Natural Trajectories and Digital Implementation of

Load Dynamic and Soft Start-Up

for LLC Converters
Zhang Xuan Zou Renwei Li Feng
Institute of Telecommunication Satellite Institute of Telecommunication Satellite Institute of Telecommunication Satellite
China Academy of Space Technology China Academy of Space Technology China Academy of Space Technology
Beijing, China Beijing, China Beijing, China
[email protected] [email protected] [email protected]

Xing Jie Kang Qing Zhang Wenshuan

Institute of Telecommunication Satellite Institute of Telecommunication Satellite Institute of Telecommunication Satellite
China Academy of Space Technology China Academy of Space Technology China Academy of Space Technology
Beijing, China Beijing, China Beijing, China
[email protected] [email protected] [email protected]

Abstract—LLC resonant converter, with high efficiency and performance during load change. In order to increase the
good dynamic response, finds potential applications in reliability for satellites, this paper presents an optimal soft
secondary DC/DC converter for satellites. This paper proposes start-up process to minimize voltage and current stress during
a digital implementation methods to achieve better transient start-up. Validity of the proposed two control methods are
performance based on natural trajectories for LLC converters verified by simulations and tests.
during load change. In order to increase the reliability for
satellites, this paper presents an optimal soft start-up process to II. CONCEPT AND IMPLEMETATION OF LOAD DYNAMIC
minimize voltage and current stress. Validity of the proposed
two control methods are verified by simulation and test results. Figure 1 shows the circuit diagram and traditional closed-
loop control of LLC converter.
Keywords—LLC resonant converter, natural trajectories, Doss1
transient performance, soft start-up Coss1
Q1

I. INTRODUCTION Uin
Lr D1

LLC resonant converter has the characteristics of high Uo

Q2 Coss2 Lm
efficiency for Zero Voltage Switching (ZVS) of primary
MOSFETS and Zero Current Switching (ZCS) of secondary Doss2
diodes [1]. The gain of the LLC resonant converter is
Cr D2
negatively related with switching frequency (fs), therefore we
usually adopts the Pulse Frequency Modulation (PFM) Filter
Uoref
control. When fs of LLC converter is close to the resonance - + Irref - +
Ts PI PI
frequency (fr) of the resonant inductance (Lr) and resonant
capacitance (Cr), the load change of the corresponding control
frequency basically remains unchanged [2]. This makes LLC Fig. 1. Circuit diagram and closed-loop control.
converter especially suitable for regulated bus power supply
system. A typical natural trajectories of LLC resonant converter
with fixed frequency is shown in Figure 2.
A typical LLC resonant converter Schematic is shown in
Figure 1. It has three resonant elements which are more iLr
difficult to analyze. In traditional method, assumption like Light Load
Fundamental Element Simplification(FES) was made to
simplify the analysis[3,4]. However, the above method is not
quite accurate. Some researchers proposed small-signal model
to describe the control characteristics and improve the uCr
transient response of the resonant converters[5]. However, it
cannot describe the dynamics of the resonant converters of the
whole operating range. Recently, another approach presents a
method to obtain the theoretical dynamic model of LLC
converters[6]. But this model only describes characteristics
with fixed frequency and duty cycle. Heavy Load
This paper uses natural trajectories on phase plot to
analyze the dynamic response of load change and start-up Fig. 2. Natural trajectories during the load step-up.
process, which is more visual and easy to understand. Based
on this natural trajectories, this paper proposes a digital The mathematical descriptions of step1~step4 are
implementation methods to achieve better transient expressed as

978-1-7281-2126-0/19/$31.00 ©2019 IEEE

Authorized licensed use limited to: National Taiwan Univ of Science and Technology. Downloaded on July 31,2024 at 07:45:51 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
 point. As shown in Figure 4, the ellipse will becomes larger
  Lr 
2
2 and larger which causes the big resonant current and voltage
Step1:  iLr  + uCr − ( E − uo )  = ( E − uo − uCr 0 )
2

 
 Cr   during start-up. Therefore, a resonant current limitation should
 2
be set.
  Lr + Lm 
iLr  + [uCr − E ] = ( E − uCr 0 )
2 2
Step2 :  
  Cr 
 2
(1) iLr
  Lr  2
iLr  + uCr − ( E + uo )  = ( E + uo − uCr 0 )
2
Step3 : 
  Cr  
 2
uCr
  Lr + Lm 
Step4 :  iLr  + uCr 2 = uCr 0 2
Cr 
  

In which, the maximum value of iLr expressed as

2 2
 nV T   π i 
I Lr max =  o  +  load  (2)
 4 Lm   2 n  Fig. 4. Initial trajectories during start-up.

