a)
(a)

(b)
Fig. 8. (a) Experimental modulating noise time-domain waveform (horizontal scale: 20 ms/div, vertical scale: 100 mV/div), and (b) its spectrum
(horizontal scale: 25 Hz/div, vertical scale: 50 mV/div).

Frequency-modulated wave spectral density by noise

, with a bandwidth
, is similar to the
process
phase-modulated one, (15), since phase modulation by a noise
process
is equivalent to frequency modulation by noise
. Hence,
process
(16)
where

In this instance, spectral density is proportional to the firstorder density distribution

of the modulating noise
.
When noise is the modulating signal, the presence or
absence of a discrete carrier term emerges as a difference
between angle-modulated wave spectra. The exact calculation
of the carrier contribution is relatively complicated and is
beyond the scope of this paper. For phase modulations, the
vanishes rapidly, and there
noise contribution around

(b)
Fig. 9. (a) Experimental band-limited white-noise-modulated lamp current
(horizontal scale: 2 ms/div, vertical scale: 1 A/div) and (b) its fast Fourier
transform (FFT) (horizontal scale: 5 kHz/div, vertical scale: 0.1 A/div).

is always a residual carrier term. The existence of a carrier

term in a frequency-modulated spectrum is a function of
. When the
noise spectral characteristics at and around
modulating noise spectrum contains terms in this range, all
energy is in the continuum and no carrier appears [17].
White noise, as do most tractable noise signals, has a normal
or Gaussian distribution. Hence, according to the principle
of adiabatic sweep, the main contribution of the frequencymodulated spectrum, (16), is a term proportional to Gaussian
distribution. Spectral densities of the band-limited white noise
and the correlated frequency-modulated wave are illustrated
in Fig. 7.
According to (16), spectral reduction is achieved by increas. Like before, this will increase
ing the modulating index
modulated-wave spectral bandwidth. As for periodic signals,
this can be counterbalanced by reducing the modulating noise
.
bandwidth
Relevant experimental waveforms are shown in Figs. 8
and 9. Fig. 8(b) shows the FFT of the band-limited white
noise, where bandwidth
Hz has been
selected to equal the modulating frequency used in periodical
modulations. For illustration, the corresponding time-domain

LASKAI et al.: WHITE-NOISE MODULATION OF HIGH-FREQUENCY HID LAMP BALLASTS

Fig. 10.

603

A unity power factor electronic ballast.

(a)

(b)

(c)
Fig. 11. Arc appearance with (a) 60-Hz magnetic ballast, (b) high-frequency electronic ballast with acoustic resonances, and (c) high-frequency electronic
ballast without acoustic resonances.

waveform is also shown in Fig. 8(a). The time-domain lamp

current waveform, Fig. 9(a), shows virtually no sign of amplitude modulations, and according to its FFT, Fig. 9(b),
the modulated wave bandwidth is
kHz. This
represents a bandwidth reduction of around 14 times over
comparable sinusoidal modulations.

IV. EXPERIMENTAL SETUP

Experimental waveforms, discussed during the analysis,
were obtained with an electronic ballast, shown in Fig. 10.
The ballast, developed at the Power Electronics Laboratory,
Texas A&M University, consists of a unity power factor input

rectifier section and a half-bridge series resonant inverter,

interfacing the lamp with the dc bus, as discussed in [15].
A digital pseudorandom sequence generator has been used
to generate white noise [25]. Uneven attenuation, shown
in Fig. 8(b), results from the second-order low-pass filter,
however, it carries no significance as lamp power spectrum
is determined by probability density of the modulating noise
and its bandwidth.
Two different lamps, MVR250/U and M250/U, made by GE
and Osram, were used in the experiments. Arc appearances
with a conventional 60-Hz ballast, with a high-frequency ballast with acoustic resonances and with a high-frequency ballast
without acoustic resonances, are shown in Fig. 11. There were

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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS, VOL. 34, NO. 3, MAY/JUNE 1998

no observable differences between important lamp properties

for 60-Hz or stable high-frequency operation. Observe that
arc bowing in horizontally operated 60-Hz arc is not present
at high frequencies. However, this change had no effect on
luminous flux or light quality.
V. CONCLUSION
In this paper, a new modulation method has been proposed to avoid acoustic-resonance-related problems in metal
halide lamps when operated with high-frequency electronic
ballasts. Angle modulation has been utilized to randomize the
inverter switching frequency and to limit lamp power spectrum
below the instability threshold. Along with the proposed
band-limited white-noise modulations, three different anglemodulation strategies were described, sine wave, square wave,
and symmetrical sweep.
To obtain stable operation with 250-W metal halide lamps,
which were used for experimental verification, the dominant
spectral terms were reduced by tenfold. To achieve this reduction, required modulated-wave bandwidth for the periodical
modulating signals was 1535 kHz and the proposed random
signal approach required only 2.5 kHz. The center or carrier
frequency was selected to be just above the audio frequency
range, hence, reducing EMI-related concerns.
The proposed stabilizing method allowed the use of high
resonant inverters for HID lamp ballasting. Experiments with
250-W lamps, made by different manufacturers, showed good
results.
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[1] I. J. Pitel, Emerging lighting control technologies: The alternatives and
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[2] J. de Groot and J. van Vliet, The High-Pressure Lamp. Deventer, The
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[3] M. Schulz and K. U. Ingard, Acoustic kink instability in an argon
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[5] H. L. Witting, Acoustic resonances in cylindrical high-pressure arc
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[6] J. W. Denneman, Acoustic resonances in high-frequency operated low
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[7] J. M. Davenport and R. J. Petti, Acoustic resonance phenomena in low
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[8] R. Schafer and H.-P. Stormberg, Investigations of the fundamental
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[10] Y. Koshimura et al., Stable high-frequency operation of high intensity
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[11] J. Park et al., Solid state chopper ballast for gaseous discharge lamps,
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[12] Ganser et al., Method of operating a high-pressure metal vapor discharge lamp and circuit arrangement for carrying out this method, U.S.
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lamps, J. Illum. Eng. Soc., pp. 131141, Summer 1988.
[14] S. Wada et al., Study of HID lamps with reduced acoustic resonances,
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[15] L. Laskai, P. Enjeti, and I. J. Pitel, A unity power factor electronic
ballast for metal halide lamps, in Proc. IEEE Applied Power Electronics
Conf., 1994, pp. 3137.

