Buckboost converter

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is about the type of switched-mode power supply. For the autotransformer, see buck
boost transformer.
The buckboost converter is a type of DC-to-DC converter that has an output voltage
magnitude that is either greater than or less than the input voltage magnitude. It is equivalent to a
flyback converter using a single inductor instead of a transformer.1
Two different topologies are called buckboost converter. Both of them can produce a range of
output voltages, from an output voltage much larger (in absolute magnitude) than the input
voltage, down to almost zero.
The inverting topology
The output voltage is of the opposite polarity than the input. This is a switched-mode
power supply with a similar circuit topology to the boost converter and the buck
converter. The output voltage is adjustable based on the duty cycle of the switching
transistor. One possible drawback of this converter is that the switch does not have a
terminal at ground; this complicates the driving circuitry. Neither drawback is of any
consequence if the power supply is isolated from the load circuit (if, for example, the
supply is a battery) because the supply and diode polarity can simply be reversed. The
switch can be on either the ground side or the supply side.
A buck (step-down) converter combined with a boost (step-up) converter
The output voltage is typically of the same polarity of the input, and can be lower or
higher than the input. Such a non-inverting buck-boost converter may use a single
inductor which is used for both the buck inductor and the boost inductor,234 sometimes
called a "four-switch buck-boost converter",5 it may use multiple inductors but only a
single switch as in the SEPIC and uk topologies.
The rest of this article describes the inverting topology.

Principle of operationedit

Fig. 1: Schematic of a buckboost converter.

Fig. 2: The two operating states of a buckboost converter: When the switch is turned on, the
input voltage source supplies current to the inductor, and the capacitor supplies current to the
resistor (output load). When the switch is opened, the inductor supplies current to the load via the
diode D.
The basic principle of the buckboost converter is fairly simple (see figure 2):

while in the On-state, the input voltage source is directly connected to the inductor (L).
This results in accumulating energy in L. In this stage, the capacitor supplies energy to
the output load.

while in the Off-state, the inductor is connected to the output load and capacitor, so
energy is transferred from L to C and R.

Compared to the buck and boost converters, the characteristics of the buckboost converter are
mainly:

polarity of the output voltage is opposite to that of the input;

the output voltage can vary continuously from 0 to

(for an ideal converter). The
output voltage ranges for a buck and a boost converter are respectively to 0 and to

Conceptual overviewedit
Like the buck and boost converters, the operation of the buck-boost is best understood in terms
of the inductor's "reluctance" to allow rapid change in current. From the initial state in which
nothing is charged and the switch is open, the current through the inductor is zero. When the
switch is first closed, the blocking diode prevents current from flowing into the right hand side of
the circuit, so it must all flow through the inductor. However, since the inductor doesn't like rapid
current change, it will initially keep the current low by dropping most of the voltage provided by
the source. Over time, the inductor will allow the current to slowly increase by decreasing its
voltage drop. Also during this time, the inductor will store energy in the form of a magnetic field.

Continuous modeedit

Fig 3: Waveforms of current and voltage in a buckboost converter operating in continuous

mode.
If the current through the inductor L never falls to zero during a commutation cycle, the
converter is said to operate in continuous mode. The current and voltage waveforms in an ideal
converter can be seen in Figure 3.
From
to
, the converter is in On-State, so the switch S is closed. The rate of change in
the inductor current (IL) is therefore given by

At the end of the On-state, the increase of IL is therefore:

D is the duty cycle. It represents the fraction of the commutation period T during which the
switch is On. Therefore D ranges between 0 (S is never on) and 1 (S is always on).
During the Off-state, the switch S is open, so the inductor current flows through the load. If we
assume zero voltage drop in the diode, and a capacitor large enough for its voltage to remain
constant, the evolution of IL is:

Therefore, the variation of IL during the Off-period is:

As we consider that the converter operates in steady-state conditions, the amount of energy
stored in each of its components has to be the same at the beginning and at the end of a
commutation cycle. As the energy in an inductor is given by:

it is obvious that the value of IL at the end of the Off state must be the same with the value of IL
at the beginning of the On-state, i.e. the sum of the variations of IL during the on and the off
states must be zero:

Substituting

and

by their expressions yields:

This can be written as:

This in return yields that:

From the above expression it can be seen that the polarity of the output voltage is always
negative (because the duty cycle goes from 0 to 1), and that its absolute value increases with D,
theoretically up to minus infinity when D approaches 1. Apart from the polarity, this converter is
either step-up (a boost converter) or step-down (a buck converter). Thus it is named a buck
boost converter.

