Journal of Microelectronics and Solid State Devices
ISSN: 2455-3336
Volume 7, Issue 1
[Link]
Simulation and Design of PI-Controller for the Control of
Buck Converter
Abhijeet Bhattacharya1,*, Sandeep Banerjee2, Saksham Girotra1, Hridesh Shukla1,
Gaurang Bhardwaj1, Sidharth Talia1
1
[Link]. Scholar, Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Bharati Vidyapeeth's College
of Engineering, New Delhi, India
2
Assistant Professor, Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Bharati Vidyapeeth's
College of Engineering, New Delhi, India
Abstract
In this paper, a proportional-integral (PI) controller is designed for the control of Buck
converter to maintain its output as a constant for a varying input supply. To meet the power
needs of a constant output, this study examines the DC / DC converter with primarily focusing
on the design of PI controller for the control of Buck converter. This study was simulated
using MATLAB/Simulink, and it was followed by experimental verification of the results on a
physical setup.
Keywords: Closed loop control, buck converters, PI controller, feed forward gain, renewable
energy
*Author for Correspondence E-mail: bhattacharya399@[Link]
INTRODUCTION b. To drive high power DC drives.
When we account for renewable energy c. In renewable energy systems (wind and
systems, it is necessary to recognize rapid solar).
advancement of wind and sun energy as
sources of useful energy. Implementation and The use of switched-mode DC-DC buck
design of a control system requires the role of converters is very prevalent in elementary
effective approach that offer simple and circuits for generation of variable voltage. A
pragmatic solutions in society to meet the constant output voltage is obtained with
performance requirements despite system respect to change in load and input voltage
disturbances and uncertainties [1]. The through the use of buck converters [4] as seen
occurrence of nonlinear phenomena in buck in Figure 4.
converters makes their analysis and control
Modelling of DC-DC Buck Converters
difficult [2]. Many European countries use Only a switch is shown in Figure 1, for which
these means to generate a large amount of a device such as IGBT is used. When the
energy. These sources of energy play a switch is not conducting, a free-wheeling
considerable role in energy production and diode is used to pass the load current through
storage systems. But, uncertainty that prevails it. All practical loads are inductive (R-L
in the use of renewable energy usually restricts loads). Because of inductance of the load, the
needs of power production, besides sustaining load current must be given a path, which is
the optimal power source for the consumer [3]. provided by the diode; else, the high value of
induced voltage of the inductance, as the load
Use of DC-DC Converters current is reduced, may cause irreversible
a. In SMPS-As the switching frequency damage to the switching device.[5]
required for a device increases, there is a
need to reduce the biasing voltages so as Proportional-Integral (PI) Controller
to reduce the static and dynamic losses The compensator design for variation in output
across the switch. of a DC-DC converter has been addressed by
JoMSD (2020) 26-33 © STM Journals 2020. All Rights Reserved Page 26
Simulation and Design of PI-Controller for the Control of Buck Converter Bhattacharya et al.
Fig. 1: Buck Converter (DC-DC) [2].
Fig. 2: Block Diagram of PI Controller used in Closed Loop Configuration.
many research works [6–9]. The load output voltage feedback and the output of the
disturbances are eliminated by PI controller by controller is the modulation factor that is fed
tracking the input desired reference signal and to the PWM to deliver the switching signal for
eliminating the load changes. The output the switching device of the DC converter [7]
voltage ripple is kept in check and the seen in Figure 3.
magnitude of the load voltage is maintained by
employing a PI controller in DC/DC Information to electrical signal conversion.
converters as seen in Figure 2. The output of the PI system is not an electrical
signal, however, the IGBT requires a PWM
K(s) = KP + KI/s signal. The PWM generator simply converts
the information from the digital domain to the
CONTROL METHODOLOGY electrical domain.
Use of Pulse Width Modulation
The value of output voltage is dependent upon Design of Buck Converter using
the operating period of the IGBT switch Proportional-Integral (PI) Controller as
controlled with pulse-width modulation shown in Figure 4
(PWM). For Buck converter, the duty cycle D 1. A PI controller forms a special case of a
describes the nature of the relationship that PID controller, but with absence of the
exists between voltage specifications and derivative (D) part of the error.
voltage deviation which is present between the 2. KP—proportional gain; KI—integral gain
load voltage and the voltage reference. Then, 3. MATLAB is employed to calculate KP
the PI control specifications are chosen and KI of the PI controller.
corresponding to the Buck converter. In this 4. General method of PI setting:
paper, the controller has been designed to be a. Primarily KI is set to zero.
relied on the fundamental of voltage control. b. KP is increased until desired response
The controller's structure, has a single loop of has been obtained.