There is a tradeoff between voltage /current stress and

The typical natural trajectories during the load step-up is start-up time. The proposed soft start-up method is shown in
shown in Figure 2. When the load step-up happens, the output Figure 5.
current cannot jump up at the same time, so the output
capacitance will discharge for heavy load. From formula (1),
the center of the circle will move right and semi-minor axis iLr current stress
will increase until the output current becomes larger than the
load current. And the output voltage will increase. The center
of the circle will move left and semi-minor axis will decrease.
The output voltage will have some dynamic oscillation until Imax
the system reaches the steady state of heavy load.
Form the analysis above, the dynamic oscillation is
because the slow response of resonant current reference ILr.
uCr
Therefore, a digital implementation of resonant current E/2
reference ILr is proposed.
The digital implementation of LLC converter is shown in
Figure 3.
Doss1 Step1 Step2
Q1 Coss1
Lr D1
Uin
Fig. 5. Current stress of one-cycle solution(blue) and optimal start-up
Uo trajectories(black).
Q2 Coss2 Lm

Doss2 First, we calculate the limit frequency of Step 2. From

Cr D2
geometrical relationship shown in Figure 5, the limit
Filter frequency can be expressed as
DI
Ts + Uoref 
- - +  3 u Z n 4 RL 2Ts 2 
PI PI f limit = ω0  2 tan −1  o o
+ 4π 2   (4)
+   2 2 nRL E Lm 
  
Fig. 3. Proposed digital implementation.
However, the flimit in formula (4) cannot avoid the initial
From formula (2), voltage and current stress. In order to limit the switching-on
time, a linear increase of duty ratio with limitation is
∂I Lr max π2 calculated as
= 2 iload (3)
∂iload 4n I Lr max
Dmax = 0.5 − Tdead
which is the implementation coefficient of iload. ω0 (4)
Dmin =
III. OPTIMAL SWITCHING STRATEGY FOR SOFT START-UP f limit sin −1
( 3I Cr max Z o 2E )
At the start-up time, there is no energy in the resonant tank.
When Q1 switches on, the trajectory is a ellipse with center(E,
0). Then Q2 switches on, the trajectory center is the original

Authorized licensed use limited to: National Taiwan Univ of Science and Technology. Downloaded on July 31,2024 at 07:45:51 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
 IV. SIMULATION AND EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS 150
ir

LLC converter with proposed control is simulated in 100

100
uc
uo
Matlab/Simulink. The parameters of the simulation is 50
presented in TABLE I.

Voltage(V)
Ilr (A)
0 50

TABLE I. THE PARAMETERS OF THE SIMULATION -50

0
-100
Categories Parameters Values Units
Input -150
100 V -400 -200 0 200 400 0 1 2 3 4
voltage Ucr (V) Time (s) x 10
-3

General Output
28 V Fig. 8. Start-up without limitation.
parameters voltage
Unit
400 W
Power 20 100
ir

Load uc
Scenarios 7→14 A uo
change 80
10
60

Voltage(V)
Ilr (A)
Figure 6 and Figure 7 shows the simulation results of load- 0 40

step scenarios. With proposed implementation, the output 20

voltage dynamic decreases from 470mVpp to 200mVpp with -10

0
load from 50% to 100%. And the response time decrease from
-20 -20
0.42ms to 0.10ms. 0 20 40 60 80 100 0 1 2 3 4
Ucr (V) Time (s) x 10
-3

20 28.6
Fig. 9. Start-up with limitation.
28.4
10 ts=0.42ms A LLC prototype based on TABLE I is made for validity.
28.2
Figure 10 and Figure 11 shows the experimental results
Voltage(V)
Ilr (A)