Discontinuous modeedit

Fig 4: Waveforms of current and voltage in a buckboost converter operating in discontinuous

mode.
In some cases, the amount of energy required by the load is small enough to be transferred in a
time smaller than the whole commutation period. In this case, the current through the inductor
falls to zero during part of the period. The only difference in the principle described above is that
the inductor is completely discharged at the end of the commutation cycle (see waveforms in
figure 4). Although slight, the difference has a strong effect on the output voltage equation. It can
be calculated as follows:
Because the inductor current at the beginning of the cycle is zero, its maximum value
) is

(at

During the off-period, IL falls to zero after .T:

Using the two previous equations, is:

The load current is equal to the average diode current ( ). As can be seen on figure 4, the
diode current is equal to the inductor current during the off-state. Therefore, the output current
can be written as:

Replacing

and by their respective expressions yields:

Therefore, the output voltage gain can be written as:

Compared to the expression of the output voltage gain for the continuous mode, this expression
is much more complicated. Furthermore, in discontinuous operation, the output voltage not only
depends on the duty cycle, but also on the inductor value, the input voltage and the output
current...

Limit between continuous and discontinuous modesedit

Fig 5: Evolution of the normalized output voltage with the normalized output current in a buck
boost converter.
As told at the beginning of this section, the converter operates in discontinuous mode when low
current is drawn by the load, and in continuous mode at higher load current levels. The limit
between discontinuous and continuous modes is reached when the inductor current falls to zero
exactly at the end of the commutation cycle. with the notations of figure 4, this corresponds to :

In this case, the output current

(output current at the limit between continuous and
discontinuous modes) is given by:

Replacing

by the expression given in the discontinuous mode section yields:

As
is the current at the limit between continuous and discontinuous modes of operations, it
satisfies the expressions of both modes. Therefore, using the expression of the output voltage in
continuous mode, the previous expression can be written as:

Let's now introduce two more notations:

the normalized voltage, defined by

converter;

the normalized current, defined by

. The term
is equal to the maximum
increase of the inductor current during a cycle; i.e., the increase of the inductor current
with a duty cycle D=1. So, in steady state operation of the converter, this means that
equals 0 for no output current, and 1 for the maximum current the converter can deliver.

. It corresponds to the gain in voltage of the

Using these notations, we have:

the current at the limit between continuous and discontinuous mode is

. Therefore the locus of the limit between continuous
and discontinuous modes is given by

These expressions have been plotted in figure 5. The difference in behavior between the
continuous and discontinuous modes can be seen clearly.

Non-ideal circuitedit
Effect of parasitic resistancesedit

Fig 6: Evolution of the output voltage of a buckboost converter with the duty cycle when the
parasitic resistance of the inductor increases.
In the analysis above, no dissipative elements (resistors) have been considered. That means that
the power is transmitted without losses from the input voltage source to the load. However,
parasitic resistances exist in all circuits, due to the resistivity of the materials they are made from.
Therefore, a fraction of the power managed by the converter is dissipated by these parasitic
resistances.
For the sake of simplicity, we consider here that the inductor is the only non-ideal component,
and that it is equivalent to an inductor and a resistor in series. This assumption is acceptable
because an inductor is made of one long wound piece of wire, so it is likely to exhibit a nonnegligible parasitic resistance (RL). Furthermore, current flows through the inductor both in the
on and the off states.
Using the state-space averaging method, we can write:

where and are respectively the average voltage across the inductor and the switch over the
commutation cycle. If we consider that the converter operates in steady-state, the average current
through the inductor is constant. The average voltage across the inductor is:

When the switch is in the on-state,

. When it is off, the diode is forward biased (we consider
the continuous mode operation), therefore
. Therefore, the average voltage across the
switch is:

The output current is the opposite of the inductor current during the off-state. the average
inductor current is therefore:

Assuming the output current and voltage have negligible ripple, the load of the converter can be
considered purely resistive. If R is the resistance of the load, the above expression becomes:

Using the previous equations, the input voltage becomes:

This can be written as:

If the inductor resistance is zero, the equation above becomes equal to the one of the ideal case.
But when RL increases, the voltage gain of the converter decreases compared to the ideal case.
Furthermore, the influence of RL increases with the duty cycle. This is summarized in figure 6.