[16] J. D. Gibson, Principles of Digital and Analog Communications. New

York: Macmillan, 1993.
[17] D. Middleton, Introduction to Statistical Communication Theory. New
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[18] J. R. Carson and T. C. Fry, Variable frequency electric circuit theory
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[19] B. Van der Pol, Frequency modulation, Proc. IRE, vol. 18, no. 7, pp.
11941205, July 1930.
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Laszlo Laskai (M87SM96) received the Dipl.Ing. degree from the University of Novi Sad, Novi
Sad, Yugoslavia, in 1982 and the Ph.D. degree from
Texas A&M University, College Station, in 1994,
both in electrical engineering.
From 1983 to 1986, he was with Investproject, Novi Sad, Yugoslavia, working on standby
power generation and power distribution for large
industrial consumers. From 1986 to 1990, he was
with Chronar Corporation, Princeton, NJ where he
was involved in the development of power conversion equipment for photovoltaic applications and high-frequency ballasts for
gaseous discharge lamps. Since 1994, he has been with Corporate Research
and Development, General Electric Company, Schenectady, NY. His current
research interests are in lighting and medical electronics.
Dr. Laskai currently serves as Chairman and Transactions Editor for
the Production and Application of Light Committee of the IEEE Industry
Applications Society (IAS). He is also an active member of the IAS Industrial
Power Conversion Committee.

Prasad N. Enjeti (S86M88SM95) received the

B.E. degree from Osmania University, Hyderabad,
India, in 1980, the M.Tech. degree from the Indian
Institute of Technology, Kanpur, India, in 1982,
and the Ph.D. degree from Concordia University,
Montreal, Que., Canada, in 1987, all in electrical
engineering.
Following receipt of the Ph.D. degree, he joined
the Department of Electrical Engineering, Texas
A&M University, College Station, where he is currently an Associate Professor. His primary research
interests are advance converters for power supplies and motor drives, power
quality issues and active power filter development, utility interface issues and
clean power converter designs, and electronic ballasts for fluorescent HID
lamps. He is the Lead Developer of the Power Quality Laboratory, Texas
A&M University, and is actively involved in many projects with industries
and is engaged in teaching, research, and consulting in the area of power
electronics, power quality, and clean power utility interface issues.
Prof. Enjeti is a Registered Professional Engineer in the State of Texas. He
is Transactions Editor for the Industrial Power Converter Committee (IPCC)
of the IEEE Industry Applications Society (IAS) and an Associate Editor of
the IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER ELECTRONICS. He was the recipient of the
IAS Second and Third Best Paper Awards in 1993 and 1996, respectively,
the award for the second best transactions paper published in midyear 1994
to midyear 1995 in the IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS, and
the IAS Magazine Prize Article Award in 1996.

LASKAI et al.: WHITE-NOISE MODULATION OF HIGH-FREQUENCY HID LAMP BALLASTS

Ira J. Pitel (M73SM82) received the B.S. degree

from RutgersThe State University of New Jersey,
New Brunswick, the M.S. degree from Bucknell
University, Lewisburg, PA, and the Ph.D. degree
from Carnegie-Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA,
in 1972, 1975, and 1978, respectively.
From 1973 to 1976, he was with GTE Sylvania,
researching high-frequency ballasting techniques for
gaseous discharge lighting. He joined Bell Laboratories in 1978 and Exxon Enterprises in 1979. At
Exxon, he was involved in high-power converter
structures for ac motor drives, power processing for advanced battery systems,
and controlled lighting. He was eventually transferred to one of Exxons
subsidiaries, Cornell-Dubilier Electronics, where he was Manager of Research
and Development. In 1981, he founded Magna-Power Electronics, Boonton,
NJ, a company specializing in custom and standard power conditioning
products. As President, he is responsible for contract research and development
and manufacturing of its line of 10500-kW dc power supplies. In 1986, he
joined Texas A&M University as an Adjunct Associate Professor. His research
interests are high-power ac-to-dc converters, static inverters, spacecraft power
supplies, and specialty lighting controls. He holds 21 patents in the field of
power electronics.
Dr. Pitel is the co-recipient of the 1995 Society Prize Paper Award of the
IEEE Industry Applications Society (IAS). He served as Committee Chairman
of the IAS Industrial Power Converter Committee in 19881989, Department
Chairman of the IAS Industrial Power Conversion Systems Department in
19941995, and IAS Society Secretary and Vice President in 1997 and 1998,
respectively. He is a member of Eta Kappa Nu and Tau Beta Pi.

605