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Design of class-A chopper for minimizing load voltage ripple

Conference Paper · December 2012

DOI: 10.1109/IICPE.2012.6450498

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Design of Class-A Chopper for Minimizing Load
Voltage Ripple
Anupam Agarwal`
Electronics & Comm. Engg..
Jagannath University,
Jaipur, India
anupamagarw@gmail.com
Abstract: This paper proposes two optimization
techniques to determine the duty cycle of the class A
chopper. It also computes the components of the low
pass filter (LPF) to minimize the ripples in the output
voltage and current. These techniques are implemented
in MATLAB 7.7. The optimized results obtained are also
compared with hardware one. The microcontroller
generated the square wave which amplified by driver IC
to switch the MOSFET for chopping purpose.
Keywords: DC-DC power conversion, chopper class A,
optimization techniques, buck converter, speed control of dc
motor.
I. INTRODUCTION
Society has entered the digital age in which many of
daily activities depend on computers, the internet, and
many other digital devices. These devices consume
electrical power. Compact and efficient power
converters are therefore becoming a critical
technology need for an energy-efficient digital society
[4]. DC-DC converters are some of the simplest power
electronic circuits. They are widely used in the power
supply equipments for most electronic instruments
and also in specialised high-power applications such
as battery charging, plating and welding [3], [6].
Improvements in semiconductors produce very cost
effective choppers with high efficiency and relatively
low cost [7]. DC machines have been used with great
success for drive applications for more than one
hundred years [7], as well as, DC motor drives enjoy
the advantage of high controllability and are pertinent
to many applications such as steel mining, paper and
textile industries, robotics manipulations. Some of
these applications serve better if these are fed from a
variable DC voltage source [2]. For this purpose
several control strategies are proposed as
(i) Constant Frequency Control
(ii) Variable Frequency Control
In former control, duty cycle is varied (PWM
technique) [2] and in latter, the on-time Ton or off-time
Toff is kept constant (Frequency modulation
technique).
The switch control techniques most widely used in
practical dc–dc converters are pulse width modulation
(PWM), which controls the turn-on duty ratio of each
MOSFET with a fixed switching frequency, and
pulse-frequency modulation (PFM), which controls
the switching frequency by constraining the peak
current flowing through the inductor. Each control
Dr. Dheeraj Joshi
Electrical & Electronics Engg.
Delhi Technical University,
Delhi, India
ee.dheeraj@gmail.com
technique has its own advantages and shortcomings.
Fig. 1. Conventional PWM buck dc dc converter
DC–DC converters controlled by PWM generate less
ripple in the output voltage, their switching noises are
easier to filter out, and they are more efficient under
heavy loading, whereas dc–dc converters controlled
by PFM exhibit higher efficiency with light loads [8].
Generally PWM technique is widely used for motor
control applications.
This paper presents optimization techniques for
determining the duty cycle and component values of
the LPF. It is assumed that the conduction mode is
continuous type. Fig. 1 represents the conventional
PWM buck DC DC converter.
Fig.2. indicates the circuit diagram for the proposed
system. A dc–dc converter needs to be selected
carefully to meet the constraints of a particular
application. The system consists of a dc – dc converter
along with low pass filter for resistive load. The
performance of output voltage and current having
resistive load will depend on the component values of
the LPF and the duty cycle. For this purpose two
optimization techniques are proposed here.
Equations (1) to (3) shows the objective functions
(OF) which are minimized by proposed optimization
techniques.
(a) Peak-to-peak ripple voltage
(1)
(b)Peak-to-peak ripple current
(2)
(c) Combine ripple current and ripple voltage
(3)
 V4
12V
+V
L1
6.93mH
V2
5V
+V
R4
R1 D2 C1 3.295
330 1N4004 582uF