0 28 during load-step from 50% to 100%. With digital

implementation, the output voltage dynamic is so small that
27.8
-10 ΔV=470mV can be covered by voltage ripple.
27.6 28.6 20

15
-20 27.4 28.4
20 40 60 80 0.009 0.01 0.011 0.012 ts=0.34ms 10
Ucr (V) Time (s) 28.2
5
Voltage(V)

Current(V)
Fig. 6. The natural trajectories and output voltage during load-step without 28 0 7A 14A
digital implementation. -5
27.8
ΔV=530mV -10
27.6
20 28.6 -15

27.4 -20
28.4 0 0.5 1 1.5 0 0.5 1 1.5
Time (s) -3 Time (s) -3
10 ts=0.10ms x 10 x 10
(a) Uo (b) Ir
28.2
Voltage(V)

Fig. 10. The output voltage during load-step without digital implementation.
Ilr (A)

0 28

28.6 20
27.8 ΔV=200mV
-10 15
28.4
27.6 10
ts=0.12ms
Current(V)

28.2
5
Voltage(V)

-20 27.4
20 40 60 80 0.009 0.01 0.011 0.012 28 0 7A 14A
Ucr (V) Time (s) -5
27.8
-10
Fig. 7. The natural trajectories and output voltage during load-step with 27.6
-15
ΔV=130mV
digital implementation.
27.4 -20
0 0.5 1 1.5 0 0.5 1 1.5

Figure 8 and Figure 9 shows the simulation results of start- Time (s) -3 Time (s) -3
x 10 x 10

up scenarios. Without limitation, the spike of voltage rises

Fig. 11. The output voltage during load-step with digital implementation.
over 150V. And the voltage stress are limited below 100V
during start-up by duty ratio limitation strategies. Besides, the Figure 12 shows the experimental results of proposed soft
current stress decreases from over 100A to 20A. start-up method. The resonant current is below 20A. And the
soft start-up time is about 3ms.

Authorized licensed use limited to: National Taiwan Univ of Science and Technology. Downloaded on July 31,2024 at 07:45:51 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
 20 transient performance during load step-up. Besides, this paper
Current(A) presents a frequency and duty cycle limitation to minimize
ir
voltage and current stress during start-up. Validity of the
0
proposed two control methods are verified by simulation and
test results.
-20
0 1 2 3 4
Time (s) -3
x 10
40 REFERENCES
uo
Voltage(V)

20
[1] H. L. Xie, “Research on LLC Resonant Converter,” South China
University of Technology,2012.
0 [2] D. P. Yan, “Research on 1.5kW Harf-Bridge LLC Resonant DC/DC
converter,” Harbin Institute of Technology,2015.
-20 [3] B. Yang, F. C. Lee, A. J. Zhang, and G. Huang, “LLC Resonant
0 1 2 3 4
-3
Converter for Front End DC/DC Conversion”, In Applied Power
Time (s) x 10 Electronics Conference and Exposition 2002, vol. 2, pp. 1108-1112.
[4] B. Lu, W. Liu, Y. Liang, F. C. Lee, and J. D. Van Wyk.“Optimal design
Fig. 12. Experimental results of proposed soft start-up method. methodology for LLC resonant converter,” In Applied Power
Electronics Conference and Exposition 2006. pp. 533-538.
[5] R. J. King and T. A. Stuart. “Small-signal model for the series resonant
onverter”. Aerospace and Electronic Systems, IEEE Transactions on
3(1985): 301-319.
[6] A. Soto, J. Cortes, F. Pascual, “Dynamic Modelling of The Series
V. CONCLUSIONS Resonant Converter Operating in Discontimuous Conduction Mode
This paper presents the natural trajectories for LLC and Application in Space,” European Space Power Conference 2016,
converters during load change and start-up process. Based on 2016.10.
these analysis, this paper proposes a digital implementation of
load current feedforward methods and achieves better

Authorized licensed use limited to: National Taiwan Univ of Science and Technology. Downloaded on July 31,2024 at 07:45:51 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.