JoMSD (2020) 26-33 © STM Journals 2020. All Rights Reserved Page 27
Journal of Microelectronics and Solid State Devices
Volume 7, Issue 1
ISSN: 2455-3336
c. KI is modified until the steady state b. The reference signal must not be negative;
error has been removed. therefore an offset is provided to the
b. To determine KP and KI, the position of reference signal. The difference amongst
the root locus for the buck converter is the set-point (reference) and the
varied [6]. instantaneous value of voltage represents
c. Arduino Programming IDE was used to the error observed in Figure 5.
program the Arduino Mega used for
controlling the waveform fed to IGBT System Parameters That were Used
through the use of PWM modulator. Inductive power (reactive): 100 (for inductor)
Capacitive power (reactive): 100 (capacitor)
System Specifications Resistive power (active): 1e4 (load)
a. Output voltage measurement and Switching frequency: 1e3
comparison with a reference signal. Offset: 20
Fig. 3: Block Diagram of PI controller used in closed loop configuration.
Fig. 4: Buck Converter [2, 6],
Fig. 5: Block diagram of control system [1].
JoMSD (2020) 26-33 © STM Journals 2020. All Rights Reserved Page 28
Simulation and Design of PI-Controller for the Control of Buck Converter Bhattacharya et al.
Fig. 6: The output of our simulation of hardware setup.
EXPERIMENTAL VERIFICATION
1. Procedure for system type identification
2. Experimental setup
In order to identify the system, we hold the
manipulated variable (pulse width) at a
constant value and observe the output of the
system. It should also be noted that this
procedure does not give the location of the
roots/poles, but only the number of
roots/poles, observe (Figure 6). Fig. 7: Our hardware setup.
a. In case, a constant input results in an
exponentially increasing output, it is likely
a second-order system (acceleration as
input and position as output, the position is
the second integral of acceleration).
b. If the output increases linearly, it is likely
a first order system (speed as input and
position as output, the position is the first
integral of the speed).
c. If however, the output increases sharply
but then saturates. A system like this has
one root (pole) which is far from the
origin, and hence for low frequencies,
appears like a zero order system.
d. The type of system has been identified—it
Fig. 8: Our results showing constant output
is a first-order system with its pole far for variable input.
from the origin. These systems are the
easiest to tune for the most part, as far as RESULT
regulation (tracking a constant set-point) is For the buck converter with given parameters,
concerned refer to Figure 7 and Figure 8 the feed-forward gain was found to be 1e-2
for verification. with the help of results seen in Figure 9.
JoMSD (2020) 26-33 © STM Journals 2020. All Rights Reserved Page 29
Journal of Microelectronics and Solid State Devices
Volume 7, Issue 1
ISSN: 2455-3336
Fig. 9: Variation of output voltage with respect to change in input supply.
Fig. 10: Performance of the system with only (no feed forward) a PI controller with gains—KP =
1e-1 KI = 1e-1 (these are fairly large gains for this system).
DISCUSSION voltage measurement. The noise will be added
Feed Forward Gain as a sine signal at the output of the voltage
From Figure 10, it appears that this system measurement block (Figure 11).
would work very well even without the feed-
forward component. Now let us see what 1. In the identified system, a constant steady-
happens if noise is incorporated into the state output can be achieved with a
JoMSD (2020) 26-33 © STM Journals 2020. All Rights Reserved Page 30
Simulation and Design of PI-Controller for the Control of Buck Converter Bhattacharya et al.
constant input. To understand this N=[Link]
intuitively, consider the following
example: Note that this relationship indicates that if we
apply V volts at the input, to get KVT RPM at
The speed equation of a DC shunt motor is the output during steady-state. In other words,
given by for the motor to spin at N RPM, N/K Volts be
N=[Link] provided at the input. This is essentially what
where, N is speed, K is a constant of the feed-forward gain does. The input is the
proportionality and EB is the back-EMF. At reference RPM, and the feed-forward gain is
steady state, terminal voltage (VT) ~EB. the steady-state relationship between Voltage
Therefore, at steady state, and RPM.
Fig. 11: Noise injected into the system.
Fig. 12: Noise incorporated in system without forward feed.
JoMSD (2020) 26-33 © STM Journals 2020. All Rights Reserved Page 31
Journal of Microelectronics and Solid State Devices
Volume 7, Issue 1
ISSN: 2455-3336
Fig. 13: Noise incorporated in system with forward feed.
As can be seen in Figure 12, the output will two systems. If the measurement sources
also become noisy if the measurement is are noise-free, very large KP and KI gains
noisy. can be used. However, this is usually not
the case.
A. Effect of noise on system with forward 4. Another advantage of feed-forward gain is
feed that it prevents the integral from saturating
In Figure 13, note that the feed-forward (the maximum value of the integral is
component is not affected by noise in the usually capped off at a certain value. Once
measurement at all because it does not use the integral term reaches that value, the
the output measurement. The following integral no longer builds up).
example is with:
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