U1 R2
V1 OP4N25 10K
0/5V Q1
IRFI520G

200 Hz R3 D1
100K 1N4735

V3
+V12V

Fig. 2. Circuit diagram for class A chopper along with low pass
filter.
where Vs is the supply voltage, k being the duty cycle,
L being the inductance of LPF, C, the capacitance of
LPF and f, the frequency of operation [1]. These three
objective functions ensure that the output voltage and
current will be free from ripples.
Since in the expression for ripple voltage, three
variables as inductance, capacitance and duty cycle
are used so optimization through spherical method is
used and for the expressions of ripple current and
combine ripple current and ripple voltage, which are
of two variables (keeping capacitance constant),
optimization through circular method is used. The
Fig. 4. Flowchart of proposed circular algorithm.
frequency used here is 22.9KHz because high
frequency reduces the size of the components of LC
Fig. 3 and Fig. 4 show the optimization process using
low pass filter [5]. The minimization of ΔVc, ΔI and
circle method.
ΔVc + ΔI is done with the help of the above
B) Spherical Method
mentioned methods in MATLAB programming and
This method is approximately same as the circular
the flowcharts are presented in the subsequent
one. The difference lies in its three dimensionality and
sections.
selection of the minimum value from the square
II. PROPOSED OPTIMIZATION TECHNIQUES
matrix.
A) Circular Method
In this method, the three coordinates are calculated as
As mentioned above, this method deals with
according to the formula,
optimization problems for two variables. The
circumference points in each iteration are obtained
using (4) (5)
X = X0 + a cos (θ) and Y = Y0 + a sin (θ) (4)
These circumference points or coordinates are then
implemented in the objective function and a saddle After calculating the surface points, the coordinates
point is obtained. This saddle point along with the are tested for their validity in the specified range and
optimised value of the objective function is stored at then applied in the objective function. Thus for each
some location for future use. Now next iteration gives iteration, a square matrix is constructed containing the
another saddle point and a corresponding objective values of the objective function for each surface point.
function value, which is stored in next location Then the minimum value (local minima) is found out
corresponding to the previous saddle point. Finally, from the resulting square matrix which is stored in
after obtaining all the saddle points and the another matrix. This matrix is sorted out to obtain
corresponding objective function values, global global minima and the corresponding coordinates. In
minima is obtained amongst them. the Fig. 5, the points at which the longitude and
latitudes are meeting are the points calculated by set
of equation (5). These points are then evaluated
according to the algorithm for optimization.

Fig. 3. Moving circles Fig. 5. Moving Spherical as according to algorithm in Spherical

Method
 III HARDWARE SCHEMATIC DIAGRAM
Fig. 7 shows the schematic diagram of the actual
hardware implemented.
The microcontroller used for generating the square
wave is P89C51RD2xx [9]. The programming for
generation of square wave was done in KEI. The
program was then burnt into the microcontroller using
FLASH MAGIC. The IC 2110[10] acts as driver
circuit as it raises the amplitude of square wave so as
to switch the MOSFET IRFP460 [11].
The LC low pass filter of 500µH and 1000µF is used
for pure DC supply at the load. The inductor L is used
to block ac signal while capacitor C is employed for
blocking DC. Since capacitor is in parallel with the
load so after passing through inductor, remaining ac
signal passes through capacitor while dc signal passes
through load, thus supplying constant dc voltage
across the load.

Fig. 6. Flowchart of proposed spherical algorithm.

Fig 7. Circuit Diagram for Buck Converter

Table II. Optimized results

IV. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
Load Theoretical Practical ΔVc
Proposed techniques described above have been Specification Value ΔVc Value (%error)
implemented in MATLAB 7.7[12]. Table 1 shows the ΔVc
parameter ranges of inductor, capacitor and duty cycle 5 Ω+16mH 1.65mV 1.5mV 9.09%
of class A chopper for constraint optimization. RL 10 Ω+16mH 1.78mV 1.7mV 4.49%
Load 15 Ω+16mH 2.15mV 1.9mV 11.62%
At 20 Ω+16mH 3.67mV 3.4mV 7.35%
Table I. Parameters ranges 20V 25 Ω+16mH 4.8mV 4.6mV 4.16%
S. No. Parameter Range supply
Name
Minimum Value Maximum
Value DC Motor 0.52mV

1. Capacitance (μF) 1 μF 1mF

Table 2 shows the optimized theoretical results for
2. Inductance(μH) 1 μH 800 μH class A chopper along with the practical results
implemented using obtained optimized values. It is
3. Duty Cycle (K) 70% 75%
seen from these results that ripple is minimum for
4. Resistance(Ω) 5Ω 25Ω optimum values of inductor, capacitor and duty cycle.
 V. CRO WAVEFORMS OF THE ABOVE TABULAR
RESULTS
The snapshots show the following waveforms
1) microcontroller output
2) square wave across MOSFET
3) capacitor voltage ripple
4) load current ripple for RL load
Fig. 8 CRO snapshot for 5Ω+16mH load
Fig. 9 CRO snapshot for 10Ω + 16mH load
Fig. 10 CRO snapshot for 15Ω+16mH load
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Fig. 11 CRO snapshot for 20Ω+16mH load
Fig 12. CRO snapshot for 25Ω + 16mH load
VI. CONCLUSIONS
The optimization techniques proposed in this paper
are found to be useful to design the components of
low pass filter and effective control strategy.
Minimum value of objective functions shows the
effectiveness of the proposed approaches. Analysing
the waveforms Fig 8 – Fig. 12, it was found that as
load increases the ripple decreases.
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[9] P89C51RD2xx datasheet, PHILIPS SEMICONDUCTORS.
[10] HV Floating MOS Gate Driver IC – 2110, International
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[11] IRFP460 Power MOSFET Datasheet, International Rectifier.
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